While there are hundreds of philosophies on how to make money online, one that everyone seems to agree on is this: You’ve Got To Have A Newsletter.
So, everyone goes out and starts one.
Problem is, down the road, it seems that many of these newsletters aren’t making their owners any money. What gives? Is the idea of having your own newsletter just another one of those “guru lies” like “make $10,000 your first month”? Or is there some other reason why some people
are making thousands each month from their newsletter while others are having trouble justifying the time it takes to put it together?
In a few articles, I want to outline just why some newsletters never make money and how to fix your newsletter so that you can make the big money you hear about so often.
Why isn’t it working?
There are several reasons why newsletters don’t make money:
1. Too High A Frequency of Publication
How often do you publish? If you’re newsletter sends out something every day, you are going to have low results. Here’s why:
Every time you send out a mailer, some people open it and read it-even solo ads. But some people unsubscribe, some people set up a “filter” to get rid of every further mailing from you, some people just automatically delete as soon as they see you in the “from” line. Some people cry “SPAM”.
The more often you mail, the higher percentage of people stop looking at your offers.
2. Too Low a Frequency of Publication
If you only publish “once in a blue moon” or on some irregular schedule, people are not looking forward to your publication. While this is better than #1, it still hurts the open rate for your newsletter. People don’t recognize you so they delete. Even worse, they may forget subscribing
and report you to their local SHC (Spam Harassment Committee). Ugh!
3. Poor Content
The most profitable newsletters provide high quality content every time they publish. If you are just throwing something together, no one will read your newsletter.
4. Poor “From” and “Subject” Lines
Goal number one: Get the Subscribers to OPEN the newsletter. Before anything else can happen, they have to open the thing. According to a number of studies, the FROM line is the most important factor in determining whether an email gets opened or not. The second most important factor is the subject line.
Remember: It’s not how many you mail, it’s how many that get read. That’s where the money is.
5. “Old Aged” Subscribers
No, I’m not talking here about senior citizens. “Old” subscribers refer to subscribers that have been subscribed for a long period of time. One of the reasons that the “big lists” have such low response rates is that to build a big list takes time. The older the average subscriber is, the less responsive the list will be. Here’s why:
(1) New subscribers almost always read the first couple issues of a newsletter, but over time they read them less and less often.
(2) When someone wants to stop reading your newsletter some people will unsubscribe. But just as many people will simply filter out your email address with their email program. What this means is that over time you are losing twice as many readers as you might think you are.
If you are losing 100 subscribers per week through unsubscribes, you are also losing 100 or more subscribers through filtering-which you will never hear about.
In the next article we are going to see how selling ads might guarantee you will never make much money.
Kevin Bidwell is owner of
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/cg-bin/at.cgi?a=274293
Kevin just finished a complete report on building a passive
income. Grab your copy here:
http://www.All-In-One-Business.com/cg-bin/at.cgi?a=274293&e=/pi
