The Biggest Mistakes That Can Spell Doom For You As A Newsletter
Publisher And How To Avoid Them
A lot of newsletter publishers spend a great deal of time
wondering why they are not making money with their newsletters.
Most of them expect to make so much money on getting started but
they become disappointed with poor results.
The reasons are not far-fetched. They are making the biggest
mistakes that can only guarantee failure.
It is important therefore for you to know what these mistakes
are so that you can avoid them. One famous writer once said,
'Those who don't know the mistakes of people who have failed are
condemned to repeat such mistakes'.
You will agree with me that if you keep repeating such mistakes,
you will keep failing.
The first mistake is trying to promote too many affiliate
programs in one issue of your newsletter. It is a very grave
mistake that most newsletter publishers make. They cannot resist
the temptation of making as much money as they can from
affiliate programs.
This drives them into promoting too many of the affiliate
products at a particular point in time, resulting in a
newsletter filled with affiliate links instead of quality
content.
Such newsletters are real turn-offs for subscribers. Imagine
going through a newsletter that is just filled with affiliate
links instead of valuable content. How would you feel?
Disappointed, I believe.
Subscribers want you to guide them into making the right
decisions. They know where to get some of these products
themselves but they are receiving your newsletter so that they
will learn more from you and receive guidance from you.
It is wrong, therefore, for you to bombard them with dozens of
affiliate products in one newsletter instead of quality advice
and informative content.
Affiliate products are very good and effective when they are
relevant to the information you are giving to your subscribers
at that point in time. They lose their value when you overuse
them in a particular newsletter.
If you have a lot of products to promote to your subscribers, it
is important for you to spread them out in the different issues
of your newsletters. This way, your subscribers will not be
inundated with them.
In promoting affiliate products to your subscribers, always
remember that 'quality is better than quantity'.
The first and most over-riding reason for publishing your
newsletters is not to sell anything to your subscribers but to
provide quality content to them.
With this in your mind, it is necessary for you to face the task
at hand of providing them with quality information, then
occasionally introducing them to few products that will help
them make more sense out of the information you have provided
them.
Also, make sure that the products you are recommending to them
are of high quality. In other words, make sure that you have
used the products yourself and have been very satisfied with the
results. This will make your subscribers to see you as a person
recommending the product for the good of the product and not
just for the profit you seek to derive from the affiliate point
of view.
This brings me to the second biggest mistake that you can make
as a newsletter publisher. That is, trying very hard to sell a
product in your newsletters instead of preselling.
Like I have said earlier, your subscribers do not see you as a
salesperson. They see you as someone who is out there to provide
them with quality content that will help them make their lives
better. If they needed someone to sell to them, they would have
gone out there to the marketplace to search!
You should therefore avoid trying so desperately to sell to them
through your newsletters. They will sense this and defiantly
refuse to buy through your links.
You should know that most of your subscribers also receive other
newsletters that probably do the exact same thing you are trying
to do to them.
Remember too, that the product you are trying to promote also
has a sales letter, which is prepared solely for the sake of
selling. It will therefore be wrong of you to use your
newsletter as another 'sales letter' only for your subscribers
to click to the site and see another sales letter waiting for
them.
This will be 'double bombardment' of sales attempt. At the end
of the day this will be very counterproductive to you.
Instead, presell to them.
Preselling here means that you should spend more time telling
them the benefits of the product you are recommending to them.
By preselling, you are providing your subscribers with very
valuable and great content that will be of extreme value to
them.
This will make them to see you as a good newsletter publisher
who is out to help. It will therefore make them to click through
to your affiliate links with pleasure.
Many of them will know even before they click through that you
are referring them to your affiliate link. But what matters is,
'how do they feel about YOU before clicking on that affiliate
link?' Bingo!
The answer to this question is what will determine whether you
will succeed in converting that click into a sale or not. This
is because preselling is all about YOU and how your subscribers
feel about YOU.
If you are able to get them to derive a lot of benefit and
satisfaction from the value of your information, they will click
through and BUY anything you 'recommend' (not sell) to them.
The third biggest mistake you can make is trying to use 100
methods all at once to promote your newsletter. This will result
in a 'jack of all trade, master of none' syndrome.
Know that there would always be other ways of doing a particular
thing. But the most important question you should keep asking
yourself is, 'what are the best methods?'
So, instead of using all the 100 methods you know for promoting
your newsletter, it is important for you to pick the few best
ones and use them.
When it comes to newsletter promotion, I highly recommend that
you should settle for the most effective methods, which include
joint ventures, article writing, search engines and buying
leads. By spending most of your time promoting your newsletters
through these few methods, you will make more progress.
A good proverb comes to mind here, 'too many cooks spoil the
broth!'
The forth biggest mistake you can make as a newsletter publisher
is trying to use ineffective means of promotion like surfing for
traffic, banner exchanges and posting to classifieds. Believe
me, they don't work.
Most people, in fact, hate these methods. Banners, for example,
have been classified by the big names in Internet marketing like
Ken Envoy, as a complete waste of time and money, as far as
promotion is concerned.
Also, the classified ads sites and other FFA
(Free-For-All-Sites) should be 'no-go' areas for you as far as
promotion is concerned. Instead, spend your limited time and
money in using effective methods that are sure to work for you.
You could add as many as 1000 subscribers using just one
effective method at once if you do it right.
Also, make sure you don't fall for the hype offered by so many
companies today. Many of them try to convince you that you can
send an email to as many as 3.5 million recipients spam fr'ee
for as little as $27.
Not only is it a big lie, but it is also very unproductive. You
will end up getting your credibility badly battered and even
getting the Merchants that you are promoting their products into
trouble.
Most of such millions of email addresses were actually harvested
from various sources on the Internet and other offline avenues
like newspapers and magazines. This means that emailing them
will result to spam because they neither know about you nor are
expecting to receive any email from you.
Lastly, most newsletter publishers make the mistake of waiting
until everything is right before starting off. You realize know
that everything can't be right all at once.
You need to start somewhere first. God Himself did not create
the whole world at once. This shows that nothing can be perfect
from the scratch. You need to start, learn more along the way
and continue to strive until you reach the status of a guru.
All the so-called gurus you see today started from somewhere.
They were all in this same position you are today, but they had
the courage to get started. You should therefore start right
away on making the best out of your newsletter! You own it to
yourself to start right now.
===== Ron Pioneer You can learn how to avoid the mistakes that
newsletter publishers make in my website: http://www.affila.com/
=====