Thinking of starting your own newsletter
By Vern Anderson
Posted Sunday, January 16, 2005
Since I have only been at this for five months, I am in no way a pro.
I can however give you the pro's and cons of having your own newsletter.
OK let's start with the pros.
You get recognition
You can place your own ads for free.
You get to have your own opt-in list.
You find there are still very nice people out there, reading your newsletter.
You can post your articles for other ezines to use, creating advertising for you.
With a large enough subscriber base you can sell ads to other marketers, once you can do this, you can start getting back some of the bucks you spent getting to this position. (I HOPE)
You also have a sense of pride, that in some small way, you may have made someone's day a little better.
Now let's take a look at the cons.
Before I start the cons, I want to tell you this. Don't let this talk you out of starting your own newsletter. I am convinced this is the thing to do if you plan on staying on the internet and marketing.
You can start out without spending money, until your subscriber base gets to seventy five to one hundred. Then look out, because it starts to overwhelm you.
You are trying to send out one hundred emails by hand, using copy and paste.
You are receiving emails with subscribe in the subject line, and you are putting them on your opt-in list manually.
You print each and every subscribe, so if you get accused of using spam, you have proof that they signed up of their own free will.
You keep all of these in a special three ring binder, hoping you will never need them.
You try many many things as I have to try to handle all this without spending money.
Finally, you tell yourself, I just can't keep up and I must do something different. So you start looking for that free service, that will do this for you.
After looking at different options for a few days, you decide, I will not turn all of my subscribers over to any one else.
You are afraid of the horror stories of sites selling these list for the money involved. So you decide, I will do this myself, where I have control of my subscribers, and no one else.
Let me tell you what I did, and hopefully you will know better than to do this. I purchased a cgi script, since I know how to install cgi programs.
I didn't think this thru good enough, or I would have known, that this was not what I should be doing.
I paid, "hang onto your hat" $99.95 for this script. If you read my newsletter, you know what happened. My web host went down for about ten hours, and the end result was, I lost my entire subscriber list.
Thank God, I had most of it in my printed file as people subscribed. Think of the fun I had going thru over three hundred pieces of paper, setting up a new list.
On that very day, I said to myself, "Vern" that's what I call myself, most of the time. The other times, I can't put in print. I said this is going to change, before this happens again.
I tried many programs, ranging in price from $199.95 to $499.95. Some were so hard to setup, that you needed to be a computer expert to set it up.
I finally decided on Postmaster, $299.95, going to $349.95 very soon. I picked it, because a dummy like me can set it up.
I feel confident now that I can collect my subscribers info without having to worry about it.
Putting out this newsletter, takes time away from my advertising, but I think the advertising I get by putting it out, out weighs the time I missed promoting.
PS. If you are thinking of starting your own newsletter, (do it.) Send me the way to subscribe, and I will.
About the Author
Vern Anderson
Author of (Show Me The Way) ebook being shown at the Ebook Palace 101 South Cherry Street Lexington, Illinois 61753 (http://www.marketingnewsnewsletter.com) vern@marketingnewsnewsletter.com For autoresponder articles vern@freeautobot.com
