7 Quick Ideas For Your Ezine

The first month of our Small Spark Contest will focus on your ezine (newsletter) for your subscribers and your customers. Due to some recent events happening right now in the industry I need to add this information along with what I already have planned.

The Small Spark Contest will begin February 1st, 2010. But since we’re getting ready to talk about email marketing for the first topic of the contest I wanted to give you some ideas on how to come up with good topics for your ezine.

Ezines are a great way to keep in contact with your opt-in list. The trick is to continually come up with content that provides value and inspires your recipients to open the email newsletter and read the content. The trick, then, is to come up with exciting ezine topics. Here are a few suggestions to inspire and motivate you.

IDEA #1 Check your testing and tracking data to see which newsletters have the highest open rates. And see if there are any commonalities in the articles in each of those popular newsletters. You may find your audience really enjoys reviews or list articles and then you know that those types of content are exciting to your prospects and you can repeat that content in future ezines.

IDEA #2 Look at controversy going on in your industry. Whether your niche is fashion, gossip and entertainment or accounting and finance, or somewhere in between, there is always some sort of controversy brewing somewhere. Use that controversy to draw attention to your ezine, inspire open rates and generate a buzz in your community.

IDEA #3 Check out your forums, blogs, and social networking sites to see what people are talking about. What common questions or comments do people have and how can you spin that into an exciting article?

IDEA #4 Write lists. In almost every single industry, people love to read lists online. They’re easily consumable, infinitely valuable and you can even print them out and use them as a resource for the future. Consider writing a list type article for your next ezine and evaluating the results. Does your open rate increase?  What about your forwards and downloads?

IDEA #5 Review products or services. Like lists, reviews are extremely valuable and they can also help you generate income if you’re an affiliate of the product or services you’re reviewing.

IDEA #6 Comment on late breaking news. Ezine articles can be written and scheduled way in advance however they can be edited and changed on the fly. That means when there is late breaking news in your industry or news that affects your customers and prospects, you can write about it and include it in your ezine.

IDEA #7 Finally, a great way to generate exciting ezine articles is to ask your readers what they want to know. Go directly to the source and ask them what they have questions about, what they’re interested in and how you can help them. In fact, you can print their question and then answer the question so your readers get to be included in your content. Kind of like a Dear Abby format, be sure to get their permission to print their question and use their name.

Exciting ezine content doesn’t have to be difficult or challenging to come up with. Take a look around you. What’s happening that’s relevant to your audience?  What content do they respond to and how can you better help them solve their problems?