by: Michael Southon
1. Many Ezine Publishers use too many styles of separator in their Newsletter. I recently saw an Ezine that used no less than 7 different separators:
++++++
~~~~~~
.....
This confuses the reader and makes your Ezine difficult to read. Your Newsletter will look much smarter and be much easier to read if you use just one or two styles of separator.
2. Always give an email address for your readers to un- subscribe. Making your readers go to a website to unsubscribe will create more traffic but it won't make you popular.
3. Place the email address for unsubscribing near the top of your Newsletter where it can easily be seen. That will avoid messages from your readers asking you to unsubscribe them.
4. Put the title of your main article in the subject field of your Newsletter. People are much more likely to open an Ezine whose subject field reads:
WebTrafficDaily: '10 Power Tips to Boost your Traffic'
than:
WebTrafficDaily, Vol 14 Issue No. 6
5. Unless your Ezine specializes in offering free ads, limit your classifieds to ten per issue. More than that and your readers will be irritated and the ads will lose their effect.
6. In every issue of your Newsletter, tell your readers about some new resource you have added to your Website - give them a reason to come back. After all, that's one of the main reasons for publishing an Ezine - to turn one-time visitors into repeat visitors.
7. Before sending out your Newsletter, do a trial run and send it to yourself. I do this and I almost always find some little error that needs fixing.
8. Keep an archive of back-issues on your website. People are more likely to subscribe to your Ezine if they can see a sample.
9. Search the Web for Tips on the theme of your Ezine - include an 'Editor's Tip' in each issue.
10. Format your Newsletter to 60 characters-per-line. You can either do this manually using a 'ruler' such as this:
012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
Or you can use an ASCII file formatter (much quicker) such as 'Ezine Assistant'. Ezine Assistant is free and you can download it at: http://www.ezineassistant.com/
(c) 2000 by Michael Southon