Write A Newsletter To Get Site Visitors To Return (And More)!

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Write A Newsletter To Get Site
Visitors To Return (And More)!

- by Steve Nash

(c) Steve Nash - All Rights reserved
http://www.howipromotemywebsite.com
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[Article last revised: Jan 2004]

How many visitors to your site *ever* return?

Not as many as you would like, I bet!

The thing is, it's a lot easier and less time-consuming to
promote your site to people who have *already* visited. So
how do you do that? Well, you could:

- Ask people to bookmark your site;

- Get people to make your site their homepage (your site
needs to be *very* good, though);

- Make your site the next Yahoo! or Blogger or Hotmail
(ideal, but not too easy); or...

- PUBLISH AN EZINE OR NEWSLETTER!

Yes, publish a newsletter (and get people to subscribe).

Writing a newsletter is the BEST WAY to stay in touch with
site visitors and existing customers.

At the *very least*, you can remind them about your website
on a regular basis. But, even better, you get a chance to
develop trust between your site visitors and yourself.

And on the faceless Internet, trust is everything!

=> VISIT THIS WEBSITE

Visit Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian's Ezine Marketing Centre. Dr
Mani's ezine resource has plenty of free information on
ezine publishing.

To quote from the site, Ezine Marketing Centre lets you:

"Create email newsletters, build huge opt in email
lists and get advanced ezine marketing tips,
strategies and secrets right now. Create email
newsletters or ezines to promote your e-business
and explode profits - Advertising tips techniques
secrets ebook for high profit email list building,
getting, buying tips and techniques to increase
email list profits..."

You get the idea.

And, Dr Mani sells plenty of information too, for those
willing to invest money (as well as time) into their ezine
publishing efforts.

http://www.ezinemarketingcenter.com/

=> OR VISIT THESE LINKS

http://www.topica.com

http://groups.yahoo.com

http://www.domeus.co.uk

http://www.roving.com

http://www.listbuilder.com

http://www.sparklist.com

=> THEN PROMOTE! PROMOTE! PROMOTE!

As with your website, you need to promote your newsletter,
and get people to sign-up. By all means start with your
friends and family, and then try these legitimate methods
(please don't send unsolicited mail - SPAM wastes
everyone's time!):

* You MUST promote your newsletter on your own site

- Put the newsletter sign-up form at the top left or top
right of as many of your pages as possible. Offer an
incentive to sign-up, sell the benefits of your
newsletter (first notice of the next sale, for instance,
or chance to win something)

- Use pop-up windows to encourage sign-ups. A little bit
controversial, this, but pop-ups *do* increase subscriber
sign-ups! Find a script here:
http://javascript.internet.com/

* You CAN announce your newsletter to the world

- Join various newsletter announcement mailing lists,
follow their announcement rules, and announce, announce,
announce.
(There are loads of these lists at http://www.topica.com
and http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm.)

- Visit the following websites

http://www.ezinelocater.com
Free Email Newsletter Directory

http://www.ezinesearch.com/search-it/ezine/
Online ezine directory/listings

http://www.ezineannouncer.com/
Online newsletters tools

http://bestezines.com/submit/
Submit your ezine to this guide

Okay, okay! Your newsletter may not need all this promotion,
but at the very least make it easy to sign-up on your
website. Oh! One other way of promoting your newsletter:

* You SHOULD make your newsletter a great read

This is possibly the most important aspect of publishing a
newsletter. Here are a few points to consider - try and make
sure you:

o add your personality;
o publish on the same date;
o stick to a similar format;
o re-read and re-read to remove mistakes;
o encourage feedback;
o have clear objectives and *meet them*; and
o enjoy yourself.

But if nothing else, just keep it short! :-)

=> EVEN DO IT YOURSELF!

Writing a newsletter is a bit difficult not to do yourself,
I admit.

What I mean is that you can find many Perl/CGI scripts
that allow you to run a newsletter, including subscribe
and unsubscribe functions, from your own site. Subscribe
Me Lite, written by CGI Script Center, is probably the
best free resource to do this. And you can always do a
search at CGI Resources.

(And I use Autoresponse Plus - not free though.)

http://www.siteinteractive.com - Subscribe Me Lite
http://www.cgi-resources.com
http://www.wise-buys.info/go/autoresponse.html

=> READ MORE...

You can find out more about email publishing from the
following excellent resources.

http://www.ezine-universe.com
http://www.ezineuniversity.com

=> ONE LAST THING... DON'T FORGET SPAM FILTERS

I originally wrote this article in 2001, when no-one had
even heard of the expression spam-filter. Now, to counter
the un-relenting spam that we all receive, spam-filters are
everywhere.

What does this mean to you, the budding newsletter
publisher?

Well, it means that you have to take great care now in what
you write in your newsletter. If you don't, your publishing
efforts will be wasted as the spam-filters will, wrongly,
block your newsletter. And few of your subscribers will read
it.

So don't forget the spam filters when you write your
newsletter! Do a check to see if you need to change any part
of it, first, before you send your mailing out.

You can do a check here -
http://www.anyonecansellonline.com/free-spam-check.shtml

--

Writing a newsletter on a regular basis is a great way to
keep people returning to your website. There are many tools
and resources that show you how. And there are many sites
that will publish your newsletter for free (you can even
find free content, for goodness sake).

Publish a newsletter and get to know your site visitors -
and then let them get to know you! Be original, if you can,
and do make sure your ezine gets past the spam-filters.

© Copyright 2001-2004 Steve Nash. All Rights Reserved.