When Jeff Mesnik says, "We're about to see a huge jump in email newsletters -- in the next few months just about every business will have their own," you might be tempted to take this with a grain of salt because he's VP Sales & Marketing for iMakeNews, a company that serves that marketplace.

However, we've gathered enough outside evidence to agree completely. Every week, reporters for MarketingSherpa interview marketers across America about their online marketing plans. And practically every single marketer they've spoken with recently has volunteered the fact that they're about to start an email newsletter. When you hear that comment 50 times in than a single month, you're ready to call it a trend. We expect this trend in corporate newsletter publishing to affect the content industry in four ways:

1. The bespoke (original) custom content industry should boom as corporate marketers seek help to write regular newsletters. So, custom content specialists might want to get a special offer out to their current client and prospect lists with newsletter writing offers to take advantage of this.

2. Syndication sales, which had been stalled as public Web sites cut back on expenditures (or went under), may get a bump from the corporate newsletter marketplace. Therefore, now is a good time for magazines to contact advertisers with syndicated content ideas for the newsletters advertisers are considering starting.

3. The opportunity to place free hotlinked news headlines and hotlinked article summaries will continue to grow. These are great marketing tools for publishers seeking low-cost ways to get targeted traffic back to their own sites.

4. The pressure on for-fee content products will continue to mount as for-free competition continues to come out of the woodwork in every marketplace and industry. (Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.)

If you are interested in the first two items above, you may want to contact Mesnik regarding partnerships. He's currently offering iMakeNews clients custom content from Ziff Davis Custom Media; and while he doesn't want to hear from freelancers, he' be up for pitches from other specialty custom shops. Mesnik is also very interested in selling syndicated content to his clients on behalf of publishers. He says, "We want to build a vast library of content so people can buy all types for their newsletters." His only caveat: you must be willing to market a private-label version of iMakeNews' services to your own site visitors in return. If you're interested, contact him at jeff@imakenews.com.