An interesting editorial appeared
in this month's PROFITeer E-zine published by Profit 100® Canada (see
http://www.profit100.com) in which
some numbers that were reported were quite astounding. Gathered by Senior
Editor Ian Portsmouth from a conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland (an annual
gathering of Europe's 500 fastest-growing companies), findings indicated
that Europe's fastest-growing firms in a global economy (of course, due to
the help of the Internet) are the smaller ones.
In the past five years, Europe's 500 fastest-growing companies created more
than 180,000 jobs (just as Europe's 500 largest companies slashed their payrolls
by 600,000). Portsmouth did not fail to indicate that these numbers parallel
those in North America.
Nevertheless, it goes to show that the future of business and particularly
online business is in smaller companies. However, it is fair to say that
the methods of promotion differ greatly since the smaller business does not
have the same advertising budget as its larger counterparts. But the one
tool that is often overlooked and is increasingly gaining stature -- and
quite effective in building an online business -- is the e-zine.
As recently reported in an e-zine article, even targeted opt-in direct mailers,
such as Targ-It!
(http://www.targ-it.com), are starting
to turn to e-zine publishers for building their businesses or awareness in
the marketplace. According to Targ-It!, "Our business oriented lists are
primarily from the Newsletter Library, (...) the Internet's most widely used
source for requesting sample copies of commercial newsletters."
Even search engines are turning to building opt-in lists for direct e-mail
marketing. As mentioned in a previous article (see
http://success-doctor.com/article23.htm),
Yahoo!'s partnerships with Yoyodyne and ValPak Coupons are not alone. Another
great example is http://Altavista.com,
which has recently teamed up with PostMaster Direct (see the related article
at
http://www.dmnews.com/articles/1998-11-02/2242.html
from DMNews).
A Publishers' Paradise
Publishing your own e-zine (an electronic magazine or newsletter) is one
of the most effective ways to gain publicity online. E-zine and discussion
group publishers are increasingly gaining ground over those who don't utilize
these tools, and you should definitely look into publishing one if you are
not already doing so.
With the Internet -- and particularly e-mail -- comes the ability to produce
your very own "free" publicity channels with which your expertise in your
specific niche or industry can be easily developed. In fact, more and more
media personnel are seeking such channels to find qualified people or
stories.
Aside from the publicity you gain by delivering expert information to eager
subscribers, by narrowing your focus the media will seek you out rather than
the other way around. Why? They do so because they particularly like stories
from people who are uniquely qualified -- this is especially true with
specialized, topic-specific media, since they love to report information
that appeals to their specific audience.
Nevertheless, publishing an e-zine for your prospects and customers has a
number of benefits. It builds credibility, establishes you as an expert in
your field, keeps you in frequent contact with your customers and subscribers,
positions your company or product, and develops good top-of-mind awareness.
Out of Sight is Out of Mind
E-zines are no-cost marketing tools that can provide you with large amounts
of free publicity as well as create a new profit center for you by selling
advertising space within it. It will allow you to contact your prospects
as often you want and develop a relationship with them.
By supplying a regular stream of specialized information, you will be able
to turn prospects into customers and customers into referral-sources. In
essence, the e-zine is simply a platform through which you increase your
exposure and thus create trust, credibility, and, of course, sales as well
as referrals -- and do so very quickly and easily.
When someone subscribes, you at least get their email address. But you may
also get their mailing address, which can be used to mail your offers outside
your e-zine. Whether you do so electronically or physically, since a relationship
exists between you and your subscribers you will naturally get a higher response
rate from offers to subscribers than you would with offers to
non-subscribers.
You can also make new product or important update announcements in your e-zine.
But more important, you can use it as a tool to gain marketing intelligence.
Research is the key to success in direct marketing; it is to find what
information, products, and services your prospects are looking for, and then
to offer them what they want. E-zines therefore can help supply you with
that kind of information very easily in a number of ways.
For example, one way is by hosting other company products in your e-zine
and then finding out the kind of response they have generated. You can also
gain key information by including surveys or conducting polls, and then offering
free bonuses to your subscribers for participating in them.
Let's Swap, Shall We?
