by Donna Gunter

At almost every meeting I attend in my city, I get really positive feedback about my email newsletter, Work Smarter, Make More. People generally tell me they love it, or they ask some question about something I’ve written about in a previous issue. All in all, it’s pretty cool–I kinda feel like a celebrity!

In everything that I do, my goal and my focus is to get subscribers to my newsletter. I’m not trying to sell them a coaching program, nor am I trying to get them to buy some product. I just want them to get my weekly email newsletter. That’s it. Just get a little dose of Donna on a weekly basis (pun fully intended).

My rationale behind this comes from my philosophy that people have to know, like, trust and respect you before they’ll decide to buy anything from you. I’ve finally acknowledged and embraced that I’m a pretty good writer and have decided to lead with that gift and use that as my marketing tool for my business.

Back in 2003, I decided that I made some serious changes to how I published my email newsletter, and I’m now starting to see the results of the writing I do each week. The results include readers calling or emailing me for coaching, to sign up for a program, to sit in on a teleclass, or to form a strategic alliance with them. Just exactly what I’d hope would happen!

Here are the five secrets to newsletter publishing that I learned through the "school of hard knocks" that have helped successfully market my business through email newsletter publishing:

1. Publish consistently on a weekly basis. I initially published my newsletter on a not-so-regular basis initially because I didn’t see my newsletter as a serious marketing tool (silly me!). I then went to a regular monthly publication about a year later and then to a twice-a-month publication, and finally ended up publishing weekly in 2003 Now, if I miss a week, I’ll get a couple of emails wanting to know what happened and where the newsletter is.

2. Let your "voice" permeate your newsletter. My first newsletters had some great resources that a busy business owner would find helpful in the management of his/her business. The only thing about me was a short paragraph about my business at the end of the newsletter. What I realized was that the newsletters to which I best responded were those in which I got to know the writer and liked what s/he had to say. Resources were great, but lessons through personal experiences were incredibly more valuable and were the things that I remembered about the newsletter. I definitely put more "me" into my weekly newsletter now.

3. Show how you can help clients resolve problems. I could just kick myself for letting almost 3 years slip away by doing such a slip-shod job in demonstrating my expertise. Again, resources are useful, but stories of what I’m experiencing or what clients have experienced in their businesses and decisions that have been made to change the way we’re doing business are much more helpful to my readers. Hence, in every newsletter, there’s now a "Business Gym" article in each issue to help my readers run a better business.

4. Set aside time to write your newsletter. Finding space in my calendar to set aside time on a weekly basis exclusively for this marketing activity isn’t always easy. There are many times I want to fill that time with "profit generating" activities (i.e. work with clients) rather than holding onto this time as a business development activity. Since I now publish weekly, it takes me about 2 hours to write the main article for the newsletter. I now set aside time from 9 AM – noon each Wed. morning and knock out the newsletter copy. Some weeks the process flows more easily than others.

5. Repackage and re-purpose your articles. One of my primary motivations now for doing my newsletter is that I’ve now got a personal article bank of roughly 50 articles that I can reuse, tweak or re-pupose when I need to. I submit my newsletter article each week to various online article banks through an article distribution service, place it on my website, and have it available to use to create a special ebook or report that I can sell as another income stream, or re-purpose as a special report for a give-away on my website.

What I’ve now discovered is that by having this client “reservoir” in place (my email newsletter subscribers that I go out and “tickle” on a weekly basis), my marketing has gotten so much easier. On a regular basis one of my readers will wake up and decide that they’ve had enough and can’t do it this way any longer and decide to hire me.

If you don’t currently have a newsletter in place that permits you to reach out and "touch" potential clients regularly, I encourage you to start one. I realize that not everyone likes nor enjoys writing. Perhaps there’s someone you can team up with who could ghostwrite for you based on some conversations you’ve had or on some training or other kinds of workshops you deliver. If you currently have an email newsletter, pay more attention to its care and feeding so that it grows a healthy prospective client base for you. It’ll be one of the best investments you’ll make for your business.

