This morning, I was contemplating the question of how many ezines (electronic magazines) were currently in circulation. So, I tried to do a bit of detective work.
* Newsletter Access (http://www.newsletteraccess.com/) has nearly 10,000 ezines listed in their database.
* PubList.com shows 150k in their database.
* The ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) database has so far registered more than one million periodicals, many of those being in the electronic format. (http://www.issn.org/)
No matter which set of numbers you follow, there are a lot of ezines competing with your ezine for the same set of readers.
With so much competition in the marketplace for ezine subscribers, it is imperative for us to learn how to develop a loyal following among our own subscribers. In this article, I examine a three ezines that are excelling in the marketplace and building a large and loyal following of readers. I will also look at three reasons why these three e-zines are doing so well.
The Electronic Newsletters That We Will Review...
1. Travel by Vasrue Weekly E-Magazine (http://travel.vasrue.com/newsletter/index.html)
2. Your Membership (http://www.yourmembership.net/)
3. SiteProNews (http://www.sitepronews.com/)
Original And Exclusive Content
All three of these electronic newsletters utilize original content at one level or another.
* Travel by Vasrue uses only exclusive, original, travel content in their E-Magazine.
* The Your Membership newsletter, owned by AEO Publishing, Inc., provides a section of their newsletter for webmasters to submit websites for review, and then they print some of those reviews for their readers to consider. They also allow individuals to submit questions, and then they print the best answers submitted by their readers.
* SiteProNews, owned by Jayde Online, Inc., utilizes a lot of first-run, original content written by members of their staff, including articles written by Jim Hedger and Mel Strocen. Some of this content can be seen in other publications later, but you will always see it in SiteProNews first.
Exclusive content allows your ezine to stand far above all of your competitors. While free reprint articles (like this one) are a good source of information, most of your competitors rely solely on other people to create the content for their newsletters.
For most readers, this is not a big deal, except when the particular article used may have been read in competing ezines previously.
Readers tend to favor ezines that utilize exclusive or first-run content in their issues.
A Winning Formula
Successful ezines always have a specific format and formula for their publications.
* Travel by Vasrue focuses on giving their readers specific information that they can use to make good travel decisions. They also provide specific information regarding a choice of vacation options within the context of their currently discussed travel destination.
* The Your Membership newsletter focuses on offering their readers an opportunity to ask questions and to have those questions answered by other readers who have the knowledge to share.
* SiteProNews prefers to provide content that will point you to third-party resources that are related to the current topic.
Once an ezine has found their winning formula, that formula will become their trademark.
They Understand Their Readers
If you do not understand what your readers want from your newsletter, you will never be able to develop a profitable mailing list.
* Travel by Vasrue doesn't leave it to chance. They ask their readers what destinations they would be interested to find specific information. Then they deliver exactly what their readers have asked to receive.
* The Your Membership newsletter is offered on a dozen or so websites that cater specifically to the needs of webmasters who are looking to develop a commercially viable website. While the source of the subscription pretty much defines what their readers want to see in the newsletter, the fact that they rely on the Q&A process to fill their issues helps them to select articles that would be of real interest to their readers.
* SiteProNews is offered to the people who use Jayde Online's many free webmaster tools. Their newsletter caters to the needs of those commercial webmasters who are already utilizing their free tools.
In Conclusion...
Successful ezines are those that are willing to cater to the specific needs of their readers, and then they deliver their information in a consistent format. Successful ezines are also those that are willing to invest the extra time, effort and money into creating one-of-a-kind, original content for their readers to voraciously consume.
While those reprint articles are often very informative, I am sure that you hate it when you see the same article appear in a number of the ezines that you read. A once-in-a-while repeat article is all well and good, but if one ezine is consistently following in the footsteps of another ezine you read, then why would you want to keep reading the second?
The Your Membership newsletter has shown us that utilizing mostly reprint articles can prove successful, when you are willing to mix some other kinds of exclusive content with the free reprint articles. SiteProNews has shown us that you can be successful when you are willing to mix original, first-run articles with reprint articles.
By following the lead of those who have been successful before you, you might just find that you can build your mailing list to be a very profitable aspect of your overall enterprise. It is my hope that this free reprint article has given you some food for thought as to how to follow in the steps of those before you.
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