eZines flood mailboxes on a regular basis. The concept of advertising in an electronic magazine and giving it away is effective enough that nearly every successful business online has some kind of email list that they send regular messages to. In fact, eZines have proven so successful that regular print magazines have taken a tip from them, and some are now giving away subscriptions free in order to reach more people by advertising.

A good eZine is the one that does NOT get trashed as soon as the reader sees it in the inbox. Good ones have many other features in common also:

1. They are not just advertising. They have to give people good information that is helpful to them in some way.

2. The information is trustworthy and accurate.

3. They are well written, and ads are tastefully distributed through them.

4. They offer discounts or savings that are not available through other channels. This is very important, because wondering what goodie comes next will keep readers involved.

5. They NEVER send email to people who have not requested it, and especially not to people who have specifically stated that they do not want to receive it. You cannot just buy a mailing list of people who have subscribed to something somewhere and mass mail your eZine to them, it won't be effective. You need to have a sign up list, or you need to gather their email addresses from a form that they fill out for some other purpose but has a permission checkbox for the eZine.

6. They keep the content fresh and original.

7. They publish regularly, but not so often that they annoy people. Some eZines publish Daily Tips or something that comes in on a daily basis. They send out special announcements maybe once a week, but no more or they get annoying. Some eZines are only published weekly, and some only monthly. Some are published only when the distributor thinks there is enough information worthy of sending. If you charge for the eZine (a few do, we'll talk about that later), you better have few ads, lots of valuable information that stays original (not much repeat), and you had better publish on time. If you are sending out a freebie, then you don't need to publish on such a tight schedule.

An eZine can be made up of several different parts:

1. Articles - Articles are information, either observatory, statistical, instructional, whimsical, etc. As long as they will be interesting to your readers, they can do anything from telling them how to do something, to telling them what America thinks about it.

You can either write articles yourself (generally one from the editor per 'zine works good), hire someone to write for you, barter a byline and link for an article from someone else, or beg for favors from people you know. Generally asking for articles and trading them for a signature line and link is the most common successful tactic.

2. Quotes - Respect copyright laws! You may usually quote only a sentence or two, generally not more than a paragraph if you give credit to the person who originally said it. Online, it is more polite to link to the place where you found the quote, that brings traffic to the original writer and helps them. There are exceptions to this, some sites do not even want you to link to them without permission, but they are pretty rare.

Quotes are not a real space filler, they tend to be more of a mood setter or though provoker.

3. Opinions - Opinions can come from you, from your readers, or from someone whom you have regularly write an opinion column. They need to stay original though, and they need to vary in topic, or in different aspects of a topic.

You can solicit opinions from your readers. Some eZines ask a question one week, then publish the answer two weeks later, in an ongoing opinion poll that helps fill the space in the magazine and involves the readers at the same time. Some groups of people love to be involved - typically anything to do with do-it-yourself will attract people who are more likely to express an opinion.

4. Reviews - Reviews of products, media, websites, customer service, or anything makes a good item for an eZine. One of the easiest things to do because there is always something else you can check out and write a review of.

Generally reviews are more popular if they are of things that people simply do not have the time or expertise to check out themselves. Movie reviews are popular - if you target an audience and then review items in a way they can trust, they will keep reading. Technology reviews are also popular, both for techies and newbies, because techies don't have a lot of time to check out everything, and newbies don't know what to check out. Reviews have to be accurate though, because people need to know whether they can trust you to report not just what bugged you, but what might bug them too.

5. Ads for your own products. Basically a simple listing or highlighting of one particular item is going to be adequate here, unless it is a "Specials" notice (in which you can devote the entire thing to your own ads). Since the entire eZine serves as a large ad for your company, you really only need to remind them that this is what you do.

6. Ads for other people's products. Give these away if you have to at first. It is better that you have a few of them if you are also advertising ad space in the eZine - after all, who will advertise with you if no one else is?

7. Specials, discounts, giveaways, freebies, contests, or other goodies. These are a powerful thing, and if you decide to do this, you need to use a different one for every eZine issue. People get tired of seeing the same one, especially if it is not something they want. They will keep reading if there is a mystery about what will be offered next. You must ensure though, that your deals, freebies, and specials really ARE something worth reading about, not just hype.

8. At the bottom of every issue you need to put any disclaimers, policies, copyright info,or other stipulations that you need to state in every issue. You need to include an Opt-Out instruction in each issue. This is critical. Un-subscribe instructions need to be included in each emailing so your customers have the choice of stopping the inbox flood whenever they choose. Generally a disclaimer that this is an opt-in emailing and that they are receiving it because they requested it is posted along with the unsubscribe info.

You have three basic formats that you can do this in:

1. Text email - This means nothing but text. You can pretty it up a bit with a few ** ^^ >< or ~~ symbols, but basically it is a plain, scroll down only type format. The traditional eZines were all this way, and many low budget ones still are.

Advantage is that they are fast to send, and everybody can read them!

Disadvantage is that it is not very colorful, and it depends on people reading all the way through to get to all the stuff you want them to see.

2. HTML email - This is probably the most popular method of eZine publishing now. Basically it is like a mailed web page, with the graphics included as attachments.

Advantages are that it looks colorful, and can really snap out the attention getters. You can also include web links that actually work, and the layout can accomodate columns and other layouts that show more than one thing at a time.

