Using an eZine (Electronic Newsletter) as a part of your overall Internet Marketing plan can be a powerful way to achieve your marketing goals. Less experienced marketers commit a number of common mistakes that may cause your targeted list to opt-out.  Here are several common mistakes to avoid in your eZine campaign.

1) Sending Out Promotions Rather than News

All Internet marketing, including your eZine, should focus on building long-lasting relationships with your subscribers over time. If your eZine message is consistently aimed at prompting an immediate sale, you’ll find a steady stream of subscribers opting out.

To build a loyal following, design your eZine campaign to provide content and resources that will help spark interest in your product or service by subtly providing them with topics that show the benefits of your offerings.  For example, if you’re a business coach, sharing information that your target market could benefit from, will quickly show them you are an expert in this field. This will eventually lead to a positive action on their part, i.e. contacting you for professional business coaching.

2) Not Focusing on Subscribers

When organizing your eZine campaign, provide relevant and up-to-date content written in a way that speaks to your subscriber’s needs, never on your business offerings. People don’t care much about what your business can do for them, but what they can gain by building a relationship with you, that may ultimately lead to working together.  Using our coaching example above, sending valuable resources and information about challenges your ideal client may face would be better than just an announcement about your next program. By providing relevant content in a timely manner, subscribers are more likely to be loyal to your eZine campaign.

3) Making it Difficult to Opt Out

Your eZine success is not driven by the number of subscribers on your list.  The quality, not the quantity of your subscribers is far more important.  Making it difficult for people to unsubscribe can potentially lead to disaster.  Beyond annoying and alienating potential prospects, it will be more difficult to track your eZine results.  Allowing people to easily unsubscribe keeps your reputation intact and allows you to achieve optimum response rates.

It is perfectly understandable for you to want to make the most out of your eZine campaign as quickly as possible, but don’t let that allow you to defeat its entire purpose. Realize that it takes some time for eZine marketing to produce optimum results by making sure it’s implemented correctly. To keep you focused on the desired result, avoid these mistakes that eZine marketers often commit when running their Internet campaign.

Jeannine Clontz, IVAA CVA, MVA, EthicsChecked™, owner of Accurate Business Services is a Virtual Assistant (VA).  ABS provides ‘as needed’ marketing and social media support, training and consulting to busy entrepreneurs.  Clontz is a writer, author, VA Coach, and speaker on business topics including business ethics. For her free 10-Step Guide to Finding the Right VA, or her FREE Report, Social Media Marketing Benefits, send a request to:  service@accbizsvcs.com or visit:  http://www.accbizsvcs.com, www.VAbizcoach.com or her book website http://www.entrepreneurialfreedom.com

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As virtual assistants, we love e-mail. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that more than half of our daily communication is done via e-mail. In my case, maybe even 75%…OK, maybe 90% for me. Yes, I love my e-mail.

But one thing I’ve learned is that just because e-mail is a less formal mode of communication, that doesn’t mean general business writing rules don’t apply. It’s important to write well, even with e-mail, especially when you’re in business. Poorly written e-mail can not only lead to misunderstandings and confusion, but it can cause you to lose potential clients if you’re presenting a less than professional image.

So here is what I call the BUNDLE trick (because the first letter of each tip spells out “bundle”), providing tips for making your e-mail communication as effective as possible.

Be Brief

Even if you tend to be a verbose person, try to keep your e-mail messages as short as possible and right to the point. If you have a lot to say, split it into multiple e-mails or consider adding an attachment.

Use Contact Information

All initial e-mail communication should include your e-mail signature, which typically provides your full name, company, and URL at a minimum. A phone number, title and restating your e-mail address doesn’t hurt either. Don’t make your recipient dig to find out how to contact you. If there are a series of replies and forwards, it’s OK (and appreciated) if you skip the signature.

Name the Action Items

Almost all messages will include some kind of call to action for the recipient. Do you need a response by a certain time? Do you need the recipient to let you know their availability for a meeting? State your request right before your closing and it will be the last sentence in the recipient’s mind, reminding them to act.

Define the Message in the Subject

Write your subject so it explains exactly what the message is about. The recipient should be able to just read the subject and have an idea what’s in the body, how important it is and when they will need to act on it. And please don’t use URGENT or mark the message as high priority unless it really is.

Lead with Formatting

For e-mails that have to have some length, format the message to it’s easier to follow. Use subheads and bulleted lists to break up the text. This also helps the reader zero in on the most important topics and gives them a way to jump to a specific part of the long e-mail later on.

Edit, Edit, Edit

Make it standard practice to spell-check every message before you send it. And it doesn’t hurt to give your messages a good read-through before sending to make sure they says what you want them to say.

And that is my BUNDLE trick for effective e-mail. What tips would you add to this list to make sure you e-mails are professional and effective?

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Check out MessageSave from TechHit.

I recently ran across this program to archive entire Outlook folders (including attachments) to my client files on my hard drive.  The process was too easy!

Now I’m able to easily archive any client folders over 6 month old and my Outlook program isn’t quite as large any more!  Check out MessageSave from TechHit.

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Aweber is by far the most powerful online marketing service online.  Aweber effortlessly enhances your online marketing efforts with the following marketing tools:

• Sign up Forms for your Website
• Multiple Databases
• Autoresponders
• Unlimited Campaigns
• Email Newsletters
• Several HTML Email Templates
• Reports on Email Deliverability and Click Throughs
• Blog Newsletters
• Email Web Analytics
• Subscriber Management
• Superior Customer Support

Advanced tools and systems such as detailed email web analytics, geo-targeting and broadcast split-testing commands the respect of even seasoned veterans.

Aweber also offers multiple databases for use with your account to customize your drip mail campaigns.

Aweber offers a free 30 day trial to try their services.  For more information, or to try Aweber out for 30 days absolutely free, visit Aweber now!

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