Advice for marketing a print newsletter

I'm on Dien's Hidden Business Letters list (and a past paid subscriber too). There are some business ideas in them that I did research on but never implemented (life got in the way). Now I want to turn some of those ideas into a paid newsletter, and offer generic business plans to go with the ideas from my newsletter.

Here's where advice and suggestions are needed, because it's where I'm stuck: How do you market a paid newsletter when no one knows you?

Here's what I came up with after contacting Dien (thank you for suggesting the post here):
1. Classified ads in business opportunity magazines.

2. Articles on business opportunity blogs with link to trial sign-up page.

3. Comments on small/ homebased business sites with link to trial sign-up page.

Have been online since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, so doing my own sites isn't a problem. Also see the "for your email address, I'll send you a free report" shtick being done well for internet marketers. I can put together a freebie sample of a newsletter, but at some point it's going to wear thin with the 'freebie' thing.

Experience: Accountant, community program newsletter editor/publisher/researcher, Bookeeper association newsletter writer/editor.

Inexperience: Copywriting, selling (took me a year to sell one set of pots and pans) and ended with using an auction house to sell items I picked up after reading the Chattel report.

So any help, advice or suggestions would help. Thank you.
Georjina

P.S. Sorry this was so long.

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by Georjina

I'm on Dien's Hidden Business Letters list (and a past paid subscriber too). There are some business ideas in them that I did research on but never implemented (life got in the way). Now I want to turn some of those ideas into a paid newsletter, and offer generic business plans to go with the ideas from my newsletter.

Here's where advice and suggestions are needed, because it's where I'm stuck: How do you market a paid newsletter when no one knows you?

Here's what I came up with after contacting Dien (thank you for suggesting the post here):
1. Classified ads in business opportunity magazines.

2. Articles on business opportunity blogs with link to trial sign-up page.

3. Comments on small/ homebased business sites with link to trial sign-up page.

Have been online since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, so doing my own sites isn't a problem. Also see the "for your email address, I'll send you a free report" shtick being done well for internet marketers. I can put together a freebie sample of a newsletter, but at some point it's going to wear thin with the 'freebie' thing.

Experience: Accountant, community program newsletter editor/publisher/researcher, Bookeeper association newsletter writer/editor.

Inexperience: Copywriting, selling (took me a year to sell one set of pots and pans) and ended with using an auction house to sell items I picked up after reading the Chattel report.

So any help, advice or suggestions would help. Thank you.
Georjina

P.S. Sorry this was so long.

So, who? When you say generic, how does it set you apart from, say Entrepreneur which has been delivering generic biz plans for decades?

What would be unique or different about yours?

We've done pretty well with these generic business ideas, what would your plans include? To start, you would borrow some cred, via a JV, with an established marketer with a list of people whom you feel would make a good target.

Gordon

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Georjina

I'm on Dien's Hidden Business Letters list (and a past paid subscriber too). There are some business ideas in them that I did research on but never implemented (life got in the way). Now I want to turn some of those ideas into a paid newsletter, and offer generic business plans to go with the ideas from my newsletter.

Here's where advice and suggestions are needed, because it's where I'm stuck: How do you market a paid newsletter when no one knows you?

Here's what I came up with after contacting Dien (thank you for suggesting the post here):
1. Classified ads in business opportunity magazines.

2. Articles on business opportunity blogs with link to trial sign-up page.

3. Comments on small/ homebased business sites with link to trial sign-up page.

Have been online since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, so doing my own sites isn't a problem. Also see the "for your email address, I'll send you a free report" shtick being done well for internet marketers. I can put together a freebie sample of a newsletter, but at some point it's going to wear thin with the 'freebie' thing.

Experience: Accountant, community program newsletter editor/publisher/researcher, Bookeeper association newsletter writer/editor.

Inexperience: Copywriting, selling (took me a year to sell one set of pots and pans) and ended with using an auction house to sell items I picked up after reading the Chattel report.

So any help, advice or suggestions would help. Thank you.
Georjina

P.S. Sorry this was so long.

Hi Georjina,

Thanks for asking...!

About the "free report" shtick being done by internet marketers... It's actually been around for decades (at least).

Here's an ad I pulled from the classified ad section of Popular Science magazine...



As you can see, it offers a "Free report" to find out the "secrets!"

This ad is from December 1970!

I don't know what was in the free report promoted there, back in 1970... But people are more skeptical nowadays than they were back then. Now, if you offer a "free report" or "free video" or "free course" or something else, it should have some good stuff in it. People are not going to buy unless they feel you are offering good information, and they'll judge you by the free information that you give them.

One mistake I see many people make with their online promotions (including to email lists) is to just send out pure advertising. If you do that, people will soon unsubscribe from an email list, or (at best) they'll stop reading your emails...

I'll write a bit more later, too...

Best wishes,

Dien

[Dien Rice]

Hi Georjina,

I also wanted to mention a few words about copywriting...

Someone in the business needs to be able to do copywriting or be good at sales, I would say. People usually need to be convinced to spend their money, because they have many options to spend their money on... Otherwise, you could struggle to make sales.

I see copywriting as really the science of persuasive psychology, as applied to commerce. There are things that work, and things that don't, and people have tested and tested these things a million times over the past decades... It's good to learn what works!

I think developing your copywriting/sales/persuasion skills are "assets" that will "pay off" for you for the rest of your life...

I've used my own copywriting knowhow for many other things, as well... For example, I've helped my wife draft persuasive emails to her boss, when she wants a change in relation to her work. She has a pretty good "success rate" - and it's all by using the psychology I learned from studying copywriting (I carefully choose which "emotional hot buttons" to "push!")... In another context, I used my copywriting skills to write a letter to help a business I'm involved with to win a potentially highly lucrative contract...

So, if you learn it, there are many other places you can apply those skills too, that you probably haven't even thought of yet...

In fact, learning these skills could completely change your life, for the better!

Best wishes,

Dien

This was going to be for independent accountant's and bookkeeper's (be surprised how many want something else except the businesses their clients operate. Weird.)

Anywho, decided to hold off on the idea. Have a meeting with a credit union manager to give a 45 minute talk in January on "Cash Flow and Small Business", my area of expertise.

After seeing the initial materials I intend to use, and spending a half hour listening to her own frustration with their small business customers, may give me the answers I'm looking for.

Dien: Yep, have a copywriting course from John Carlton I'm studying and copying everything by hand from Halbert, Ogilvy, Suarez, etc. Have to remember it's a learning process.

[quote=Georjina;37405]I'm on Dien's Hidden Business Letters list (and a past paid subscriber too). There are some business ideas in them that I did research on but never implemented (life got in the way). Now I want to turn some of those ideas into a paid newsletter, and offer generic business plans to go with the ideas from my newsletter.