One of the most cost effective yet under used ways to keep in contact with your clients is through the creation and distribution of an email newsletter or ezine.

By writing and sending a newsletter regularly you have the opportunity to keep in touch with clients and prospects.

This last weekend at the BT Small Business Show where I was providing advice at the business clinic about branding and marketing your business, the subject of how to start your ezine kept coming up.

What many entrepreneurs don’t realise is that it’s much easier than you might think – in fact for one businessleader, we developed a publishing calendar so that now they have the core content ideas for the ezine for the next 12 months.

In fact, I’ve encouraged some of my smart and savvy clients to repurpose their ezine articles to create chapters of their book or other information product.

I am  therefore delighted to have as my guest on Biz Growth Live, denise cox (that’s not a typing error, it’s how she writes her name) of Newsweaver, Europe’s leading email newsletter specialist, providing businesses with the software to create email newsletters.

Newsweavers clients include Shell, BP, 3M, Irish Rugby, Ernst and Young and the Intercontinental Hotels Group to name but a few global brands that they work with. And we’ll have the opportunity to discuss with denice tips and tricks for ezine marketing that these multibillion dollar businesses have access to.

Here are the detils of the Masterclass on ezines and email newsletters:

DATE OF THE EZINE MASTERCLASS: Monday 19 May 2008

TIME OF  THE EZINE MASTERCLASS: 6pm Dublin and London/ 1pm ET/10am PT

INVESTMENT: FREE

REGISTER: Register at Biz Growth Live if you don’t already receive a copy of our newsletter which as all the details for the programme in it.

If you have questions for denise and I you can ask them by posting them here or on our live questions page.

Here are some of the areas I’ll be discussing with denise:

• Best practice in ezine marketing content
• What we should look for when selecting an ezine service
• An overview of the legislation we need to be aware of in the field of ezine marketing
• How to encourage people to register for your ezine
• The best day of the week to distribute your newsletter
• Best practice in formatting your ezine
• Whether with the increase in business blogging and connecting to customers using social media, the ezine is a marketing tool of the past.

If you don’t receive a copy of my newsletter Biz Growth Express which provides the details of how to join me on this call, you can register today.

Don’t forget to join me for this Biz Growth Live call as what we will be discussing is a strategy that you can get started with straight away to market your business and attract more lead, more clients and more profit.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

You can access a series of six articles I wrote about how to build your brand through writing and distributing an ezine or email newsletter here:

Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6.

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One of the strategies I encourage attendees of my workshops or programmes to adopt is the creation of audio tutorials, special reports, white papers or e-books which they can use on their business blog or website to attract people to register for their ezine or newsletter.

E-books continue to be a popular marketing tool to attract more leads and more clients as the investment you need to create them is minimal - you can use Word or PowerPoint (or the equivalent if you are using a Mac) to create the document and then use a PDF creator to create the copy you make available on your website or business blog.

Many people decide to create their e-book themselves without employing a designer to format the final version and create a professional layout and that’s not a problem.

 However if you are going to layout and format your ebook yourself here are five keys to remember to ensure that your e-book will look professional and be on-brand:

1. Colourful Pages - use colour sparingly when formatting your e-book. Absolutely make sure that the colours you use connect with your corporate brand so that it looks consistent.However your readers will not thank you when you have lots of colour in your e-book, and even worse if whole of the background of your ebook in a solid colour. Many people print e-books and they don’t like the expense or time that it takes to print a document in colour.
2. Let Your Copy Breath - as we continue to be bombarded with information, increasingly as readers and consumers of information we scan information.

   Format your e-book so that it is easy on the eye with lots of white space, perhaps using ‘call outs’ to focus your e-book readers on key points you want to make or quotes and use bulleted lists to help your copy breath.

3. Add Page Numbers - as your e-book streams off the printer, it’s easy for the pages to get muddled up.

   An often forgotten tip is the adding of page numbers to the header or footer of your e-book, making it easy for your reader to put them back in order when they drop the pages of your e-book.

4. Check Your Links - one of the benefits of writing an ebook versus a traditional book is that you can easily create active links to web pages in your e-book.Many e-book authors use this as an opportunity to include links to pages on their website or business blog for more information or even to affiliate programmes they participate in that provide resources and products or programmes the readers of their ebook will find of benefit.

   If you do decide to create links in your e-book, before you publish it online, be sure to check that the links still work to maximise the opportunity of people being able to click through to your links and eliminate the customer service emails you will receive from readers of your e-book advising you that your links in your e-book do not work.