Disadvantage is that not every email program reads these. In some programs they just show up as HTML code - not very friendly.

You can get around this by inserting a comment at the very top of the page (in HTML code view), which lists either a web address for a web version, or which tells them how to request a text only version. The comment will not be visible when the page displays in a program which interprets the code, but in a text email program the comment will show.

3. Web version - Many eZines consist of a web page, and the emailed message merely directs people to view the new copy online. This is not an effective method of running an eZine because people simply won't bother with the link a lot of times.

Now, do not confuse an eZine with a Web-zine. Yeah, I know, semantics. But there IS a difference! A web-zine is a magazine that publishes on a website on a regular basis. There are many of these, and they are not the same thing as an eZine. An eZine is technically an emailed magazine, so producing it as an online edition is not very efficient, and will lose you a lot of readers.

A few odd ducks will publish an eZine as a PDF document, which they email as an attachment, or which they provide a link to for download online. NOT a good idea, you not only create more work for yourself, you also create more work for your readers, and annoying your readers is ALWAYS a bad idea!

Now, in order to even start an eZine, you need two critical items: subscribers, and a group management system. We'll start with getting subscribers.

You can get them in tthree basic ways:

1. Put a link on your website that offers a free subscription. You can do that with an email form which subscribes them, or with an email link. The first option requires that you understand how to make a form, the second is simpler, it is just an email link with a slight modification. Instead of the usual mailto code for the link, add the following after your email address:

?subject=Subscribe to eZine

That way when you receive an email from someone, most email programs will have the subject already entered in, and the person just needs to send the email. A form is more direct, but this method lets people who are less experienced set up a Subscribe link.

If you use this method, send a confirmation email that states your privacy policy, and whether you will sell their email addresses or share them with anyone else. This is an important thing, people just hate SPAM.

2. A Subscribe checkbox in another form that your customers are filling out for other reasons. Most major web retailers have this built into their shopping cart, and some have it built into feedback forms. You can also conduct opinion polls and have a subscribe button on a form. State privacy policy below button.

3. Ask your customers for email addresses when they give you other information - this is similar to the above option, except you are not asking them to check a box if they want to subscribe, you just offer a checkbox to let them request NOT getting the emailing - again, your privacy policy should be clearly stated. This is an indirect method of getting subscribers, and you MUST not send them anything without giving them the chance to decline.

Along with subscribers you need a method for managing your emailings. There are several ways to do this:

1. Software specifically for this purpose. This can be costly, because it is aimed at corporations. It is more functional though, and allows automatic unsubscribe, and basically manages more of it for you and offers more choices. There is free software also that you can use to set up eZine management, but it requires much more technical expertise than software that you pay for.

2. Online services. You can use Yahoo Groups or some other free service. This allows you to produce any kind of emailing that you want, and your subscribers can subscribe or unsub through the group interface. You can set it to allow posts from the moderator only so that it works like a newsletter. Drawback is that it LOOKS like a Yahoo group, and you have Yahoo ads on it. There may be other services that work a little better for the purpose, but I have not had time to research them all.

3. Your Email program. Most email programs have the ability to create a Group (this may be in your address book). This is a bunch of email addresses that can be selected together and mass mailed. When you are ready to send your email, make sure you put YOUR email address in the To line - do NOT put the Group there! Find the command to send a BCC (that means Blind Carbon Copy) and put the group in THAT line instead (some programs do not allow you to do a BCC unless you also have an address in the To line, so you can just email it back to yourself). Doing it this way lets you send email to your group without all of the email addresses showing up in all of the mailings. NO professional company will EVER reveal those addresses to other clients in the way that would happen if you just sent them without the BCC command. Using this method you must subscribe and unsubscribe your users manually, by adding them to or removing them from the address group. You can back up your group using the export command in the file menu of your address book.

A good eZine will have approximately 4 articles, opinions, or reviews. In other words, about 4 things that would normally take up about one page typed. It will have a table of contents at the top which lists what is included in the eZine. This will give your readers a reason to scroll down, or save them time if there is nothing of interest.

You can either base each issue on a common theme so that all items are interrelated, or you can pick items that cover different issues. There is an advantage to each in how much reader appeal they have. Basically, you are attempting to either capture the attention of your readers with an entire issue but not EVERY issue, or with a little bit of each issue. You must choose what suits you best.

Some eZines have a paid edition. Most of them also have a freebie issue. The freebie issue has just 1-3 major items in it, with lots of ads, but it HAS to be good, because it serves as advertising for the paid version. The paid version usually has 6-8 articles in it, and fewer ads, or no ads. If you want to charge for it, then you have to run it like a business, not like a sideline - you have to be consistent, original, and you have to give them something worth their money! Paid versions can run $10 to $30 per year, but you can only charge the higher rate if it is a weekly, not a monthly.

Before you write your first issue, take a look at some biggies. WalMart, PCMag, PCShopper (which has a paid version), Get Organized Now, MommieSavers, and several more eZines are successful in one way or another.

An eZine can be a lot of work. But it can also provide a regular reminder to your customers that you stand ready to serve them. Companies use them because they work when they are done right.

Find links to promote your eZine and find articles for it at: http://www.skinnyshoestring.com/sohotools/articles.htm

Adventure Tech-Web offers a wide variety of web design and graphics services. If you need to hire something out, check with us before you decide it is not affordable!

Find more ideas on using email for marketing in the Website Marketing Handbook.