Tuesday, June 05, 2007

How to Name Your Newsletter for Maximum Profit & Subscriber Signup (Part I of II)

Inkwell Editorial will publish a new newsletter* starting tomorrow entitled, How to Start a Successful Freelance Career. Sign up and receive a FREE e-book. Details.

I vacillated on the name, which surprised me because I’ve been writing about marketing and business for over a decade. I know tried and true marketing “isms.”

So, what made me wishy washy on the name? My passion. It got in the way. This happens to most small business owners. No matter how smart we think we are, sometimes, our passion gets in the way of solutions.

Once I figured this out, I decided on a name quickly. Following is some in-depth advice on how to name your newsletter for maximum profit and subscriber signup.

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Steps to Naming Your Newsletter for Maximum Profit & Subscriber Signup

Ask yourself, "What does it do?" Several things can cause you to stumble when it comes to naming your newsletter or e-zine, eg:

a) You don’t want to alienate any potential readers: For example, my genre is freelance writing. I don’t want to alienate any freelance writer. BUT, although I write within a niche, it’s a broad niche.

So, I need to speak to those my products are mainly targeted to. And, that tends to be freelancers who are just starting out.

So, because my primary market within the freelance writing community is those who are just beginning (ie, have less than three years of experience), the name How to Start a Successful Freelance Career, fit perfectly.

Remember, your newsletter is a marketing vehicle. So, treat it accordingly and speak directly to your core audience at all times.

b) You want to be everything to everybody: This is the flip side of the previous point.

Trying to be everything to everybody will cause you to publish a newsletter that is of no measurable benefit to any one group.

When you hone in on one group, you can solve a multitude of problems for them, making you a go-to source. This leads to trust, which leads to referrals -- which eventually leads to sales.

So, make your newsletter extremely valuable to a few, rather than marginal to many. A good example of this is Darren Rowse’s site, problogger.net. If you want to know about blogging for money, this is the first site you should visit – and possibly the only one you’ll ever need to.

Many are afraid to speak to a niche because they’re afraid they’ll run out of things to write about. I had this fear with my first newsletter – and when I started my blog over two years ago.

But, you know what? LIFE will supply you with endless topics. Not to mention your subscribers. I get questions that I never would have thought of from readers of my ebooks, blog and website.
AND, when you really focus on a group, you will begin to think broader and deeper about their lives – over and beyond say, their freelance writing needs.

You will start to think, for example, of how their freelance writing needs impact other areas of their lives. This is when you really start to make yourself valuable to readers.

For example, primarily, readers of my material want freelance writing advice and tips. BUT, they want it to increase their income because they want to spend more time with their families, get out of debt, leave a job they hate, etc. These are their real desires.

Case Example: I recently did a few articles on freelancers and debt. On the face of it, these two topics don’t go together. But, thinking about the totality of my readers’ lives, it makes perfect sense.

Freelancers have sporadic incomes. Many use credit cards – and other types of credit – to weather dry spells. So, the articles, How to Get Out of Debt on a Freelance Salary and Debt-Free Living: A freelancer's Personal Tale of Getting -- & Staying -- There were not only timely going into the slow summer season, they were necessary.

When you start to think about the breadth of your prospects’ lives, you will literally be overrun with ideas.

In conclusion, select a niche and go deep within it, instead of playing on the surface. Your readers will thank you for it -- in sales, subscriber sign-ups and referrals.

*Inkwell Editorial published a newsletter a couple of years ago on a sporadic basis.

Tomorrow: Part II of this post. We will discuss more things that can block you from coming up with an effective name for your newsletter/e-zine, how to combat them, and how to tell when a name is “right.”
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