But one of the most useful ways to grow your e-zine is by swapping ads with
other publishers. Cross-promotion between publishers is quite effective and
for many reasons. First, the savings gained from advertising for free can
be tremendous. But more significant is that your ad will be viewed by a specific
readership -- people who not only fall into your target market but also love
to read e-zines, which increases the chances of your ad being noticed.
The one thing you will need the most when starting your e-zine is, of course,
subscribers. Therefore, swapping ads is a great way to promote your newsletter
and build your subscriber-base. Another great way is to register your publication
with e-zine directories. Fortunately, there are many popular search engines
and directories that only list e-zines, even Web sites dedicated to them
as well.
Here's a partial list of electronic newsletter directories, indices, listings,
and other sources to which you can submit your own e-zine listing (of course,
there is also the "alt.ezines" newsgroup) -- you can also use these directories
to isolate newsletters to which you wish to contribute articles:
-
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/new-list
(probably the largest and most popular one),
-
http://site-city.com/members/e-zine-master,
-
http://www.top-business-ezines.com,
-
http://www.newsletter-library.com/ven.htm,
-
http://www.arl.org/scomm/edir/template.html,
-
http://www.edoc.com/jrl-bin/wilma,
-
http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/submit.html,
-
http://www.yotta.com/magazine/addfree.htm,
-
http://www.dominis.com/Zines/publishers,
-
http://www.etext.org/services.shtml,
-
http://www.disobey.com/low/addere.shtml,
- http://inkpot.com/submit,
-
http://www.catalog.com/vivian,
-
http://www.oblivion.net/zineworld/add.html,
- http://www.coalliance.org,
-
http://www.lifestylespub.com,
-
http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml,
-
http://www.zinerack.com/search/enterurl.html,
-
http://www.netspace.org/cgi-bin/lwgate,
- http://www.e-zinez.com,
- http://www.best-ezines.com,
-
http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list,
- http://tile.net/lists,
- http://www.liszt.com,
-
http://www.owt.com/dircon/mediajum.htm,
-
http://homeincome.com/search-it/ezine,
-
http://netterweb.com/lp/ed_ezinedirectory.htm,
-
http://www.ait.ac.th/clair/ez.html,
-
http://www.ezinefactory.co.za,
-
http://empowerline.com/ezine_directory.html,
-
http://www.foxcities.com/ims/ezine.htm,
- http://www.ezineseek.com,
-
http://www.onlinepromoter.com/home.htm,
-
http://www.coopmark.com/ezines/goto.htm,
-
http://www.ariadesigns.com/ezines.html,
-
http://www.netsupermall.com,
-
http://www.infobot.net/content.html,
-
http://ezinewebring.hypermart.net,
-
http://choosenetworking.com,
- And http://www.zinezone.com.
(And of course, my associates' private site at
http://www.marketingchallenge.com
-- the publishers of the immensely popular "Internet Marketing Chronicles"
e-zine of which I am the editor -- maintain their own growing database.)
There are also publisher and writer newsletters, directories, and Web sites
in which you can submit and solicit articles that cater to your publication's
theme (for example, check out iCopyright at
http://www.icopyright.com and The
Writer's and Publisher's Connection at
http://www.homeincome.com/writers-connection).
There is also the Email Publishers Discussion List at
http://www.onelist.com/listcenter.cgi?listname=epub.
And by writing articles in other publications, your byline can advertise
the fact that you publish your own e-zine and thus invite readers to subscribe.
Nevertheless, you can also have strategic marketing alliances promote
subscriptions for you. In exchange for a certain number of subscribers they
have generated, you can offer them free advertising in your newsletter.
So, write on!
About the Author
Michel Fortin, Ph.D. at
http://success-doctor.com is a consultant
dedicated to helping businesses turn into powerful magnets. He is also a
speaker, copywriter, author of numerous books, including "The 10 Commandments
of Power Positioning" (get your FREE copy at
http://success-doctor.com), and editor
of the "Internet Marketing Chronicles" delivered weekly to 65,000 subscribers
(visit
http://www.marketingchallenge.com/home/success-doctor).
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