Quick Facts: "The commercial e-mail market will soar to an estimated $7.3 billion in 2005, cannibalizing direct mail revenues by 13 percent." Source: Jupiter Communications.

1. No other promotional method gives you the same value at such a low cost.
2. Make announcements about your new products or services.
3. Hold a discussion group where your subscribers can contribute to a discussion.
4. Give tips and other useful information to your readers.
5. Readers will return to your site to check out the new things mentioned in your newsletter.
6. Done properly, it can be an income producer.

1. ASCII text (regular e-mail format).
2. 2. HTML based e-mail.
3. 3. Web based - by putting your e-zine on the Web.

1. A subscription form for your newsletter.
2. An e-zine template.
3. A list hosting service or e-mail software.
4. An e-mail text editor.
5. This e-zine tutorial.
6. An identification of your target market.

Publish your newsletter in ASCII (regular e-mail format) first, before you publish your newsletter with the latest HTML code. You need to know that a large percentage of subscribers are still using e-mail software that cannot handle HTML code. To them, your page will be extremely difficult to read, and they will be reading your HTML tags interspersed with the actual text. Remember, Most e-mail software will wrap around the line at the 66th character, resulting in your hard work appearing mangled and disjointed like this text.

In this issue of Search Engine News we will be updating you with the
submission changes to Yahoo.
By following our suggestions you will increase your chances of
getting you Web site listed in Yahoo's directory.
This is very annoying to readers and will present your newsletter is
an unprofessional way.
		

1. Length - The major rule to follow on length should be determined by how often you publish, the type of information you publish, and more importantly, how much time you have to write. Example, a newsletter that comes out once or twice each month can contain three to six articles. A newsletter that comes out once a week should have only one or two short articles. Each issue of "Search Engine News" is about 30-40k. You probably shouldn't go much bigger than this.

2. Subject Line - The subject line of your e-zine should always have some consistency to let your subscribers know they are receiving your e-zine. People are bombarded daily by unsolicited e-mails. If they see an unfamiliar subject title in their e-mail carrier, they may delete it without a second thought. Make your Subject title stand out. We suggest your Subject line include the following:
   • Name of your e-zine
   • Identify your e-zine with an Issue # or Vol. #.
   • An easy title to remember.
   EXAMPLE:
   Subscribers who receive our Newsletter always see this in their subject line:

   Search Engine News - Vol. 01.00.00 - David D. Dimas
   	

3. Table of Contents - Your "Table of Contents" should appear at the beginning of your e-mail to let your subscribers know what is in your newsletter. I personally receive several e-zines each week. I always appreciate being able to scan the Table of Contents of an e-zine to see if there is an article that I am interested in reading. I tend to stay away from e-zines that do not clearly display their Table of Contents.

4. Categories - Having "Categories" in your Table of Contents that remain the same from issue to issue is highly recommended.
   EXAMPLE:

   TODAY'S ISSUE INCLUDES:
   a. NET QUICK FACTS - What's happening on the Internet.
   b. WHAT'S INSIDE - A look inside Northern Light.
   c. SEARCH ENGINE UPDATES - Changes this month.
   d. ADVERTISING TIP OF THE MONTH - Tip of the month
   e. OUR NEXT TUTORIAL - Our newest Tutorial
   f. HIGH ACHIEVEMENT STRATEGIES - Proven success strategies
   	

5. General and Administrative Information - Your newsletter should have a section that tells subscribers your administrative information. Other things that may be included here:
   • Contact info.
   • How to refer people to your newsletter.
   • Article contributions.
   • Privacy statement.
   • Advertising information.
   • Subscribe and Unsubscribe information

6. Do Not!..
   • Use bold, underline, or italics. (Unless you are publishing in HTML).
   • Center anything - use all left justify.
   • Use more than 65 characters per line.
   • Use a generic font like Times, Courier, Arial, or Helvetica (Times is probably your best option.)
   • If you need to indent, use your space bar, not your tab key.

7. Consistency - Follow a template - if you must change things - change things slowly.

8. Spell Check/Proofread - Have someone proofread your text. (Unlike a web page that you can go back and edit, you can't go back and edit your e-zine once you hit that send button). Read each issue three times through. You will still make lots of mistakes. Don't be too hard on yourself if you make mistakes. There is nothing you can do except make the correction in the next issue.
   Writing Resource Links.
   
   Garbl's Writing Resources Online - http://pweb.netcom.com/~garbl1/writing.html
   Rules of Writing - http://www.junketstudies.com/rulesofw/
   Exploring English - http://www.shared-visions.com/explore/english/
   Simpler Words And Phrases - http://www.smartbiz.com/sbs/arts/tpl5.htm

9. Test Your E-mail - Send your newsletter to yourself in several browsers. You can get a free e-mail account at Yahoo, Excite, Hotbot, etc.

