Our Article for October is written by "Wild" Bill Montgomery and is an excellent one for anyone starting to write articles or publish a newsletter. It is a long article but one of great value with loads of links to the best places to promote your work. Enjoy.
We
have a book corner of hard copy books offering a selection of titles on
Internet Marketing from the categories we cover, check out our book list
and categories HERE. The marketing books link to
the side will also bring you to the main page of our marketing bookshop!
Browse around, enjoy and I hope you find something of value to help you
on the road to a successful Internet Business.
We
also offer a fine selection of E-books on various
aspects of Internet Marketing that you can download directly to your hardrive.
|
|
by "Wild" Bill Montgomery ********************************* In the last year I have learned more about marketing than I did in 2 years of classes. I'm not sure if they have started yet but our higher learning institutions should have specialized courses just for marketing on the Internet, if not ezine publishing alone. Ezines 101, 102, 103 ... There is so much to learn and once started, so little time to learn it. I know from my own experiences that it is a constant struggle to keep up with the daily chores of maintaining my website and business, let alone finding new ways to market it. What I wanted to do here is make a small list of tips, tricks and URLs to help you along the way. Your Articles One of the simplest but most successful marketing procedures I use to get my articles out to more ezine publishers (which I use to advertise my own newsletters) may be considered slow. But it's a methodical and personal approach, and has more than once opened doors to professional friendships and alliances. The real question here is
To avoid being accused of spam, it is safer that you contact publishers who are asking to be contacted in one way or another. Although as long as it is a legitimate request such as sending your articles -- and not a cesspool of advertising -- very few will object to the contact. To play it safe however I use five major source groups from which publishers have asked for contact or have contacted me first. You have these five major groups: 1) Article Announcements 2) Ezine Announcements 3) Ad Swap Announcements 4) Newsletter Joining Contact 5) Archives and Databases Article announcement ezines are a great source of exposure for your articles, as well as article databases and archives, like our "InfoZone Archives", which publish links to your pearls of wisdom in their ezines. Keep all of your article submission information together. This way when you are sending it out to your publisher's list, you can submit it to the databases and online announcement forms in one shot. Do it all at one time so there is no second guessing in terms of who got what, when, etc. The ad swaps, article announcements and ezine announcements all have one thing in common: These are people requesting contact in one form or another. As I get these newsletters, I look through them for publishers who have the same subject matter as my articles and I write them a nice letter explaining that I read their post in, say, "List-Universe" or whatever newsletter I found them in. I ask them if they would be interested in receiving my articles for publication in their newsletter. I send along my latest article for viewing. I have, to this date, never received a negative reply as I am not sending them a bunch of ads or trying to sell them something, other than on the idea that my articles could help their newsletter. But, as luck would have it, every article has -- what? That's right! -- a resource box. The publisher knows this and does not consider this spamming, as it's just a part of your article. So you are also getting that ad of yours out there in front of them, in such a casual way, that it is not really considered advertising to the publisher. I have had many publishers write back that they were not at this time interested in outside articles but their email address shows up on my subscriber list. Who knows? Maybe down the road they'll change their mind. But for now it's nice to have them reading my newsletter, right? For me, that is my sole reason for writing the article in the first place. Joining Contacts There are so many fine newsletters out there that I could never even come close to reading all the ones I really like. But I sign up for new ones on a regular basis. The first thing I do after signing up is send off my article submission request letter. If it's a good newsletter, I stay with it. If not I unsubscribe. But the key is that I made that contact. Very few publishers operate on the ideals of "You must belong to my newsletter in order to send me your articles." If they do and I don't find their newsletter worthy of my attention and time, I unsubscribe and continue to send them my articles until requested to stop. Here's a quick tip: As with any newsletter, offer an unsubscribe procedure. If you are requested to stop, do yourself a favor and stop! Cold Contact If you feel that you can contact publishers safely, you can search the many ezine databases available on the web, such as eGroups.com or Topica.com, for ezines similar to your articles and contact them. Leave the advertising at home, besides the resource box at the end of the sample article. Ezine archives are a never-ending source of publishers. Please be careful how you step and who you step on. Below at the end of this article is a list of places to help you get started. Your Newsletter First the subject and style of your newsletter. The ideal of course is to find a subject that is under "mined" as far as newsletters go. My newsletters are in the highly competitive