Internet Marketing -- Electronic Magazines
I saved the big one for last. Not the last for our whole
discussion, but the thing that has really made my income probably triple in the
last couple of months is my electronic magazine. I had 12,400 subscribers from
around the world as of January, 2001. I have not even done any big promotion,
like hit the Toast Masters Magazine that has 170,000 in circulation. I have
not been mentioned in any major publications on presentations yet, so the list
is probably going to go a lot bigger. You can make a lot of money off a small
targeted list of subscribers.
I got a jump-start on my subscribers because I have been
doing over 30 NSA chapters, 5 national events for NSA, and I have more
scheduled. Therefore, people see me. If any of you have seen my NSA programs,
they are big and I get tons of subscribers from that. Live appearances will get
you quite a few subscribers if you make sure you mention that it’s available
and collect business cards, that’s what we call “opting in.” They’re
saying, “Hey, I want on your list.”
I get three to four hundred subscribers a month from the
web site. I tell everybody about it when I talk to anybody who’s remotely
interested in being a good communicator, not just professional speakers because
the information is good for business people too. That’s how I built my list.
An electronic magazine is a simple email. It’s called
Ezine- or electronic magazine, or electronic newsletter. I call mine a magazine
because occasionally I’ll drop in what’s happening in the industry. Most of
the time it’s a “how to”—“how to be a great speaker,” “how to
market yourself,” etc. It also gives you free speaker humor.
It’s a simple thing to create. It can be created in the
simplest word processor. It takes no graphic design. I’m able, if I’m in a
hurry, to slam one together in the course of the day and send it out to over
12,000 people around the world in one day. Sometimes I’ve used excerpts from
my book so I don’t have to write a new article every issue.
Sometimes I’ve used articles from big name speakers, and some less well known speakers that had good information, so that’s why people stick with it. I do not get that many unsubscribes. I get some, but you are always going to get some.