Are You Making The One Big Mistake?

Are you making the One Big Mistake of not having an eZine or newsletter associated with your home based business?

Not having an eZine or newsletter for your business lessens your chance of rapid business expansion, limits your exposure and hinders people from finding out about your business or finding it online, continues to establish your amateur status concerning the emphasis of your business and guarantees that you will have fewer opportunities to communicate with your customers and strengthen your relationships with them.

There is no doubt that publishing your own eZine will quickly build your business and put you into contact with people who are "hot prospects" for your services or products.

However, when I discuss eZine publishing with people, I almost always hear, "But Brian, I can't write!" Here's the One Big Secret that will help you rectify the One Big Mistake: You don't have to be a professional writer - or even a good one - to publish a well-constructed eZine!

Publishing an email or online eZine is getting easier every day. The rapidly expanding resources for publishers include free articles, lay-out templates, advice on how to write and publish and even schedules of when and how to publish. There are also some inexpensive, dynamite resources available.

If you are worried about not having writing experience, did you catch the "free articles" above? There are literally hundreds of sites and services that list articles about every conceivable topic. I'll list a few of the ones I use for HTWFH at the end of this article.

There really is no good reason not to put together and publish an eZine in order to enhance your business. I subscribe to quite a few myself. They range from an email format with just one major article to a more elaborate, online format with numerous articles and resources such as the HTWFH eZine. Many of those subscriptions run weekly or biweekly editions, and a few publish on a monthly basis. What you choose for your own eZine really depends on how much time you want to devote to it.

The simpler email-format/one-article kind of eZine takes about an hour to put together (after you've established your format with your first edition). The more involved eZines will take you a few days of concentrated work to construct (although, if you publish an online eZine, a prepackaged WYSIWYG HTML editor such as Netscape Composer is a wonderful shortcut).

You'll also want to set up an autoresponder for your subscription list. This allows you to accomplish three majorly important things.

First, a new subscriber can send a blank email to your autoresponder subscription email address and automatically be subscribed to your eZine without you having to do the work of manually subscribing them. This allows you to easily advertise your subscription email link without being overwhelmed with hundreds of subscription requests.

Second, you can use your autoresponder to publish your eZine or eZine link (for an online eZine). A few clicks here and a few clicks there, and voil�, you've sent it out to your entire subscriber list in one fell swoop! It takes only minutes instead of the hours needed to do it all by hand.

Third, you can use your autoresponder to easily send out a "broadcast" - a communication of some sort, such as a free gift or sales letter. Again, it's as easy as one-two-three and it's done!

HTWFH recommends GetResponse - http://www.howtoworkfromhome.info/gr.html - for your autoresponder. I've used their service from the beginning and I'm quite satisfied with it. I began with a free account and was so impressed with what I could do that I purchased a professional account about two months later!

You can also set up a free account with GetResponse to start with, and when you're ready, you can move up to a full, professional account that allows HTML emails with graphics, email statistics, tailored Thank You pages and other important business features.

I'd also like to highly recommend that you subscribe to the eZines listed below, besides my own at http://www.howtoworkfromhome.info. There are three eZines written by two publishers. These two ladies, Terri Seymour and Alexandria Brown, and their eZine resources have been invaluable to me as I started the process of converting the snailmail HTWFH Newsletter to an online format and continue to publish new editions on a regular basis. All three eZines are full of insightful advice and articles about eZine publishing. Their experience is considerable, and their eZines are for free, so you should subscribe to them and start studying!

Here they are: Terri Seymour's My Own Ezine at myownezine@subto.us or go to www.MyOwnEzine.com. Alexandria Brown's Publish for Profits and Straight Shooter Marketing (fill in the subscription popup or go to www.ezinequeen.com and follow the eZine links).

Ezine publication is a little regular work done for a BIG payoff! Not only will your eZine reach more people and bring in new customers, but it can also be used to generate income in and by itself. You can place your affiliate ads in your eZine, or ads for your own products and services.

Once your subscriber base is large enough, you can start charging for Top Sponsor and other advertising slots within your eZine. You can also swap ads with other eZines to help spread the word about your own. Check out the eZineJV.com link below. It's free to register, and a great place to meet other publishers. Charlie Page's Directory of Ezines is another great place to find ad swaps.

To wrap up, publishing your own eZine can great enhance your business, establish trust by your customers and supply you with alternate streams of income. It only takes a few hours to put together a simple eZine, and you can even advertise your own affiliate links if you want. In short, there really is no good reason NOT to start one today!

Resources --

How-To Books and Other Resources:

The MOE Manual: A Complete Guide to Ezine Publishing

Ezine Queen: Boost Business with Your Own Ezine

The Directory of Ezines

eZine, Newsletter, Formats & Templates:

www.homebiztools.com/newsletter-templates.htm

www.newz2me.com/templates/template-index.htm

Free for Use Articles:

www.howtoworkfromhome.info/eZines/eZineDirectory.html

www.ideamarketers.com/

www.authorconnection.com/

www.ezinearticles.com/

www.marketing-seek.com/index.shtml

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabusiness/

Advertising and Ad Swapping:

www.howtoworkfromhome.info/doe.html

www.ezinejv.com

GetResponse Auto-Responder:

www.howtoworkfromhome.info/gr.html

� Brian Schaeffer, editor of the How To Work From Home eZine, has been involved with the internet, online home based business building and netpreneurism since 1995.
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