March 28, 2002
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1. How to Keep Your E-Voice When You Get Too Big
2. Best Free Newsletter on Book Publicity
3. Should You Explain Text vs. HTML?
4. Please Nominate Your Email Broadcast Service Provider
5. What Online Subscription Marketers Can Learn from Beer
6. Vignette F****ed, Sorry WSJ.com
7. Why 10kWizard Switched from Free to Paid
8. Yahoo Outright Refuses to Reveal Email User Numbers
***** THIS WEEK'S CONTENTBLOG
[03/28/02 6:01PM] HOW TO KEEP YOUR E-VOICE WHEN YOU GET TOO BIG
I hear it repeatedly from publishers both big and small -
personal voice is of massive importance in winning over and
keeping readers in the incredibly competitive online and email
publishing field. Personally, I've been struggling with this as a
business model issue for some time now as we've grown.
When I co-founded ContentBiz's parent company, MarketingSherpa
(which publishes a range of newsletters and reports in addition
to ContentBiz stuff), we assumed I'd be in charge of marketing
because it's my background. Then I found myself pinch-hitting for
the highly professional journalists we had on staff, whenever one
took vacation or needed to be replaced for some reason. Our ad
sales guy was the one who noticed, "Anne whenever you do an
issue, our pass-alongs and opt-ins go up."
I'm not a 'professional' journalist, but I guess people liked my
'voice' despite (or maybe because of) that. So when we had to cut
back on editorial staff due to the recession, guess who got
drafted into the main editorial role?
Now that the economy is righting itself (yeah!) and we've been
hiring editors again, I've come up against the whole question: If
you want to grow beyond being a small publisher, but your
personal "voice" is to some extent responsible for your success
so far, what do you do? Fred Langa of LangaList gave me this
advice this afternoon:
"It's very easy with a small staff or a very large staff, but
tougher in-between. If you're larger you can have a copyeditor
who ensures the voice of the publication is consistent across
artices, time or different publications. It's very hard to do
this with a disparate group of people who work more or less
independently with no one overseeing them. You'll have a
constellation of different publications rather than a single
voice.
The Windows Watcher newsletter editor did a very good job of
handling this [problem] when he hired staff. Each issue still
started with an introduction in his own voice from him. Stories
were written by somebody else but readers felt he was still
involved and these were his selections. He didn't have to write
the whole long article, just the intro to it."
http://www.langalist.com
[03/27/02 6:54AM] BEST FREE NEWSLETTER ON BOOK PUBLICITY
I'm loving John Kremer's Book Marketing Tip ezine and Web site.
His free newsletter features an inspirational story each week of
an author who did something clever to market their book. Then it
lists loads of contacts for various journalists who often
interview authors. A must-read for anyone publicizing a book.
http://www.bookmarket.com
[03/26/02 5:48PM] SHOULD YOU EXPLAIN TEXT VS. HTML?
Most email newsletter publishers ask "Text or HTML?" on their
opt-in forms. But you know I've wondered for a long time if we
aren't all too close to this issue to know if that's even the
right question. Do the civilians we're signing up know what the
difference is? David Goudge Sr VP Marketing at Boise Office told
me he has decided they will ask their (hundreds and hundreds of
thousands) of potential readers to sign up for his company's new
ezines using different questions: "Do you want us to send you
pictures, or do you want just text?"
[03/26/02 3PM] PLEASE NOMINATE YOUR EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER
Who are you using to send out your email newsletters? We're
putting together a formal Buyer's Guide to email broadcast
services for marketers and publishers, and I'm looking for
nominations just to make sure we don't miss any important
vendors. You can nominate your email service provider for (free)
inclusion here:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=7135798784
[03/25/02 5:55PM] WHAT ONLINE SUB MARKETERS CAN LEARN FROM BEER
When I heard that BeerNet Online launched a new subscription site
today, I couldn't help but look it over. This traditional b2b
print subscription email publisher focuses on beer businesspeople
and distributors. When you click on the links to learn about
their regular product subscriptions, the copy is excellently written
- powerful benefits, strong quotes -- you can't imagine
how a beer exec would be able to say anything but "sign me up!"
This sales copy is also pretty obviously lifted from traditional
direct mail packages that have worked for the publisher in print.
They look a little funny online, but work ok.
I expected to see similarly strongly-written sales copy when I
clicked on story headline links on the site's home page, which I
assumed lead to paid site members-only materials. Yup, up popped
that grey box asking for user name and password.... but then when
I didn't have one, instead of sales copy, I got a nasty page that
slapped me in the face with:
Authorization Required
This server could not verify that you are authorized to access
the document requested. Either you supplied the wrong credentials
(e.g., bad password), or your browser doesn't understand how to
supply the credentials required.
Apache/1.3.19 Server at www.beernet.com Port 80
http://www.bearnet.com
http://www.beernet.com/dpl.htm (example good DM copy)
[03/22/02 1:14PM] VIGNETTE F****ED (SORRY WSJ.COM)
According to rumors posted on F---dCompany on Tuesday, and a
formal story in the Austin Statesman yesterday, content
management system Vignette is standing on the edge of dot-com-
style doom -- losing tens of millions per quarter, asking
employees to take voluntary pay reductions, and offering stock
options instead of pay. Vignette customers include The Guardian,
CNET/ZD Net, Time Inc. New Media, The Chicago Tribune and
WSJ.com.
http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/thursday/business_3.html
[03/22/02 6:11AM] WHY 10KWIZARD SWITCHED FROM FREE TO PAID
If you're in the financial content or newswire business, you
might want to check out an interview published today at
eFinanceInsider, where the head of 10kWizard (an EdgarOnline
competitor) briefly describes why they switched entirely from
free to 100% paid. 10kWizard says they about 6,000 paying
subscribers now, although they don't reveal how much each pays.
http://www.efinanceinsider.com/email32202.htm
[03/21/02 4:20PM] YAHOO REFUSES TO REVEAL EMAIL USER NUMBERS
Melinda McRae who handles media relations for Yahoo mail just got
back to me. She was quite pleasant, but unfortunately said that
right now Yahoo official policy is not to reveal actual numbers
about stuff like how many mail users they have. However she's
going to check with HQ to see if she can at least give us a
general feeling about how big or small a percent of overall users
the Pop and forwarding people are. If/when I have news, I'll post
it here.
[Note: About 24 hours later McRae got in touch again to say, no
sorry Yahoo would not reveal any figures related to email users
whatsoever. Per my last week's Blog, this is hard on anyone who
owns or rents email lists, because you can't predict how Yahoo's
switch to requiring paid subscriptions for Pop and forwarded
accounts will affect your readership or deliverability.]