5. Promote Your Brand - if your e-book is printed and then people come back to review it in several months or even years time, are you confident that they will know how to find you if they want to connect with you the ebook author for more information, advice or tips?

   Don’t forget to add your web address to the footer of your e-book and in the back pages of your e-book, use the opportunity to provide people with information on how to find our more about your programmes, products or services.

Apply these tips and your e-book will look professional and on-brand. Of course the copy in your e-book needs to be top class, expressing your expertise and thought leadership in your field. But remember that people often judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t let your e-book, special report or white paper readers be put off reading the quality content due to poor formatting of your e-book.

What tips do you have for others for formating e-books so they are professional and on-brand?

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

If you are an e-book author or an author of a traditional book, don’t forget to check out the details of the forthcoming workshop taking place in Dublin on the 7 June 2008, hosted by Font Literary Agency about Online Marketing, Publicity and Promotion for your book or e-book. Readers of Biz Growth News and my Biz Growth Community can register to access a discount - you can find all the details here.

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This is just a quick reminder for you in relation to the Biz Growth Live Teleseminar Masterclass where we will be in conversation with Peggy Murrah and Chris Muccio  and we will be discussing how social media strategies are applicable for solopreneurs growing their business.

Yes, I know I bring you lots of tips, articles and podcasts about social media marketing and communications, but I thought it would be interesting to have Peggy and Chris share their experiences with you.

This is an ideal seminar if you are a solopreneur and want to discover how to best use social media in your business to build your brand online and attract more clients

DATE OF SALES MASTERCLASS: Monday 12 May 2008

TIME OF SALES MASTERCLASS: 6pm Dublin and London/ 1pm ET/10am PT

INVESTMENT: FREE

REGISTER: Register at Biz Growth Live if you don’t already receive a copy of our newsletter which as all the details for the programme in it

If you have questions for Peggy or Chris, you can post your question here on the blog or over at our live questions page.

Some of the areas we will be covering are:

• What Web 2.0 really means
• Why social media is a relevant business development strategy for you as a solopreneur
• Key areas of social media for solopreneurs and what the key platforms are
• The biggest mistake people make when looking to include social media in solopreneur marketing plan
• Tips for making sure we’re effective with our time in implementing social media
• Social media optimisation – What it is and why is it important

And if you are interested in learning more about social media and Web 2.0 you can access your own copy of Peggy and Chris’s report ‘29 Tips to Get Started With Web 2.0′ here.

So I hope you will join me if you’ve questions about social media for solopreneurs and how it can help you cost effectively attract more clients to your business.

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Are you authoring your business book or novel or perhaps you are writing your book at this time and are wondering how you can reach more potential readers through low cost strategies?

Then you won’t want to miss the live event being hosted by  Font Literary Agency who are based in Dublin.

Here are the event details - make sure that you read on to find details of how you can access a discount as a member of the Biz Growth Community as I am one of the speakers.

EVENT: Reaching Readers: Online Publicity And Promotion for Writers And Books

LOCATION: Dublin

DATE: Saturday, June 7th 2008

TIME:  9.30am to 5pm

INVESTMENT: €140 per person for members of the Biz Growth Community (Regular Price €165 per person) - just let them know you read Biz Growth News.

AGENDA 

09.15:  Registration

09.30:  Reaching Readers: Why Writers Need Publicity 

11.00:  Becoming A Household Name: The Author as Brand

13.30:  Writing for the Web

16.00: The Virtual Book Tour

17.00:  Finish

Book your place at the Online Marketing, Publicity And Promotion Workshop for authors today.

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As you might be aware, I’ve been a key note speaker at Bank of Ireland series of workshops called ‘Starting And Growing Your Own Business’ for entrepreneurs in Ireland. 

These have proved excellent events to connect to resources and advice from experts about how to start and grow your business - and of course the opportunity to network with fellow entrepreneurs.

I’m on the panel of speakers and talk about ‘Marketing On A Shoestring Budget’ so that you attract more clients and more profit.

The events are free to attend.

Here are the dates for the next events in the series (venues will be detailed as soon as they have been confirmed).

If you do plan to attend let me know - I look forward to seeing you there:

• Monaghan - Tuesday 13th May 2008 - The Westenra Arms Hotel, Monaghan
• Limerick - Tuesday 20th May 2008 - The Hlton Limerick Hotel, Ennis Road
• Wicklow - Tuesday 27th May 2008

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