Online Marketing Through Newsletters

by Kim Bloomer

So you want to start publishing an online newsletter? Why? Because that’s what all the online marketing experts and gurus said to do. You’ve been told you’ll pull in lots of new customers if you just start publishing an online newsletter AND purchase their list magnet ebook. I am not going to tell you that because I know it’s not that simple. In fact, I’ll tell you the truth as I’m always compelled to do, and offer you an alternative while I’m at it.

First, publishing is the fun part. Writing and getting articles and finding resources to offer your subscribers really is the fun part of your online marketing campaign. However, then comes the part where the rubber meets the road: sending that newsletter out to your subscribers. First, you’ll need a list to send your newsletter to. Second, you’ll need an auto responder for subscribers to make sure you’re in compliance with the “double opt-in/opt-out”. That means having some means of tracking initial subscription requests, sending an email asking them to confirm their subscription request, then providing an automated means of unsubscribing. All of this is just so you won’t get in trouble with your ISP or the spam law.

Next, you’ll need to decide if you’re going to publish and send out your newsletter daily, weekly, or monthly and get it delivered when you say you will. This is just the basics. You’ll find it gets more complicated as you go on, especially legally. You’ll have many of your emails come back because they were “bounced” by these rigid new spam filters installed by our diligent ISPs to stop (yeah right) spammers. You’ll also have some of your new subscribers “forget” they subscribed and turn you in as spammer. Oh, what fun!

You want to publish; it’s a great way to establish your online marketing presence and also your credentials in your field of expertise. So, what do you do?

Well, I accidentally found the solution and I’m going to share it with you. Before I started online marketing through email publishing, I was submitting articles I’d written to online article banks. That is another way to promote yourself in your online marketing campaign. While I was submitting an article to www.thephantomwriters.com, I noticed a banner there that mentioned a new way of publishing –without email, without spam, but WITH RSS technology.

I knew what RSS was because I had been receiving different online newsletters for webmasters. I subscribed to those so I’d know what was going on in the world of technology just for my own knowledge. RSS is “really simple syndication”; well that’s one of its definitions anyway. The banner on The Phantom Writers site stated that Quikonnex had the solution to our online marketing ezine dilemma. Good thing I went there, saw the writing on the wall, and took the leap of faith! Whew! I almost made the email marketing error.

Quikonnex is a great way to keep the fun you want as a publisher. You don’t need those lists, or auto responders, or need to worry about spam, or any of that junk. Another thing – the search engines get pinged each time you submit an article or “item” as we call them on Quikonnex. You don’t need a delivery date. You can submit “items” as you come across them. You can use graphics without overloading a subscribers inbox like in email. You don’t need email, as your subscribers subscribe through a “viewer”. They can keep in contact with you through your personal private messenger provided so generously by the founders of the Quikonnex system at no additional charge to you. You get live online support and twice weekly training and meetings, all inclusive in the minimal monthly charge.

Also, all of your “items” go in to a database that is clickable under category titles you create in templates. Very simple, fun, and hassle-free. So instead of sending out email newsletters that may get read, then deleted after all your hard work, you publish on a “channel” that is a syndicated RSS feed, with an “editor” provided if you don’t know HTML, that goes into a readily retrievable database, that pings the search engines and then stays on the internet indefinitely meaning it is searchable! This means your newsletters are cumulative, they don’t get deleted, and all your hard work stays available for each new subscriber who comes along without you doing anything. You just keep on publishing! How great is that???

So before you take the email plunge, consider the benefits you’ll have publishing the new way – in living RSS technology.