Copyright 2005 Donna Gunter

Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed professionals make more profit in less time online. To sign up for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE ebook, TurboCharge Your Productivity: 50 + Tools To Help You Automate Your Business and Make More Profit in Less Time Online!, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizCoachingCompany.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Donna_Gunter
http://EzineArticles.com/?5-Secrets-to-Creating-an-Email-Newsletter-That-Gets-Results&id=96210

Tags: LK article challenge, suzanne lieurance, kristen king, article marketing, monetization, information products, email newsletters, viral marketing

by Ladan Lashkari

Good newsletter names are usually 2-4 words. If shorter, they can’t explain what your newsletter is about, and if longer, they will be hard to remember.

When choosing a name for your newsletter, make sure its abbreviation is suitable. For example if it’s "CNN", you should look for another name because it will confuse your readers.

A good name also describes what your newsletter is about. For example "Affiliate Marketing Insider Tips" is a good name, but "Zapping Tides" is not.

Some people use "the" at the beginning of titles or "newsletter" at the end - like "The Affiliate Marketing Insider Tips Newsletter." But both of these words are unnecessary and just make your title too long and more difficult to remember.

Depending on your newsletter topic and audience, your name can be serious or playful. If you want to choose a playful title, putting an "O" at the end of it makes it funny. An example of such names could be "The Great Gordino" which comes from the publisher’s name - Gordon Bryan.

You can browse ezine directories to find many good newsletter names about different topics. You will get many creative ideas from other people’s newsletter titles. They have spent a lot of time and effort finding a good name and you can save time by learning from them.

The name you choose for your newsletter is very important and literally makes or breaks your newsletter’s success. It can draw people to subscribe to your newsletter, or it can push them away.

So make sure that you learn how to choose awesome newsletter names and titles and choose a good title for your newsletter before starting it.

To your newsletter publishing success,

Ladan Lashkari

About The Author:

Ladan Lashkari is giving away a FREE step-by-step guide to help you choose awesome newsletter names that draw people to subscribe to your newsletter. Also you can find tons of creative newsletter ideas and helpful resources to make your newsletter even more amazing. So make sure you drop by www.FreeNewsletterIdeas.com while they are still available.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ladan_Lashkari
http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Choose-a-Good-Newsletter-Name&id=43395

Tags: LK article challenge, suzanne lieurance, kristen king, article marketing, monetization, information products, email newsletters, viral marketing

You already know that one way to monetize your article marketing efforts is by creating and promoting ebooks with your articles. Another easy and inexpensive means of monetizing your work is through an e-mail newsletter.

Do you have an e-mail newsletter? I publish an occassional e-newsletter called Notes in the Margin, geared toward writers, editors, and the people who hired them. You can subscribe for free at www.notes-in-the-margin.com.

Leave the link to your newsletter subscription page in the comments! And keep your eyes on the blog all week long for great tips on improving your newsletter for maximum results.

-kk

Tags: LK article challenge, suzanne lieurance, kristen king, article marketing, email newsletter, monetization

Last night’s teleseminar with Jeff Herring was fantastic. We had a nice group with some good questions, and I think we all learned a lot. I know I did!

Highlights

• Direct and indirect ways to make money with your articles
• Three methods for creating an e-book
• Turning e-books into teleseminars and e-courses
• Overall tips for success in article marketing

Listen to the recording or download it to save for later. Be sure to stay to the end for a special offer from Jeff!

Thanks again to all who turned out. I hope we’ll see you at the next teleseminar!

And if you’re not yet signed up for the New Year’s edition of the LK Article Challenge, which runs to the end of the month, there’s still time. Just enter your info at in the handy-dandy form at the top of the page and you’ll be all set.

- kk

Tags: LK article challenge, kristen king, suzanne lieurance, jeff herring, article marketing, teleseminars, ebooks, monetization

by Andy Machin

Writing your own ebooks is arguably the best and most powerful thing you can do to publicise your web site and bring traffic to it with little effort. An even better tactic is to make your ebook viral. That does not mean your readers will catch a disease. Or rather they will of sorts but one from which both you and your readers can profit.

Making your ebooks viral simply means that you give your customer a reason to pass your ebook around to their friends, family, web site visitors, newsletter subscribers and similar. That reason is two fold. One reason being that the ebook you have written contains useful information and the other reason being that you have seeded the ebook with your affiliate links to relevant products while allowing some of your affiliate links to be replaced by the affiliate links of your customer.

