People are always asking me if they should have their own Ezine. They figure that since there are lots of them out there already, that creating their own newsletter would be a waste of their time!

I couldn't agree with this ... Less! Creating your own newsletter is one of the components in building a successful online business. Why?

Good thing you asked! There are two reasons why you need your own Ezine or newsletter.

1. The first is in order to be able to contact your customers again and again. This allows you to build credibilty and rapport with your customers, something that will keep you in business! You want to remind them that you are still in business, that you have more products or services for them, that your website is filling up with all sorts of useful information for them.

2. The second reason for your own Ezine is so that you can capture the names of visitors who have not yet made the decision to buy! Once you have their email addresses you can contact them again and again, reminding them of your original offer and telling them about all the other goodies you have for them.

The reason you need your own Ezine is so that you can put yourself in front of your target market time and time again!

What do you need in order to create a business building Ezine?

1. You must determine the focus of the Ezine. The Ezine should provide relevant and timely information to your target market. Your Ezine should share a parallel focus with your products or services. What I mean by this is, if you are selling an information product to veterinarians, your ezine should provide information of use to veterinarians ... not pet owners!

2. Design a format for your Ezine. There are lots of people out there who use email software that will accept only plain text. Design a plain text ezine template that you will feel comfortable using over and over. Your design should not only take the physical look of the Ezine into account, but should include a layout you will use for each newsletter you send.

To continue using our veterinarian example. Business Building New for Vets could have standard sections including: an opening editorial statement you could use to introduce topics in the newsletter; a table of contents; a section called "In The News"; a section on Business Building Tips; a section of classified ads; a guest article; and so on.

Standardizing these sections will make your job easier. You will know what kinds of things to be on the lookout for and what kinds of articles you need to write, or contract out.

Part of your format is the size of your newsletter. If you make it too long, people won't have time to read it unless you have killer information and content... if it is too short people will have the perception that they aren't getting their "money's worth" ... even if it is free! Some email programs will not "collect" messages that are too big. Look in your mailbox and see what sizes of newsletters you are getting. What is your favorite length? Try and keep it consistent. Of course ... if your newsletter is online, like ours ... you do not have to worry about it being too long and that they won't receive it, one of the reasons we have gone this route!

3. Decide on a publishing schedule.

Don't get too ambitious and promise a weekly Ezine until you know you can produce a weekly Ezine! Even a monthly Ezine schedule is a big commitment ... you have the voice of experience speaking here! If you are easily able to keep up to a monthly schedule and want to speed up the delivery of your messages ... go ahead, only after you know you can keep up the pace ... and keep on providing good, relevant content!

4. Use software that will help, not hinder you.

A good text editor will help you write and format a nice looking product. Use something like Notepad, a basic text editor that comes with Windows. Or try out TextPad a nifty little editor I like because it allows you to set line length by number of characters (65 is highly recommended), it has a good spell checker and is a very nice all around text editor. TextPad is a shareware program, try it out ... and if you like it the registration price is extremely reasonable!

Email Software. My favorite is Eudora Pro a powerful program that allows you to use any number of aliases and SIG files. You can sort and filter your mail into folders, set up any number of mailing lists, set up stationery files and more. If you have a small list of newsletter subscribers you can even use Eudora Pro's blind carbon copy feature to send your Ezines to your list.

Listserver Software Mailloop will allow you to send your Ezine ... and any other messages you have ... to your entire list, no matter how big that list is. Mailloop will also add and subtract subscribers from your lists automatically ... and it can be set up to personalize your newsletters if you wish. Once you own the software, you can send out an unlimited number of messages at no additional cost!

5. Provide good content. Your objective is to sell people your products or your services ... or to build traffic to your site ... so you can sell advertising! Whatever it is, you need to provide good content to your audience so that you can build rapport and trust ... a relationship. Then when you make a suggestion for a product ... whether it be yours or someone else's, they will trust and believe you.

For example, in this article I have mentioned a number of pieces of software I use. I don't have any vested interested in telling you about them ... I have told you about TextPad because it is a truly useful piece of shareware ... and I use Eudora Pro daily. I wouldn't want to have to live without it. I have also told you about Mailloop. We used to recommend Mailloop because we loved it ... and then we decided we liked it so much we bought the rights to it. However, if it wasn't such an incredibly useful piece of software, we wouldn't have bought it ... and I wouldn't be telling you about it!

And you have to do the same thing with your newsletter. Provide good content, tell only about the good things, the things that truly work, the things you believe in!

You don't have to do it alone. You can hire someone to help you write some or all of your articles. You can encourage your subscribers to contribute articles or ideas or news sources ... if it is appropriate. You could "trade" articles with another non-competing newsletter owner or ask an expert to contribute a paragraph or two ... or even a whole article. If you get help from other people, make sure you acknowledge them. Give them a credit line and a link to their site ... let your subscribers know who your experts and contributors are.

If you use someone else's work, always always always get permission and always give credit!

6. You must sell your products or services. If you are selling advertising then you must get people to visit your website. Don't lose track of the purpose of your Ezine. Your Ezine allows you to regularly contact people ... so you can sell them something they want or need.

You didn't start this process so you could get up on a platform and air your opinions. You didn't set your Ezine up so that you could become the next publishing mogul. You didn't set it up so that you would have lots of work to keep yourself occupied with ... you set it up so that you could build your business ... so that you could sell your products or services or advertising space. Don't lose track of this.

If you aren't sending your readers over to your website to find out more about a product or service ... you should be selling them from within the newsletter. If you have a classified ad section of your newsletter ... put your own ads in it! And don't forget to tell people about your products and services ... old and new in the editorial sections of the newsletter.

Make sure you have good information and good relevant content for your readers... and don't be shy about telling them you exist ... that your products are there to help them with their problems ... that you have a solution to their problems and woes! Hit their hot buttons again and again. This is what your newsletter is for! Make sure you build credibility and rapport with your subscribers. Adding things like "Our email lists are totally private, we will never sell your information to anyone!" and follow through with your promise, because if they believe in you, trust you and you can prove that you know what you are talking about, they will buy from you!