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Guaranteed Ways to Build Up Your Ezine List
By Suzanne Falter-Barns (c) 2004

Here are tips gleaned from roughly 5 years spent building
up an ezine list. I've also incorporated comments and tips
from Jenna Glatzer, who successfully built her list up to
75,000 at her excellent site, www.absolutewrite.com .

1. Free Stuff. Pick genuinely useful free stuff that you
know your audience wants and needs. For instance, my brand
new ezine, Expert Status, attracted 600 readers in just a
few weeks by offering a report, "25 Top Self Help Literary
Agents". The practical freebie works. Jenna Glatzer offers
two free ebooks/reports to subscribers on agents who are
receptive to new writers, and on writer's markets. She 
notes: "Before I did that, my subscriber numbers were in 
the hundreds, not thousands.

2. Put a subscribe box on every page of the site. This has
worked for both Jenna and me. Mine is parked in the left
hand column of the site. Experts advise putting a simple
sign up box (with freebie mentioned) in the top left hand
corner, as that's where the eye naturally travels first. A
simple sign up box that requests only email address works
best.

3. Ad swaps. Exchange plugs for your ezine with another
website, to run in each other's ezines. Be sure to mention
those freebies! Doing this on a regular basis with a
rotating selection of web partners will keep your
subscription page busy.

4. Cross-registration. I've found subscribers by having a
plug for my ezine on the thank you page of a comparable
(but not directly competitive) website. This offer is made
to folks who just signed up for an ezine, and are therefore
deemed 'in the mood for more.' Offer a swap with your site,
and try not to list more than about two other ezines. Also,
make a point of including only really good, reliable
publications that reach your target market.

5. Give away a bonus for other sites to use, based on your
ezine. A popular web marketing technique is the special one
or two-day promo that offers big bonus lists when you buy a
certain product on those particular days. (I cover this
promo technique in more detail in my ebook/binder, Get
Known Now; How to Build Your Platform as a Self Help
Expert.) So collect some of your best ezine essays, pack
'em up in a downloadable PDF-based e-book, and offer it as
a bonus these sites can use in their special promos. Don't
forget juicy descriptive copy about your ezine, and a
subscribe link at the end of your ebook. I've gotten
hundreds of new readers this way, and much traffic to my
site.

6. Announce ezine 'events' on PRweb.com and other PR sites.
There's an entire world of web-based press release
distribution services out there, some of which are low cost
or even free. So use them. But be sure to only plant press
releases that are truly newsworthy, and thus likely to get
press attention. Even if the media don't use your words
this time, they'll hopefully file you as an expert for
future use.

7. Use discussion boards or groups. These are sites
frequented by gangs of people interested in the same thing.
Avoid the unmoderated sites, because they're likely to be
sp@m targets that generate little bonafide traffic. Boards
found on member sites are the best. Don't spam the board
with your subscribe message. Instead, offer some genuinely
helpful info. Then sign off with a signature line that
includes ezine and subscribe info. You can find some of
these groups at groups.yahoo.com, topica.com, mail-list.com, 
and listfool.com for starters.

8. Sponsor other people's contests. Jenna Glatzer gives
away products like her paid newsletter, Absolute Markets
Premium Newsletter, to writers' groups, contests, and
conferences that request it, regardless of size. I've tried
this too, to good effect. Simply run an announcement in
your ezine that you'd be happy to sponsor comparable
events. Ask them to provide a URL for an event description
so you know it's legit. Then offer up your gifts, and ask
for a plug for your ezine and for them to talk up your
dazzling freebie, as well. Jenna notes that groups she
sponsors "often send out ads for us to their lists... just
as a thank you."

9. Run quality content. There's no substitute for heartfelt
writing plus solid information about a subject that
matters. Jenna writes: 'The main reason our list stays so
big is our 'letter from the editor' ... Each week, I
chronicle my writing life and my triumphs and failures ...
when an article is killed, when I'm having trouble
finishing a book ... And I share personal things, too, like
when my grandfather died... . People write: 'I feel like I
know you so well.' And I think that's why they stay on the
list, even when their mailbox fills up with dozens of other
writer's newsletters.

10. Allow reprints. Allow any newsletter that wants to
reprint your articles do so. I like to have an email
requesting permission, so I can enter their info into a big
database I use to track where I can send more articles in
the future. I end each article with the line: You may
reprint this article in your own ezine or website. Simply
send an email requesting permission to Email Address.
Please be sure to include our full bio box at the end. 

11. Create a survey or contest. This would be one of those
newsworthy 'ezine events' I mentioned above in point # 6.
Make it a fun, relevant question that you could really
develop a good, newsy story from. I did a survey asking
people what they fought with their spouse/partner/boy or
girlfriend about. The results made for the kind of reading
offline media enjoy running short, 100-word pieces about
(fillers.) I made sure to attribute the survey to my ezine,
The Joy Letter, with a mention of the site's basic URL. You
can get the technology to run your own survey and collect
responses at surveymonkey.com (for a fee) or bravenet.com
(for free.)

I think I could actually go on and on here. The
possibilities seem to be endless. If you try even half of
these techniques on a regular basis, you'll find your
subscriber rates double and even triple. Here's to building
your list... the foundation that much of your traffic and
success rely on.

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Suzanne Falter-Barns' website, The Self Help Salon
(www.selfhelpsalon.com) offers tips and tools that help you
build your platform and get known as an expert in your
field. Sign up for her free ezine, Expert Status, and
receive her free report, "25 Top Self Help Literary Agents"
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