Why would you do that - well you would do it simply because it creates a “win-win” scenario from which both yourself and your customer can potentially benefit for a very long time. Because you have made your ebook viral in the manner described each person who reads it is a potential earner for both yourself and your initial customer.

You have created a situation where your customer wants to circulate your ebook widely because he knows that he has the potential to earn a commission should anyone he circulates it to makes a purchase from one of the links you have allowed him to rebrand. You have the same opportunity because the ebook still contains some of your own affiliate links.

For example if you have written an ebook on say dog care you can easily insert affiliate links to related products - say dog training and dog food. If you allow your customer to rebrand the dog training links with his own then anyone he circulates the ebook to and buys the dog training product will generate a commission for your customer and anyone who buys the dog food product via your ebook will generate an affiliate commission for you because that is your link.

Giving your customers the ability to rebrand and the extent to which they can do so is something you control yourself. All you have to do is write the ebook. And that is not as hard as you might think either. You just need your imagination and typing skills. Do you think you could write a dozen or so pages on a subject you have an interest is. Of course you could. Especially with the internet available to you as an almost unlimited research tool.

All you need to do is take action. And you can start that right now. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil and start to write down a list of subjects you are interested enough in to write a short ebook about. Pick a subject you would like to start with then map out the topics or chapters you think your new ebook should include. The next step is to research and write and you are on your way to your first viral ebook. What is stopping you?

Download your free page rank ebook and see how I have gained and maintained number 1 search engine positions regardless of google page rank. Visit http://www.pagerankparanoia.com today for your free ebook.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andy_Machin
http://EzineArticles.com/?Why-You-Should-Write-Viral-E-books&id=936029

Tags: LK article challenge, suzanne lieurance, kristen king, article marketing, ebooks, information product, monetization, viral marketing

by Ron Barrett

It has become an established fact that ebooks are a mainstay of internet commerce. With their ease of creation and low production costs, ebooks are a primary gateway to the information superhighway. While it doesn’t take long to find a thousand ebooks devoted to internet marketing, the possible topics one can use in them are endless.

Niche marketing would be nearly impossible through the digital media if not for ebooks. Whatever your interest or specialty, there can be your own unique ebook created for it. Whether you sell information, how-to or just want to make an easily accessible catalog of your wares or services, the ebook format will lend itself flawlessly to the task at hand. With the creation of your own ebook, you have an instant saleable product that can be used as part of your business inventory or as an incentive to customers to buy into your other products.

Ebooks can serve an important function for those who have no interest in internet marketing as well. For those who have an urge to write, be it fact or fiction, the low cost of creating your own digital book brings with it the ability to put your work before the public without having to incure the long process of hiring an agent and seeking a publisher in the print media. The same care and professionalism needs to be used even when you take the do-it-yourself approach. Spelling, style and grammar are essential to creating a professional looking volume. As more new writers are finding, having an existing ebook on the market and a base of supporters already in place will give you an edge up with traditional book publishers and may lead to a book contract that launches your career to the bestseller lists.

Regardless of what purpose you are creating your ebook for, making it accessible to the widest range of readers takes some thought as to its exact format. There are those who feel the exe format of ebook holds the best advantage doe creating interactive books which load like a program and can involve features such as sound and video capabilities. The greatest disadvantage to the exe format is that, due to the justifiable paranoia about virus contamination, many people will refuse to accept an executable format no matter how interested they may otherwise be in your information.

The most commonly used file format is still the portable document file (PDF). While there is still a way for an unethical person to inject a virus or malware program into a system through the doc file used to create the PDF, it is still very rare. PDF has become so trusted that few remember the brief time in 1998 when a few viruses were spread this way. Because of the trust of the format, its ease in being instantly downloaded and its relatively small file size, PDF is still the number one preferred method of ebook creation.

One final feature of the PDF file for your ebook is the versatility it offers the end user as your book will be pre-made to facilitate printing it out into a hardcopy for reading and referencing without needing to be at your computer or online.

