Yeah, I'm thinking about starting an ezine. Now that I've proven to myself that I can write pretty regularly and that I'm a decent writer, the thought that blogging is just a proving ground for more serious undertakings such as an ezine has insinuated itself into my consciousness. I am quite pleased with blogging and I don't want to switch or, heaven forbid, add writing an ezine to my bulging schedule.
Blogging feels like self-expression and contribution without expectations. I can write what I want. I provide value and all that, but it's low key. I can meander and switch topics. I have lots of latitude, or at least, I've granted myself that permission. Ezines seem more like work, more practical and businesslike.
Since fun is the operative word in my intellectual life, I am taking my own sweet time researching ezines and their value as a marketing tool. I've been arguing here about the importance of personal branding, saying that you can build your personal brand and your reputation (that's the old-fashioned term) and get slightly famous by writing a weblog. And that doing so will not only be cool and fun but will help your bottomline.
But it seems that most of the internet marketing books I read these days recommend and many websites I visit have e-newsletters (ezines). The volume of marketing messages and spam being what it is, the argument goes, if you want to market to someone, you need their permission (Permission Marketing - Seth Godin) and you need to earn that permission by offering real value. So you offer value in your ezine and put your marketing in there along with your valuable non-marketing content. Then you build your mailing list by offering people the chance to subscribe everywhere you can.
Besides websites and weblogs, ezines are delivering an incredible amount of valuable (and not so valuable) information - for free. In this economy, free works. The only price of admission is your email address and first name. I don't know the numbers. I know weblogs are rising dramatically and I think ezines are rising but not sure whether blogs are replacing ezines or not. Blogs are completely free, you don't have to give out your email address and you don't have to receive a piece of email on a regular basis. Instead you can read a blog when you want.
I voluntarily and enthusiastically receive four free ezines right now: Robert Middleton's More Clients, Wizard of Ads Monday Morning Memo, Adam Engst's Tidbits and I just started Martin Avis's Kickstart Daily.
There's a difference between an ezine and a blog. The ezine is potentially more focused and polished. It's delivered less frequently - typically weekly - and thus more time is available for editing and researching. All things being equal, the signal to noise ratio of the article is higher just because more thought goes in and more extraneous junk is edited out. I'm afraid, though, that the authors often go too far and throw out some good personal, authentic voice, context stuff with the bath water in their efforts to be concise and professional.
Typically, even if you get higher value content, you *pay* by submitting your email address and *pay* by tolerating more marketing content coming along for the ride (not that you have to read it). A recommended ratio I heard was 75% value-content and 25% marketing-content. And there's always that chance that the email address you've supplied, no matter the wonderful privacy assurances, will slip out into wider distribution. I trust people, but accidents happen. Of course, I've slathered my email address all over my websites and public forums so am really not risking much to give it out one more time.
Mr. Kickstart Daily, Martin Avis, suggests that if you want to start your *own* ezine you should start reading ezines, pick the 10 you like best and then emulate the essence that makes them your favorites. He also suggests, you write a few ezine articles before you start to make sure you can do it. This sounds like good advice.
There seems to be a progression out there that goes blog, ezine, free articles on other ezines and websites with attribution, paid articles on ezines, paid articles in print, chapter of a book, book. I think you can skip steps and have a multi-pronged approach. But, yes, I buy it and I've always said I wanted to write a book some day... And I do. But, then, as I was saying, I'm taking my time.
I already have a 2700-person mailing list from my software demo downloads, but that's a very specific audience to serve. Writing a good monthly ezine would probably be an excellent marketing tool and might even squeeze into my schedule. So, I think I've answered my own question, a monthly ezine for creative services professionals would be good. I'll put that on my to do list.
One last thing, though. Should there ever be a Tech Ronin ezine? And would it add to my readership, brand and credibility? Can it be done and be just as fun and personal? Would it be redundant? Some people might prefer getting the cream or the edited version of my blog minus some of the roughage. Stay tuned while I explore the ezine world and report in from the field from time to time.
One more important difference to consider. Weblogs have comments. Ezines don't. With an ezine, the writer gets a lot of email in response to the ezine, so gets feedback. But, what's lost with an ezine is the public conversation via comments. Readers get to interact not only with the author but with each other. They also get published and get visibility. This last point might keep me strictly in the blogging column when it comes to Tech Ronin.
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