Build your brand through your ezine – part 6

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: September 15th, 2006 | 0 Comments | Posted in: Uncategorized

Here is a bonus article – the 10 fastest and no cost ways to grow your list of ezine subscribers.

If you have followed this week’s series I hope you have ideas about how to get started developing your news letter.

I don’t recommend that you build your list by buying lists of names – that is costly and there is no guarantee the list will be responsive.  so here are my 10 top tips for organically growing your list of subscribers:

1. Offer a free resource.  There are so many news letters available that you can subscribe to, make sure that you are offering something tat has a strong call to action an ideally a resource that will attract people to register.  As an example, we offer subscribers to Biz Growth Express free access to almost 50 hours of audio recordings with leading experts from around the globe about how to build your brand and grow your business.

2. Put a subscribe box on every page of your web site.   I have tested the location of my sign up boxes on the various web sites that we operate for our business from bottom left to top right.  I have to say that top right seems to work the best and asking for someone’s first name and primary email address seems to work the best.  I also include country so that enables me to target communication to my community if I have live events taking place.

3. Provide a bonus for other sites to use.  Over the last year, some of the fastest ways we have grown our list of subscribers have been in collaboration with others – for example I supported a number of internet entrepreneurs in the launch of their book in an amazon.com campaign.  I provided access to a free resource such as an audio tutorial or ebook relevant to the book that was being launched.  Make sure that your digital image of your product is on-brand and reflects the premium brand of your practice. Once someone downloads the free product they then are then added to your mailing list for your news letter.

4. Announce ezine ‘events’ on PRweb.com and other PR sites.  On-line press releases are a great way to build your brand on-line and many of the resources are free.  At the end of your press release you can ensure that in the resources box there is a strong call to action to take people to your web site and if you have implemented the actions covered in this little series on ezines, then you will be able to convert website visitors to subscribers of your ezine.

5. Using discussion boards or groups.  If you network on-line it’s about how you “show up”.  Just as you network off-line and find communities who are potential clients, it’s the same on-line.  If you are able to address questions raised by other visitors and your have your details of your ezine in your signature line, you will entice some people to subscribe to your list to find out more information.  Don’t be shy about expressing your expertise.  The worst situation I recall was on one discussion board where someone was asking about employer branding and a reply they received was from someone that offered their own model for building an employer brand – but you had to buy their book to access it and they were based in Australia (the person asking the question was based in North America.  I can guarantee that if they had offered people a summary of their model in an ebook format, if it was a strong model they would have enticed people to buy their book.
 
6. Ensure that you provide quality content.   Make sure that your content is valuable to your readers.  Recently I received an ezine from a leading organisation in event management but it was full of self promotion – all about the awards their organisation had won.  Yes there is a time and place to celebrate success and your clients will feel affirmed working with you if they see you are being recognised as a leading expert.  However what was missing in this case were any tips, strategies or ideas that their readers could implement about how to manage an effective event.  Some of your readers will not yet be clients – providing great information positions you as an educator and an expert so when they are ready to invest they know you are knowledgeable and are more likely to head your way.

7. Don’t be afraid to allow reprints.  Allow any newsletter that wants to reprint your articles to do so.  Make sure that you have your copyright notice and a strong bio at the end of your news letter along with your re-print agreement.  There are many people that are developing news letters but are hungry for content.  You can ask them to send you an email to request permission – personally I think that deters people from re-printing.  It’s easier if you ask people to send you an email to advise where they have printed the article so that you can track which of your articles have been popular and where they have been published.   If their news letter is online, you can then also have a link to the article on your web site or blog in your media page – a great strategy for building your on-line brand as links, particularly if they are to related sites to your content demonstrates your site it popular with  the search engines.

8. Create a contest.   You can integrate a number of strategies to promote your news letter.  Recently one internet entrepreneur ran a campaign where they gave away prizes to new subscribers – this comes with a word of caution.  This may drive reader numbers but you need to ensure that the prizes are connected to your core business otherwise you will find your ezine subscribers are unqualified contacts and may never invest in your solutions.  The coaching community are the biggest offenders I am sorry to say.  One of my close colleagues has a massive list of subscribers that many people are envious of, but they are not a responsive list – unless it’s a free resource she is offering!
 
9. Create a survey.  You can create survey using a resource such as surveymonkey.com and then use an on-line press release strategy as mentioned earlier to advise that you are running a survey and that the details will be published in your news letter – make sure that in the press release you provide details of how someone can subscribe to your news letter.  Once the survey is published you can do another press release to highlight the key results – you can advise that there is a special report with the full details of the survey that you could make available as a download from your web site but requiring someone to opt-in and joining your ezine list.

10. Collaborate with others.  Consider who else serves your ideal clients and see if you could provide them with a feature article of the week and they can do the same with you.  This is a great way to leverage your content as you can offer your joint venture partner an article that you have already published and if they appear in your news letter that week, you can have week off from writing!   This is a vastly underutilised strategy yet can prove very effective, especially if you also have permission from your joint venture partner to promote a product in their news letter that week – offering them a referral fee or having an affiliate programme for anyone who joins through their recommendation is also a great strategy.

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2006.  All rights reserved.

“Biz Growth News” is a Oneocean Publication.  Oneocean Ltd is a leading business development consultancy with a difference – we focus on the unique strengths of an organisation and its people to unlock extraordinary performance and growth. To learn more about our work, visit http://www.oneoceangroup.com

TERMS OF REPRINT: You are welcome to publish extracts from “Biz Growth News” in your own online blog, ezine or news letter, providing the article is printed in its entirety and is left unedited and you include the copyright notice and the following statement:

©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2006. All rights reserved. Reprinted from “Biz Growth News”, a Oneocean Ltd publication for leaders in professional services practices, featuring inspiration, strategies and tips to build your brand, attract your ideal clients and enjoy greater success with less stress.  Subscribe today at http://www.krishnade.com/blog for daily tips to build your corporate, employer and personal brand so that you expand your professional and personal success.