E-Zine Publishing Mastery
How to Publish Your Own Online Newsletter for Profits!
Anthony Ekanem
1.1 What is E-zine Publishing?
E-zine publishing is an online magazine. Much like in real life, it is simply a magazine that is delivered in a digital form. Most of the E-zines today are targeted towards Internet distribution and is meant to promote a website.
Normally, an E-zine usually caters to a particular niche or topic. It could be anything from ‘How to make money online’ to ‘How to train your pet’. E-zines are distributed to their subscribers normally through e-mail. Normally people send E-zines to be published on a consistent, pre-planned basis. For example, an e-mail will be sent out every day, every 3 days, weekly, biweekly or monthly.
These E-zines are distributed using an autoresponder. An autoresponder is programmed for every subscriber to receive the e-mails in a chronological format in a sequential order. This is the biggest difference between an E-zine and its offline counterpart. An E-zine can send previous issues anytime regardless of when the subscriber has opted in to the E-zine. The autoresponder will do its job of follow-up from the day the subscriber has opted in and will follow through until its ‘run’ is exhausted.
Today, the majority of E-zines are website driven. It would be a surprising fact to know that the first E-zines were delivered on an electronic format such as CD-ROM and delivered to the subscriber’s house by mail.
That was in the ‘stone age’ when the power of e-mails and autoresponders were not realized yet. But now, the majority of the formats stick with e-mails or they send out notifications (or updates) in conjunction with websites or blogs. The e-mail usually contains the issue itself or a summarized format that ultimately links back to the original website for the main cheese.
There are two kinds of models related to E-zines – the free model and the paid model. Many general interest E-zine publishers offer free access to all aspects of their online content while other publishers have opted to require a subscription fee to access premium articles or audio and video content (depending on the niche).
This does not mean that those free E-zines are not out there to make a profit. You can make a lot of money when you collect enough subscribers and you can sell them other online products. But the most important aspect of all is to collect targeted leads and compile them into your list.
There are other various sources of online profits that can be squeezed from E-zines such as promoting affiliate programs, building a relationship with your customers and gaining their trust.
Because you can’t talk face to face with a subscriber and neither can you have a cup of tea or a beer with them to build a relationship, therefore E-zines usually reflect the publisher’s offline personality in some way or another through the publication.
With millions and millions of websites and E-zines screaming for the attention of the reader, it is very crucial to structure your E-zine with good content. You don’t want your e-mails to wind up in their trash box so you have to be vigilant.
1.2 Why Publish an E-zine Today?
E-zines are one of the most popular Internet marketing methods available on the Internet. It is highly profitable and millions and millions of dollars in advertising space are sold on E-zines each year.
According to online research done by the IAB and PwC, the year 2006 saw a huge rise in online advertising spending. They recorded a record breaking high of up to $16.8 billion, and that is only counting the U.S. alone.
Furthermore, there are an increasing number of merchants moving their businesses online from their offline versions. Apparently, the competition offline requires them to have a paradigm shift and to move their businesses to a different medium. More and more of them are conquering different niche markets every day. So where does that leave us? It is no secret that there are thousands of individuals out there making millions of Dollars sitting around their computers in their casual clothes. They don’t have to go through the rush hour traffic or fighting their way up buses and trains.
You can start a business at home and create a list of customers without meeting even a single one of them. In fact, you can build your relationship with them without even talking to a single one of them on MSN or Skype. Your autoresponder will do the job for you once your marketing system is in place.
And of course, who can forget the juicy profits? Once you have your loyal subscribers/readers eyeballs glued to your websites, it would be the best time for you to sell them your products or your services.
The list of online profits is endless. By promoting affiliate programs, you don’t have to set up a single website if you wish not to. You don’t even need to get a merchant account. Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest industries online. All you need to do is scout around for a profitable affiliate program before you start promoting to your list.
If your subscribers are patient enough to read your newsletter after 5 issues, you can be sure they are interested in the affiliate programs you have to offer. Do you have a blog? You can earn thousands of Dollars every month in your pyjamas when you bring enough traffic and subscribers and what better way to convert them as one of your loyal readers through a well-crafted E-zine.
Blogs are the in-thing online. As a matter of fact, an Internet marketer without a blog would be viewed in the same light as an Internet marketer without an e-mail address. So E-zines combined with blogs will provide the magic formula of a loyal reader base. You can even build a name for yourself as an online merchant. People rarely spend their money buying something from someone without credibility. Therefore, if you want to gain credibility in the eyes of your customers, get them to subscribe to your E-zine! Building the relationship with them is the key.
Your online profit funnels are endless. There are more than enough reasons why you should start to publish an E-zine. In fact, the right question should be ‘How should I start my E-zine NOW?’
1.3 How Profitable is E-zine Publishing?
Before we dive in on how much profits you can make, think about how much profits you can SAVE by starting your own E-zine.
Firstly, the only investment you will need is a domain name, web hosting, and an autoresponder account. Depending on your selection, your total cost will be somewhere between $30 - $100 a month. Can you say, “DIRT CHEAP?” I’m not kidding. You get your own shop (your website), your own unique house address (domain name), and your very own customer relationship manager (your autoresponder) all online working for you 24 hours a day 7, days a week.
Offline business owners drool when they are given such a figure (cost) and value! Sending an e-mail is literally free. You don’t need to worry about postage costs, licking envelopes and paying the mailman to deliver your ‘letters’. This is direct marketing heaven! You are literally saving thousands of Dollars if you were to compare the cost of starting a conventional business.
Now let us talk about profits. How much can one make from E-zine publishing? Well, the answer is, as much as you want it to be and as little as you want it to be! There is no technical figure that one can assign as to how profitable an E-zine can be. But there is one thing for sure; the income potential of an E-zine is UNLIMITED. Imagine having a subscriber list of hundreds of thousands of people. If you were to sell half of that very list a product worth a measly $20, you could make more than A MILLION DOLLARS by sending one e-mail.
I’m not kidding. There are many top tier Internet marketers that have done it already and are making a consistent 6 figure income monthly while others have successfully launched 7 figure launches every few months. This is not insane – in fact more and more people are jumping on the band wagon every day.