Last spring, I asked Grow Your Lifework ezine readers what they most wanted to learn about growing a practice. Of all the people who responded “having an ezine people read” was near the top of the list (how to attract clients was number one).

Considering this, I thought I’d put together a list of suggestions to increase readership of your ezine, whether you have one now or are planning on having one in the future.

So let’s dive in.

Why You Might Need an Ezine Email List

Your road to attracting clients starts when you make yourself visible. But unless you’re an incredibly social person, being visible takes conscious effort and a lot of work.

This is especially true for self-employed people and introverts. If you’re not actively involved in networking groups, social situations and anything that puts you in the public eye, when you’re ready to promote your work it is difficult, at best.

The good news is that having an email list and an ezine can help you stay visible on a regular basis. Then when you’re ready to promote something, like a service, product or program, all you have to do is send a series of emails to your email list. Since they already get emails from you, your self-promotion won’t feel like a salesy surprise.

In fact, done right, people may actually thank you for doing self-promotion!

I know this for a fact because I have personally thanked many people for their incredibly useful promotional materials. I’ve even purchased several (expensive!) training programs as a result of their great, free content.

So how did they get my attention? They have a regular ezine and I’m subscribed.

What exactly is an Ezine?

For those who don’t know, ezine stands for electronic magazine and is pronounced ezeen. Some people call it a newsletter, which is just fine, but typically a newsletter has several bits of information on it, usually including an essay. An ezine generally has just one essay.

Anyway, a great ezine has several characteristics:

It’s personal.

Not in an “it’s all about me” sort of way, but in a conversational way. You can certainly use personal stories, in fact, it’s a great idea, but they should be used to illustrate a point. If your goal is to attract clients, then your secondary goal is to share useful information in your ezine, not diary entries.

It’s useful.

As mentioned above, sharing useful information is key. In order to do this, though, you have to know what people want. Get started by creating a survey in www.surveymonkey.com and simply ask people what they want to know. It’s a great, free tool that can save you a lot of guess work.

It demonstrates your expertise.

Ok. I’m hesitant to use the word “expertise” here because most of the people I support don’t think of themselves as experts.

But think of this … when you seek the help of a service provider, don’t you want to know that they know what they’re doing? You want someone who is an expert on some level. They don’t have to be the best healer in the world, or the best coach who ever lived, but they need to know what they’re talking about.

Having an ezine is one way you can demonstrate that you know what you’re doing. It helps build trust and trust attracts clients.

Great. So how do you have an ezine that people read?

Add people to your list with integrity

The best way to ensure people will read your ezine is to fill your emailing list with people who want to be on it!.

When you first start out, or even when you’ve had an email list for awhile, it’s tempting to automatically add people to your mailing list. You might add friends, family, students, clients or people you meet while travelling.

Bad idea. This is actually considered spam.

Also, if you use your regular email system, like Yahoo! or HotMail, this is doubly problematic because people can’t unsubscribe anonymously if they don’t want to get your emails.

The best way to add people to your list is to invite them to a formal “opt-in” form you have on your website. When you do this you know you are sending your ezine to people who want to receive it.

If you don’t do this, if you just send people your ezine or announcements, you may unintentionally frustrate people, even your friends. They’ll experience your ezine as an unwanted piece of junk mail.

People who know you will probably want to support you, so they may not say anything, but if you invite them to subscribe you give them the choice and they will appreciate it and respect you for it (I guarantee it).

And, if they don’t want to be on your mailing list you’re not missing out on that one extra reader because they wouldn’t read it anyway. You’ll just have an email list of people who are in alignment with what you are offering and that’s a GOOD thing.

Geez. This ezine is turning into a much longer post than I thought it would. I’m going to stop here and save the rest for next week.

In the meantime, leave a comment below if you have any questions about email or ezine systems. I can include the info in next week’s missive.