Ron Barrett is the owner of 5 Star Ebooks. Your site for low cost, 5 Star quality ebooks on the web. He is offering several popular ebooks free during the launch of the site. You can also sign up for ‘The Easiest Way’ newsletter at the site. He also invites you to visit the 5 Star Ebooks Diary where he details the things that he is doing to build his ebook business.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ron_Barrett
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Awesome-Power-of-E-Books&id=946010

Tags: LK article challenge, suzanne lieurance, kristen king, article marketing, ebooks, information product, monetization

by Mark Scholfield

So you were interested in setting up your internet work at home business, and you kept hearing the phrase "ebook marketing". What’s a ebook you ask, could I write one? what would I write about? how would I market it.

Well, lets start from the top. An ebook is an electronic book, that is to say the written word conveyed online, usually in ‘Portable Document Format’ or better known as a PDF. This format lends itself to this type of writing as it looks clean, and for the most part, it cannot be easily edited (unlike a Microsoft Word document for example).

So you know what an ebook is, but could you write one yourself?. This is the bit that stumps most folks, but it really shouldn’t, it’s much easier than most people think. You don’t have to be a master of prose or a ‘copy’ expert to write an effective ebook. For the most part, you just want to write about something you know about. Each of us has areas that we specialise in, we just don’t always realise it. Let me give you an example. I was fortunate enough to be blessed with twins in 2003, an incredible life changing event, if ever there was one. 6 month down the line, and my wife and I had gone through all the trials and tribulations that most parents go through, especially with twins. So there is a subject that we could both speak to, we can write about it because we have lived it.

Some of the best articles or ebooks ever written, are those that are written ‘from the heart’. So what have you been through that you know something about? I’m betting there is quite a lot. In the case of bringing up children, it’s an excellent choice because you can branch out into so many directions.

Once you have your subject matter, simply get a pad and pen, and start writing your ideas down, then build those ideas out into full texts and before long, you have pages of quality information. You can use your favorite Word Processor software to write it up and correct the spelling. Now it helps to gloss it up a little by including some pictures, and maybe some online resources that you found helpful, plus you could include a Contents Page and a copyright statement. You can grab a Free DotComOlogy ebook at http://megahomeprofits.com to see an example of what I mean.

So the final part of the equation, is how to market it. Well, this is the interesting bit. Nowhere is there better than ClickBank.com to sell your ebook. You can register for free and decide on a price and away you go. The advantage of selling your ebook this way is that you attract ‘affiliates’ who can resell your ebook for you, and you get to decide how much for, thus meaning you don’t have to even spend money marketing it yourself, let others do it for you! Sounds like a plan to me!

So is it really that difficult to create your own ebook. The answer is no, it’s pretty easy, although it might take you a while to get your first one done. The next subject in the ebook strategy is how to create your ebook to maximise it’s potential to sell. In fact, there are ebooks on Clickbank that you can buy, that cover that exact subject matter - now is the penny dropping ?

Mark Scholfield is chief Affiliate Marketing writer for http://megahomeprofits.com based near London, UK. He also contributes to a related blog http://megahomeprofits.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Scholfield
http://EzineArticles.com/?Ebooks,-What-Are-They-And-How-Can-I-Write-One?&id=934352

Tags: LK article challenge, kristen king, suzanne lieurance, article marketing, ebooks, monetization, information products, how to write an ebook

These principles are so applicable to article marketing and building your platform that we just had to share this article with you. Enjoy, and leave your thoughts in the comments. -kk

Increase Your Marketability by Getting Published in Your Area of Expertise

by Doug Schmidt

Marketability = Market Value

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say…marketability = perceived market value.

Take a house for instance. Its “base” market value is established by several factors — the condition of the home and land that it’s on, what other homes are selling for in the area, and proximity to schools, stores, libraries, etc.

There are also a lot of intangible factors that affect a house’s perceived market value. These are things that would be unique to individual potential buyers — nearness to extended family, the neighborhood’s “culture,” commuting distance, and proximity to the special places that the individual, couple, or family will visit frequently.

Of course, this not only applies to houses, but to anything that can be bought or sold…cars, stocks, books, and more. They all have a perceived market value…and quite often, they are perceived quite differently by the various potential buyers in a particular market.

As crass as it may sound, every person has a “market value” in his or her area of proficiency — and his or her “marketability” hinges upon how that value is perceived by those who want, or need, to benefit from this person’s knowledge and experience.

But please keep in mind, a person’s “perceived market value” has nothing to do with a person’s significance as a human being. The weighty virtues of kindness and compassion are often found in people who have little “market value” in the work-a-day world, and, though it’s rare, sometimes those who have the highest market value in the world’s eyes are best described as soulless.

