The main questions on making money online with ezines: what, why and how

Business owners are constantly looking for effective and inexpensive ways to promote their products and services on the Internet. One of the most affordable online sales tools is an e-zine. Take advantage of this technology to drive leads, sales or revenue by selling products or advertising alongside quality original content. 

What does 'ezine' mean?
 
The word 'ezine' is a short version of 'electronic magazine'. It is an excellent tool for publishers to reach an audience at lower cost than using print medium. You don’t need to spend money for printing or postage costs or you can get some articles for free. As a result, nowadays marketplace includes about 300,000 ezines covering virtually every topic under the sun. 

Typically, ezines can be presented in two formats:
•    Email-based. When publishers speak of their ezines, they usually mean an electronic newsletter mailed periodically to a list of opt-in subscribers. 
•    Web-based. It means an online collection of articles and news. You can increase the number of readers using public directories, referral programs, social bookmarking tools and RSS feeds.

Why do people publish ezines? 

Online publishers produce their ezines for a plenty of reasons, including:
•    Collect contact information from prospective customers. By offering an ezine, you can collect e-mails from a lot of current and prospective customers. If you want to introduce a new product or service you can market it to an already-existing customer database.
•    Promote products or services. The ezine serves as a support mechanism for the products or services, which results into more sales and higher revenues. In every article of your ezine, you can share information about some products to a targeted audience that you already know is interested in them.
•    Build credibility. Assuming that you do competent work, your subscribers will regard you as an expert in your niche simply because you provide good and quality information. As you know, experts sell more and can charge more. 
•    Keep in touch with your customers. Using an ezine, you can remind your prospective customers that you are still in business. If you constantly keep yourself in front of your readers they will think about you first when they decide to buy some products that you also offer. 
•    Tell more people about your business. When you share interesting information with your readers, they can forward it to their friends, coworkers and family members with just a click of the mouse.
•    Drive repeat traffic. If readers and subscribers love your articles, they will visit your website over and over again to see what’s new. 

How to make money using ezines? 

Used properly, ezines can be excellent profit makers. Here's some moneymaking solution you can use:

Way 1. Sell ad space
Businesses need to advertise alongside quality original content. If you have an ezine that fits their market, then they could become your partners. For example, if you have a popular ezine dedicated to traveling and different countries, you can offer ad space to travel agencies.

Many ezines contain several ads from different companies. For example, there may be a banner on top, another ad on the left, and Google AdSense at the bottom. Prices will vary depending on how many readers your ezine have, where you want to display an ad, etc. The more targeted your subject and ezine, the more you can charge for advertising. 

Way 2. Promote affiliate products
Ezine publishers could sign up for affiliate programs that sell products related to their niche. You will get a commission each time a sale is made through an affiliate link you post in your article. For example, if your ezine is dedicated to wellness, health and beauty, you can promote organic acne cream and write an article telling about the specific problem this product solves.

This idea works for ezines of every size. However, it is important not to go overboard with affiliate links. There should be more valuable quality content than advertisements, or you can lose your readers – and your source of profit. 

Way 3. Sell your own products or services
When you sell your own products, you can use an ezine to boost sales and revenue. It will help you develop relationships within your niche, keep in contact with your potential customers and build your credibility in the marketplace.

Imagine that you sell forex trading software. You can start an ezine telling about Forex brokers, Forex currency trading, Forex capital markets, etc. If you have 1000 people subscribed to your website, 5-10% of them can become your clients. 

Way 4. Monthly membership
Paid subscription ezines are a hot trend. The concept of free content on the Internet is giving way to paid services, and ezines are not an exception. More and more publishers are beginning to charge fees for subscription instead of running paid ads. 

For example, you can start an ezine telling people how to become a professional journalist. You can charge $10 per month, so if you get 100 subscribes, you will receive $1,000 per month. Not bad, yep? Keep in mind that people don’t like to part with their hard-earned money, so you should offer something really useful and unique. 

How to start an ezine?

Once you have determined why you need an ezine, you should plan a publishing strategy that will help you reach your goals. First of all, determine ezine topic, format and frequency. You can study other ezines in your niche and analyze their readability and style.

The next point for consideration is content. No one will read an ezine created to push ads and promote affiliate products. Therefore if you want to publish an ezine and monetize traffic, think about quality and informative content.

Typically, ezine content is articles - news events, how-to guides, advice columns, interviews, press releases or others. Experts recommend writing at least some part of the content yourself. As a publisher, you have an excellent opportunity to create your ezine unique 'personality' that your readers will learn to identify - and appreciate - over time. 

You can also hire freelance writers or staff, use syndicated content or reprint articles from other ezine publishers. However, if the most part of your content is not original and unique, the readers won’t stay subscribed for a long time. 

If you want to mail your ezine to subscribers, decide how often you will do it. Most ezines are distributed on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis. It is usually best to distribute your ezine monthly until you have a large number of subscribers.

If your ezine is web-based, consider to distribute it using article directories, social bookmarking websites and RSS feeds to increase the number of readers. Also let your visitors reprint your articles on their own websites.