10. Try New Things - We recommend that you continually test new strategies with your newsletter, yet keep certain things the same so that you do not confuse your subscribers. Confused subscribers will unsubscribe.

The advantages of using a third party service are:

1. List management - Things like bounced e-mail, "Unsubscribe," and maintaining an archive of past issues, etc, are handled by the list server.  
2. Confirmation of subscription - Mailing list services will send to your subscribers an e-mail requiring them to confirm before they will be added to your list. Although you may think this is a hassle, it is actually useful because it will help in preventing cases where a person's e-mail is used to subscribe to a list without their permission. This way you will not be accused of spamming.
3. Publicity - Another advantage of having a list server comes from the publicity the service may give to your list. I have actually acquired new visitors to my site (and new subscribers) from people who were browsing our list server's site.

1. Advertising - Your subscribers can be subjected to third party advertising if you choose a "free" list server. Free mailing list services have to recover their cost through advertising.
2. Lack of total control - If you decide to transfer or combine a mailing list, you may be forced to have all of your subscribers of the list reconfirm their subscription once again, even though they had already confirmed their subscription when they first subscribed. When you use a third party service (especially the free ones), there are no exceptions to their rules. You are forced to accept all their methods, rules, terms, and even their scheduled downtimes.
3. Reliability - Free services are not always reliable. When they are down, they may lose new subscriptions and fail to deliver messages. We recommend that you shop around for a good list server at a reasonable price.

Due to the nature of software, CGI scripts often require your users to subscribe and unsubscribe only using the web interface. Some scripts will automatically send an email to the subscriber with information on how to unsubscribe. While this is not as useful as software that require the user to confirm via email before subscribing, it will help you in weeding out people submitting bogus e-mail addresses. You will then have to handle the bounced mail and delete the subscriber from your list manually.  

E-MAIL SOFTWARE

I use Mailloop to manage my 100,000 subscribers. This software will help you organize your e-mail newsletters to your clients. Write one e-mail or newsletter and send it to as many clients as you like with one touch. It will automatically handle all of your subscribe/unsubscribe requests.

You can get a FREE trial version of MAILLOOP.

Click Here for Free Mailoop Download

TIP: Always back-up your list. You can never have enough copies of your subscriber list. The only reliable backup is your own!

TIP: If you are interested in having webpositionadvisor.com submit your newsletter to all 40+ E-zine directories we will provide this service for only $99.00. Send an e-mail to: ezinesubmit@webpositionadvisor.com

1. Using the e-zine directories we've provided for you, go to the category that best fits your product or service and e-mail the list owner. Introduce yourself, and make new contacts.
2. Place classified ads in e-zines or swap ads with list owners similar to your list.
3. Subscribe to e-zines similar to the one you are planning to start. Observe what articles are published, how the e-zine is presented, and how advertisements are written.
4. Identify your readers. Know where to find them.
5. Spend an hour a day cultivating news business leads.
6. Have an e-zine promotion strategy. Know where you'll be promoting your e-zine.

In order to keep your list running smoothly, there is a fair amount of administration involved. The larger your list, the more administration. Even though "subscriptions" and "unsubscriptions" are automatic, some people will send their requests to you instead of your list server.

Others will need you to change their e-mail addresses, or to subscribe someone else. Sometimes e-mail addresses will become defunct and issues will start bouncing back. In each case, you have to send manual administration requests to your list server. If you don't do this, your mailbox will get flooded with bounced issues and irate complaints from subscribers. 

TIP: Always include your subscribe instructions in every issue. This allows current subscribers to easily change the e-mail address they've subscribed under. It also allows former subscribers to re-subscribe when they come across an old issue.

1. Do not put HTML tags with an "a href."
2. Modern email software will automatically make this text into a clickable link.
3. When adding hyperlinks to your newsletter always add http://
4. When giving your e-mail address, you must add a prefix to it like, mailto:
5. Example:mailto:join-searchenginenews@webpositionadvisor.com

   This is incorrect - www.webpositionadvisor.com
   This is correct - http://www.webpositionadvisor.com/

TIP: Double Opt-in e-mail names (people who subscribe to your newsletter, then confirm their subscription with another e-mail) are worth more to advertisers.

Example #1

         David D Dimas
         Subscribe Free to "Search Engine News"
         mailto:join-searchenginenews@webpositionadvisor.com
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
		

          __________________________________________
          John Smith, President
          http://MarketConsulting.com
          Search Engine Positioning & Website Evaluations
          __________________________________________
		

          ********************************
          Tom Smith
          Sales Manager
          Outdoor Sales Inc.
          http://www.outdoorsales.com
          ********************************