field of Internet marketing so I cannot say that I followed this bit of advice. But, if you can find a subject on which there are no major newsletters covering, all the better. As that old marketing saying goes, "You don't have to reinvent the wheel to be successful." It's all in the way you market your newsletter. Don't try to please everybody. Keep your subject matter focused. If you're in marketing focus on marketing. How many marketers do you know that want to see granny's cookie recipe in their ebiz newsletter? Not me. Create a special "Niche Format" that other newsletters in your field have not yet covered. Research the others and try to do what they have not done yet. Be creative and stick to your market group. After all, they are your bread and butter, so give them what they want and need. Quick Tips For Your Newsletter 1. Discussion Groups I left this out of the major groups above because I feel that it takes a certain amount of suave personality to be really successful in discussion groups. I, myself, picked Internet marketing because of the absence of immediate direct contact with other professionals. I am too easily tongue-tied and I feel that it behooves me to spend my valuable "marketing time" in other areas, where I have the time to properly word my replies and/or communication with others. 2. Offer Easy Sign Up On Your Website! Small sign up box on every page and/or a pop-up on your leading page or pages. Make it tough to say no! 3. Joint Ventures Get involved with other publishers. Start a mutually beneficial co-op. It could be by way of offering prizes every week or month, or by rotating the prize responsibility from one member to the next. Each member would be required to do his part in advertising the cooperative effort. 4. Subscriber Incentives Offer free stuff, run contests, conduct giveaways or whatever -- give reasons to join your newsletter. Nothing entices subscribers more than by offering them something for nothing (but asking them to sign up for your newsletter in exchange). 5. Archive Your Newsletters Archive your previous issues for those potential subscribers that research everything first and want to know what they are signing up for ahead of time. There are a lot out there! 6. Form or Join A Private Ezine Ring This seems to be the latest rage. Similar to joint ventures, collect a co-op of other publishers that will agree to enter into a "private" ezine ring. I say private because one of the biggest problems with public webrings today is broken links and broken promises. By keeping it private, you stand a much better chance of keeping it clean and free of broken links. 7. Send This Issue To A Friend! Never -- and I mean never -- send an issue out that doesn't request your subscriber to pass it along. You may even want to suggest some possible recipients that they could send it to. Word of mouth is a very powerful advertising tool! 8. Search Engines and Directories If you don't have one already, set up a separate page on your website for your ezine, and make sure that your meta-tags are ready -- you can use our free meta-tag generator. Then submit it! 9. FFA Pages Some say that FFA pages do not work. I'm not here to tell you they do. But I will say that timing plays a big part in any traffic you may get from them. If you submit to FFAs on a regular basis, consider this: The three heaviest traffic times for FFAs are lunchtime, late afternoon and early evening. If you submit to FFAs in the middle of the night, as do so many people, consider how long it will be there before thousands of others come in to replace your ad. Who, in what time zone, will be reading your ad? As the bulk of them I submit to are in the US, I base my submittal times on that. Whatever you do, don't use your normal email address or you'll be bombed with more junk mail than you'll know what to do with. Get a free email address online somewhere and use that. (editor's note: I find TheMail.com an excellent free email account for this type of excercise and it actually pays for the privilage!) 10. Link Exchanging Contact webmasters and ask to exchange links, buttons or banners. Many are as hungry for new eyes as you are and will be willing to exchange links with you. Tip: If available, watch your statistics for traffic from this site. If there is not enough to justify the link, remove it after a month. 11. Newsgroups Of course posting to newsgroups can be helpful too. I feel posting to newsgroups follows the same basic theories of the FFA postings. There are so many so try to get yours in there during peak hours as to maximize your readership. 12. Ad Swaps When you're sending out that article to all those publishers, be sure to ask about ad swap opportunities -- on the first contact and every contact after that! Use common sense. Don't be wasting your time and space for swaps with incompatible newsletters. I mean, how much business do you think your marketing ad will gain from, say, "Lassie's Letters"? 13. Ezine Announcements Search'em out and use them. Many publishers rely on these ezine announcement lists for content in their newsletters. 14. Last but Hardly Least, Marketing Marketing Marketing! Folks, you have to get out
there, in the trenches. Offer help
Here's a list of article and newsletter promotion sites:
