Schuetz

Imagine this: I'm sitting in front of the computer at 2am - again. My wife and cats -- and most of the rest of the sane world -- have already gone off to their rest. Me? I'm desperately trying to keep up with my correspondence. As my network grows, I'm falling further and further behind. My sleep-deprived mind can't formulate another coherent sentence. As my forehead comes crashing down on the keyboard, some tiny part of me is sobbing, "There must be a better way!"

We all struggle to maintain our vast networks. Keeping ourselves top of mind requires contact. And we all know that just sending out our most recent advertising to a mailing list doesn't really count as "contact". The trick would be to have that same convenience without someone deleting our message as yet one more piece of spam.

Enter the e-zine.

An e-zine (short for "electronic magazine") is just a newsletter that you send through e-mail. What makes it different from "advertising"? Simple: The content of your e-zine is about educating, not selling (your readers will know the difference and will resent the latter). The topics can range from the simple to the sublime and may be only loosely related to your business (a florist writing about event planning, for example). Most of all, the recipients of the e-zine have all opted to receive it. That means that they want to hear from you. Never, never, never sign up someone for your e-zine who has not explicitly agreed to receive it. It's bad networking and may even be illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act.

The biggest complaint I always hear when I suggest this is "but what would I write about?" After I clarify the whole issue of dangling prepositions, I suggest that anyone who has their own business knows enough that they could easily write down twenty to thirty small ideas or topics about that business that the average reader wouldn't know. The florist could start with watering frequency and go all the way through flower colors. A carpenter could write about getting permits for that new basement through lumber choice for a picnic table. Heck, those in the financial world could start writing up simple definitions of the terms they use and would have enough for years of weekly newsletters.

Also, while it's always best to write in your own voice, when necessary there are a plethora of services which provide content for free for websites, newsletters, etc. Just do a Google search on "ezine articles" and you should have plenty of options from which to choose.

With respect to keeping everything organized, most hosting services provide access to simple mail list management applications as a part of their monthly fee. You can also find numerous sites online which talk about how to run things yourself. Or, if you'd prefer to offload most of that effort, there are several commercial services which can help you manage your newsletter.

For the expenditure of a few hours of your time per issue (which shrinks as you become used to the process), you get the benefit of supplementing your more personal contacts and having your readers view you as an expert in your field. As Tom Stanley says in Networking with Millionaires, "Talkers are hawkers, but writers are experts." Become an expert.

Copyright 2007, All Rights Reserved

Greg Peters is the owner and superhero-in-residence of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better web presence for their clients for more than a decade. We specialize in tools which help folks keep their websites up to date, fresh, and interesting. Visit us on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your webmaster.