A Dozen List Building Methods Using An e-zine.

Thank you for reading articles from the FontanieMagazine. You now know that the e-Zine focuses attention on five broad areas:

Business Growth – wherever it is; LeaderManager Development- become the executive you were meant to be; Workplace Culture – making better workplaces; Skills4Success – strengthening adult knowledge skills for life; and Health and Wellbeing – nurturing your whole self. 

Presently all the articles are free for personal and company use as long as you identify the source of the article. You know that writing original articles take time and several of my associates have suggested I charge a subscription rate for my efforts. I have chosen not to do so as this is my way of giving back to those who believe personal growth and development matter.  

So, how do I support the e-zine? Well, there is a STOREFRONT with a growing number of items that people can purchase; there is a paid membership site FORTIS MEMBERSHIP which concentrates on eight dimensions of health, wellbeing, and training (all e-books and video training I develop are free to members); and there is FACSi Academy which has over 150 courses and training manuals for purchase and finally I provide Executive Coaching to select clients. 
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If you have an e-Zine or equivalent here are a dozen ways to promote it.

1. The ‘Give Away’ Method
Inform your potential subscribers they will receive a free e-book for subscribing. You could also include your e-zine ad in the e-book and allow them to give the e-book away or offer resell or master resell rights. This method is posted on the FM Welcome page.

2. Give ‘Private Label Rights’ Method 
Inform your potential subscribers that they will get the private label rights to the articles if they subscribe. People will be able to read and use your content as they wish. There is a huge demand for private label content these days. Mine are already free for users with the proviso that they identify the source. With PLR the source is not identified and can be used as the person sees fit according to the terms provided.

3.  Use ‘Content As They See Fit’ Method 
Inform your potential subscribers that they can reprint or republish the articles or content if they subscribe. People will be able to read and use content as they see fit. You could include your e-zine ad under each article they republish, or in my case I stipulate they note the source of the article.

4. The ‘Future Goals’ Method 
Inform your potential subscribers the goals they will achieve when they subscribe to your e-zine. You could inform them how your content will help solve their problems, improve their lifestyle, or resolve challenges they face.

5. Goal ‘Non-fulfillment’ Method 
Inform your potential subscribers what they may not be able to achieve if they don't subscribe to your e-zine. You could inform them how not reading your information or content could cause future problems, safe them from making mistakes, or make their life worse.

6. The ‘Prize Promotion’ Method 
Inform your potential subscribers they could win ‘prizes’ by subscribing to your e-zine. You could inform them that you will randomly select a subscriber every week to get one of your products for free. To make it interesting you could include an action they need to complete in order to receive the prize.

7. The ‘Cash Card’ Method 
Inform your potential subscribers they could win a ‘Cash Card’ prize of $50. by subscribing to your e-zine. You could inform them that you will randomly select a subscriber every week or every month for the ‘Cash Card’ prize. You can make this a time limited offer by saying for the month of February, for example, receive a randomly selected $50. Cash Card from Amazon.

8. The ‘Subscribe Forward’ Method 
Inform your current e-zine subscribers to forward your e-zine to their friends, family, or associates. If they like it, they'll end subscribing and forwarding it to their circle of acquaintances. It's a virtual answer to word-of-mouth marketing.

9. The ‘Monthly Circulation’ Method
Inform those on your existing list that they will receive articles that they may have missed during the past month. In the e-mail letter identify the ‘Prize Method’, ‘Cash Card’ Method or one of the other methods. Also identify other related ‘Ads’ in your email. We send out monthly ‘ You May Have Missed Articles’ and at the bottom of the email we promote two or three further items.

10. The ‘Weekly Circulation’ Method
Send a weekly FREE article to those on your existing list. This gets regular exposure to the e-zine. Highlight a special promotional item and include an ad of one of your other products or services. We have done this in the past. It is an article posted as an email.

11. The ‘Play-it-Forward Bonus’ Method
Inform those who visit your e-zine site that if they forward the e-zine to a potential subscriber and if the person subscribes, both those that forwarded the e-zine and the new subscriber will receive a bonus such as an e-book or one of the methods described above. With this method you will need to ensure you are capturing the email address of the new subscriber and the person who forwarded the e-zine.

12. The ‘Engage Them’ Method
Inform your potential and existing subscribers that you accept article submissions. You’ll get people who will subscribe just so they can submit articles and see them published. Make sure you inform them that you will identify them as the author and will give a link to their website. You will need to develop a policy around articles you will accept. By using the ‘Engage Them’ Method you can potentially get a steady stream of content without doing all the heavy lifting yourself.

By the way, if you are requesting potential subscriber emails, we found that asking for their first name works best. Make sure you also include a confidentiality clause at the bottom of your opt-in page, something like, ‘we do not rent or distribute your emails to others.’ And if you are going to send them promotional material it is also advisable to include a sentence that goes something like this: ‘By entering your email you agree to receiving promotional material and information about our products on a timely basis.’

Thank you for reading,
Richard P. Fontanie