Fred Gleek writes a good newsletter, even if it is in plain text and a mile long. It’s enjoyable and, more importantly, full of valuable common sense on Internet marketing. To get on his ezine list, send a blank email to tips@seminarexpert.com.

Here’s what Fred has to say about visitors to your web site. Imagine that your site is really good, has valuable content, and some informational products for sale. It’s so good that 5% of them actually buy and download something from you. What about the 95% that don’t?

Remember, if you have a great site, it will close 5% or so.
This means that 95% of the people who come to your site
will leave without buying. What will you do with them? In fact,
the answer to that question is almost more important that
learning how to close a greater number of people.

How do you get them to stop and say: "OK, I’ll give you a
chance. If you claim that you have some good stuff I’ll give
you my email address, but don’t take advantage of me and start
sending me loads of crap."

If you can get 20% of those 95% who aren’t buying to let you
continue the conversation, you’re in good shape. They are
willing to give you another shot if you first prove yourself.

I believe strongly in giving visitors a chance. Not everybody’s ready to buy after one visit. But many want to sample you and your stuff a little more, they are willing to give you another chance.

Give them your newsletter to subscribe to, give them a valuable report ("6 secrets about X that they won’t tell you"), or, like Fred, give them 5 free books!

Also, please feel free to share the following link
with people to get 5 copies of my most popular
books for FREE!

http://www.FredGleeck.com/ebooks

People love free, especially when it’s packed with value. But remember, as Fred says, be respectful of your visitors’ time and intelligence: Don’t start sending them a load of crap! (That’s a quote from Fred, not my words!)

I have high respect for people who have built their newsletter subscriber lists to the thousands, not so much because as the Internet marketing gurus proclaim, "thar’s gold in them thar lists," but because of the diligence it takes.

First of all you have to have something of value to say, or people won’t sign up, or they won’t stay signed up. If you bother people with useless information or excess promotion, they will unsubscribe. But if you give them valuable tips they can apply in their lives and work, they will love you for it, and recommend your newsletter to others.

I struggle with self-promotion, like many other professionals. I hate to bother people. I know how crowded our inboxes can get, and there are many ezines that just aren’t worth it, or they are too long and I don’t have time to read them all. So I’ve decided to practice what I preach:

I am revising my ezine Newsletter Nuggets, merging it with BizBook Nuggets, and starting to build the subscriber list once again. I intend to make it shorter and more valuable by giving a brief marketing nugget, a list of articles posted on my blogs, and an announcement of what’s new.

Want to see how list building can work? This week marks the start of week 1 for building a new subscriber list for my ezine Newsletter Nuggets. I’m hoping to model good list building tactics and grow subscribership quickly. You can help by letting colleagues know how to sign up on my website.

To sign up, go to my home page at www.customizednewsletters.com, and put in your name and email address in the upper left hand corner of the web page. You will automatically be subscribed and you will get Newsletter Nuggets delivered to your inbox.

When you sign up, I will donate $.50 to my favorite charity, the I AM Foundation. For every two new subscribers, the I AM Foundation will get $1 and a child will get a book to read. This is a great charity and I recommend checking them out and donating to their worthy cause to promote books to children.

As always, your feedback and suggestions on building this subscriber base for Newsletter Nuggets are most welcome.

Getting people to subscribe to your ezine is becoming more difficult. Readers are leery of creating overloaded email inboxes and getting spammed.

That said, you can still get subscribers and build your email database of loyal readers.

Here are three steps to list building:

1. Be clear who your target audience is and what they want to know. What are their biggest challenges?

2. Be clear about what some of the simple solutions are, and be generous about sharing them with your readers.

3. Make them an offer they can’t refuse: give them a special report, a teleseminar, a mini e-course: something of value that will help solve their problem.

Many email newsletter publishers have found that people will sign up for their newsletters just to get their special offer or report. But your invitation has to be what Ali Brown (the Ezine Queen) calls, "raving."

Ali says, "your RAVING invitation must make you feel like, if you don’t sign up for this thing, you are going to miss out on information that will change your life or your business."

Always reassure them they can unsubscribe at any time, and make that process easy for them to do by including an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every newsletter. Here is a sample invitation that can be included on your website.

_______________________________________________________
Example:

"3 Simple Secrets to Publishing an Ezine that Gets Results!"

You’ll get it instantly, along with our award-winning how-to articles. Just fill in your first name and email address here.

First Name:_____________________

Primary Email:___________________

Get Special Report [button]

Privacy Policy: We will never sell, rent, or trade your email to any other organization.
___________________________________________________________

The offer is what people will sign up for, although it clearly states that the reader will also get regular article updates. But it is the report or free offer that is being promoted here, not the subscription to a free ezine.

Notice also that this invitation doesn’t ask for much information. People don’t want to reveal more than they have to, so this doesn’t even ask them for their last name!

This tip comes from Ali Brown’s ebook 101 Simple, FREE and Low-Cost Ways to Quickly Build a Massive Email List. It is available for purchase by clicking here.

This book is well worth the price of admission ($97) because it will save you time, money and energy and save you from making the mistakes most people make with trying to build their ezine subscription lists.

Building a list of loyal readers takes some time, but it won’t happen unless you have consistent persistence!