Do not take your first E-zine issue lightly. It is more crucial than you think. If you are a salesperson by profession or have joined a Network Marketing company, you probably have learned that you have only 10 seconds to impress your prospect because that will be his impression towards you for the rest of as long as your prospect can remember!
That is the case with your first E-zine issue. You have only your first E-zine issue to impress your subscriber or propel him to unsubscribe from your E-zine or ignore any mails with your name on that enters his Inbox.
Most of the time, your first E-zine issue (or also confirmation mail) is sent to your subscriber to confirm his subscription to your E-zine.
Most E-zine publishers follow an almost same format and concept when it comes to sending out their first confirmation mail to their subscribers like below.
Subject: {FirstName}, Thank You for Subscribing
Hi {FirstName},
Thank You for your subscription to {Your E-zine Name}.
You are subscribed as {FirstName} {LastName} at
{Email}.
If you don't remember subscribing to this list, somebody
else could have misspelled his e-mail address when he subscribed. In this case, please accept our apologies. You can easily unsubscribe by clicking on the unsubscribe link below.
Otherwise enjoy your power-packed issues of our {Your E-zine Name}!
Sincerely,
{Your Name Here}
{Domain}
An E-mail like the above is very much of a standard confirmation mail.
Build a Bond with Your Subscribers and Understand Their Needs through Your First E-zine Issue
You have paid good money to listen to sophisticated advice. Here is one you should take.
Earlier, I have stressed the importance of building a relationship with yoursubscribers (and you know subscribers = prospects). Rather than writing your E-zine issues in a one-way relationship manner (like most E-zines),
write your first E-zine issue to let your subscribers know that you are open to subscriber replies and that they are not reading just any pre-written issue that you have stored into your Auto Responder.
In other words, write it in a “Yes, I’m talking to you!” manner. Also, you can take the chance to understand your subscribers and their needsbetter by including a set of survey questions into your first E-zine issue. Noteveryone will reply to your E-zine issue, but you will definitely get enough answers from your subscribers in order to understand them and their needs as a whole if done right.
Below is an example of a champion first E-zine issue you should model after for your own:
Subject: {FirstName}, Your Subscription to {Your E-zine Name}
Hi {FirstName},
This is {Your Name} here. :)
Thank you for subscribing to {Your E-zine Name}.
You are subscribed as {FirstName} {LastName} at
{Email}.
If you don't remember subscribing to this list, somebody
else could have misspelled his E-mail address when he subscribed. In this case, please accept my apologies. You can easily unsubscribe by clicking on the unsubscribe link below.
Otherwise please check out for your first power-packed issue of {Your E-zine Name} tomorrow.
To help me understand you and your needs better, I would like very much for you to introduce yourself.
1. How are you? How are you feeling? Great?
2. Please tell me more about yourself. What do you do for a
living, what do you dream to achieve, etc.
3. What do you need for your {Insert anything that has to do with your business} at the moment?
{Ask 2-3 more questions that will help in your survey on understanding your prospects better}
You can simply reply your answers to this mail.
I don’t know of too many E-zines that care about who their subscribers are let alone their needs. I also hope that if you have any questions, I would be the first person you would go to!
Remember, {FirstName}, YOU are the very reason why this newsletter exists! :)
Have a nice day.
Sincerely,
{your name}
{Domain}
Notice that:
1. This letter is like a built-up version of the previous standard letter. You not only confirm your subscriber’s subscription to your E-zine, you are also giving your subscriber a chance to be in the limelight of your E-zine rather than firing away what YOU have to say. You are actually encouraging your subscriber to reply!
2. You are approaching your subscriber to cater to his needs with the above letter. Given the questions in a neat sequence, your subscriber will answer accordingly. An example of a subscriber reply may go like the following:
1. How are you? How are you feeling? Great?
Your Subscriber: I’m doing just great. Thanks for asking, and how about you?
2. Please tell me more about yourself. What do you do for a living, what do you dream to achieve, etc.
Your Subscriber: My name is John Doe and I am a writer by profession. I live in New York, US.
3. What do you need for your {Insert anything that has to do with your business} at the moment?
Your Subscriber: I am looking for tips on how I can use a Blog to make my money and I figured that your E-zine shares decent tips and strategies on using one. I look forward to learning from you.
3. This letter is written with personality. It is obvious that there is a lively person on the other side of the line thus encouraging a decent percentage (as in 3-10%, this pre-written template is proven) of your subscribers to reply to your letter and you can communicate with your subscribers from there.
4. You have saved your money from conducting a paid survey. You can gather your own survey answers and understand your subscribers’needs better for free within your own E-zine.
5. This is the foundation of building your very own mailing list fan club! This is your golden chance to prove your credibility in your own field and give your subscribers every reason to read your E-mails when you send an E-zine issue or endorsement letter into their Inbox!
Warning! In your attempt to build relationships with your subscribers through your first E-zine issue, some subscribers are worth ignoring and even deserve to be removed from your mailing list!
This may sound harsh but the truth is that there various characters out there in cyberspace and some of them are those you wish you have never known. When you write your E-zine issue in this manner, be ready to expect a variety of responses from your subscribers with its share of poty or even nasty ones.
Dear {Your Name}, I have something to share with you. I am a graduate in economics and am currently unemployed. I would like to enter into Internet Marketing. The problem is that I don’t have the money to order Ebooks on how to start my own Internet Business. I have a great product but I don’t know how I can market it to the Internet marketplace.
The US currency is bigger than my local currency therefore it is very difficult for me to raise the capital amount from my pocket. So, can you please tell me how to make money from Internet Marketing for free. I expect your valuable A-Z advice. Please reply.
Regards,
{The Poor Subscriber}
Find it hard to believe that you might be getting mails like this? Nonetheless, this is one of the many mails that some top E-zine publishers and Internet Entrepreneurs receive almost often in their mailbox.
In my opinion, when you get a mail like this, it is best to ignore it rather than try to be helpful because as I have said in another place in this book, if the person is not willing to buy from you, he is NOT your prospect in the first place! So when you are thinking of helping such people for free, think about your own commitments and maybe the family you are supporting, if you have one. You are in business, not charity.