So, let’s keep this straight upfront. This short article is about increasing your marketability in the marketplace by getting published in your area of expertise. While your enhanced marketability will enable you to increase your net worth, it will not necessarily make you a better person. That type of ultimate question is better addressed in other types of books (like the one described at http://www.dougschmidt.com).

* * *

There are many ways to increase your “base” marketability in the work-a-day world — college degrees, skill sets, types of work, training, past job performance, years of experience, etc.

However, one of the quickest and most effective ways to increase your perceived marketability is to get an article or book published in your particular area of expertise.

The accelerated nature of this enhanced marketability comes from two factors.

#1 - Most of your readers will immediately perceive you as an accomplished expert because some publisher considered your words of counsel as “worthy of publication.”

And this is no small feat — thousands and thousands of people attempt to get published and fail (for reasons described in How to Land High-Paying Assignments)

#2 - Once published, your “worthy words” become reproduced thousands of times for tens of thousands of readers, and so your sphere of influence and notoriety can expand significantly in a very short amount of time.

So whether you’re an accountant, engineer, waiter, business-owner, clerk, or work-at-home mom, getting published in a magazine, trade journal, or the right book will significantly increase your marketability.

All things equal, the person who has a publications list on their profile (only if it’s just one relevant piece) will immediately have the advantage over his or her unpublished peers. Likewise, the small-business owner who writes a column for the local paper is going to bring in a lot more business that the same type business owner who simply pays the newspaper to advertise in it.

Another thing that getting published will do is get your name in front of thousands of potential employers, customers, or vendors (depending on your goals). With the right contact information in the bio-section of your publication (most importantly, a personalized website), you’d be amazed by who will start calling you for interviews, additional business, or to do another article or book!

* * *

The process of writing can itself become a networking tool that will compel your marketability to grow. Once you’ve landed the assignment, (which is the focus of the book described below), send portions of the manuscript to the appropriate people in your industry for feedback. Don’t send them the whole thing, just two or three paragraphs so there’s not a huge time commitment involved (on their part).

Again, don’t do this unless you have the assignment. This sounds so much better than “I’m working on an article that I’m going to try to sell to a couple magazines. What do you think of this paragraph?”

Better to be able to say ” I’ve just landed a contract with [name of the publisher], and I’ve got a two-week deadline. Can you tell me what you think of this paragraph. Does it ring true for you? Am I on the right track here?”

Using the writing process as a form of networking can have magnificent snowball effect.

For example, while I was working on my first book (The Prayer of Revenge: Forgiveness in the Face of Injustice - http://www.dougschmidt.com), I sent the first chapter to a professor who was known worldwide as a “guru” in the area of personal forgiveness. He graciously wrote back and encouraged me to take the manuscript in a certain direction. Of course, I followed his advice because he was right on target.

When the manuscript was finished, he offered a sterling endorsement. His supportive words stimulated other “thumbs-up” from several well-known counselors. I used those endorsements to land a high-paying feature article assignment with a popular trade magazine for counselors (with a circulation of over 100,000), and that article help me land my first radio interview that played over 22 stations on the east coast on the second anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

This “avalanche” started with a “snowflake” — simply a humble request for feedback.

But this was just one of many “snowflakes” I had to shovel through. I didn’t hear from a lot of people, and a few just politely turned me down flat (because we had completely different approaches to the topic). So there’s safety in numbers. The more people you contact in this process, the more likely you will succeed.

Persistence is key . Again, you’re looking for a few “snowflakes” which, given enough time, passion, and persistence, can turn into a manageable avalanche of promising offers and opportunities.

Doug Schmidt is currently an editorial manager and author. Doug’s first book, The Prayer of Revenge: Forgiveness in the Face of Injustice, is available in bookstores and from all the major online booksellers. For more information, visit: http://www.dougschmidt.com

Of course, Doug used the principles in How to Land High-Paying Writing Assignments to win his first book contract. To learn more about this innovative way of getting published at: http://www.writersweekly.com/books/1144.html

Tags: LK article challenge, suzanne lieurance, kristen king, article marketing, marketability, building your platform, getting published, Doug Schmidt