http://ezine-dir.hypermart.net http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/submit.html http://jlunz.databack.com/netresources/zines.htm http://kerrisgifts.hypermart.net/adswaps.htm http://magazines.yotta.com/ http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/ http://www.absoluteauthority.com/ezines/ http://www.arl.org/scomm/edir/template.html http://www.bestezines.com http://www.bestnewsletters.com http://www.bizx.com/cgi-bin/miva?newsletter.mv http://www.catalog.com/vivian/ http://www.coalliance.org/ http://www.cumuli.com/ezine/ http://www.disobey.com/low http://www.edoc.com/jrl-bin/wilma http://www.egroups.com http://www.escribe.com/ http://www.e-target.com http://www.etext.org/services.shtml http://www.eyesmail.com/ http://www.ezinearticles.com/ http://www.ezinecenter.com/ http://www.ezinelibrary.com/ http://www.ezine-news.com http://www.ezinesearch.com http://www.ezineseek.com http://www.ezinestoday.com http://www.ezine-universe.com http://www.ezineworld.com http://www.e-zinez.com http://www.globelists.com http://www.HomeBasedProfit.com/ezineadswap.shtml http://www.infobot.net http://www.infojump.com/ http://www.inkpot.com http://www.lifestylespub.com/cgi-bin/ezines.cgi?10616 http://www.linkfinder.com/submit.html http://www.listbot.com http://www.list-city.com http://www.list-resources.com/ http://www.listsnet.com/ http://www.listtool.com/ http://www.list-universe.com http://www.listworld.net http://www.liszt.com http://www.marketingwise.com/ezines.htm http://www.meer.net/~johnl/e-zine-list http://www.milomail.com/com/aannounce.html http://www.needymeds.com/eAdsMart/index.html http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/ http://www.netagency.com/e-zine-builder.htm http://www.netmastersolutions.com/ezines http://www.netspace.org/cgi-bin/lwgate/request-add.html http://www.netterweb.com/lp/ed_ezinedirectory.htm http://www.new-list.com/ http://www.newsletteraccess.com/ http://www.newsletter-library.com/ven.htm http://www.newslettersforfree.com http://www.oblivion.net/zineworld http://www.onelist.com http://www.promotefree.com http://www.sodamail.com/ezine/home.shtml http://www.TechMailings.com/ http://www.theadvertisingplace.com/ http://www.tile.net/lists/addlist.html http://www.time4profit.com/ http://www.topica.com http://www.wealth101.com/ezineadswap.htm http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html http://www.webheadcentral.com/ezine.html http://www.web-source.net/ http://www.writebusiness.com http://www.zinecity.com/ http://www.zinerack.com/ Well, that's it! So have fun and good luck! ----------- Condensed from the IMC Private Website ----------- Article submitted by "Wild"
Bill Montgomery. Visit his site
THE EZINE MARKETING MACHINE
Rick Beneteau has written the best book available today on how ezines can be so effective in your marketing strategy. Find out more HERE ********************************* There's a variety of emailing programmes available which give you complete control of your email list. I use Aureate and find it a good, reliable programme. You can learn more about it here:
********************************* If you need a bit of help putting it all together in a way that will hold your readers yet feel you don't have the writing skills to do so check out what Marlon Sanders has to offer. He gives some of the greatest advice I've come across for writing KILLER COPY .Hear what he has to say HERE. ********************************* Each of us has an area of expertise to be able to share with others. Perhaps you feel you don't have the skills to share that knowledge in written form and gain from it. Don't believe those doubts within. Check out Ken Evoy's site on 'Making Your Knowledge Sell' and he'll soon make you realise the inner potential you have and encourage you on the road to a successful 'writing career'. CLICK the banner.
*********************************
********************************* Don't
forget to check out all the books on our
Please rate this section of the site here
|
******************** Our library of FREE E-BOOKs allows you to download tons of reading material covering all areas of marketing on the Net. ******************** INTERNET EMAIL!
Are you maximising the power of email? This book gives you the run-down on how make full use of email for effective promotion. Learn more HERE
Marlon Sanders has some of the greatest advice for marketing
your products on the Internet.
MAKE YOUR SITE SELL!!
"MYSS! Delivers What
You Must Know to Win on the Web!"
Serious about becoming an affiliate or want to set up
an affiliate partnership for your business? Hear the advice Declan Dunn
has to offer first. HERE
Rick Beneteau has written the best
book available today on how ezines can be so effective in your marketing
strategy.
CHECK OUT THIS!!
********************
If you have a business and want to set it up for affiliates to be able to promote your goods or services, check out this programme HERE.
*********************
One of the Secrets to successful
Internet Marketing is using opt-in mailing lists
Use a legitimate mailing list, opt-in
lists or classified ads
|
HOME-BASED
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITYMoytura Graphic Design has expanded enormously since it's humble beginnings just a few years ago and has taken a new business venture which can be operated from home on a full or part-time basis. You can learn about this work-from-home opportunity here.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY The telecommunications industry goes from strength to strength world wide, especially with de-regulation opening up most countries to healthy and cost-cutting competition. The company, for which we are Independent Consultants, has been so successful since its European start-up in 1998 that it has now expanded from the UK to Ireland Belgium, and the Netherlands, with the USA opening in Feb 2002. It plans to expand even further in the very near future - to:
If you, or anyone you know, living in any of these countries would like to start a home-based business, the opportunities are enormous as this company is only just beginning and, as Independent Consultants, everyone will be in at the very ground level. E-MAIL for details or check out the WEBPAGE.
BANNER ADVERTISING WITH GlobeClicks
