My Ezine Success Academy students and I had the opportunity to grill web designer Marcus Badgley, and here are some of his answers (in brief): While there are no absolute rules (and no ezine design police!), he generally suggested a sans serif font for body text (like Ariel or Verdana). Headline fonts can be sans […]
Ezines and Fonts. What Kind? How Big? What Color?
Email or Print Newsletter: Which Is Right for You?

Most professionals I talk with consider print newsletters and email newsletters (aka ezines) to be essentially the same thing delivered in different ways. While both do accomplish the general functions of a newsletter — they position you as an expert, reinforce your credibility, keep you top-of-mind with your community, allow people to get to know […]
E-Newsletters: The Difference Between PDF and HTML

I hear this question frequently: If I’m sending a newsletter electronically, what’s the difference between a PDF and an HTML newsletter? PDF stands for Portable Document File and generally refers to a newsletter that looks like a print newsletter, either color or black & white. The format allows the document to be viewed consistently in […]
Making a Print Newsletter Out of an Ezine

Several people who registered for the Ezine Design Q&A asked about printing out their ezine to create a print leave-behind. Here are my thoughts on this: It is a VERY good thing to have a print newsletter to leave with people you meet or audience members. NOT just a business card or “all about me” […]
Optimum Article Number and Length

Print Newsletter It’s better to have more, shorter articles in a print newsletter than to have one exhaustive article covering four pages. Shorter articles are more approachable. People can read one or two complete articles while they’re waiting in a doctor’s office. Plus, when you have multiple articles, readers are more likely to find at […]
Evergreen Newsletters: What They Are & How to Use Them

A newsletter is definitely NOT something you want to do once and “see how it works.” It’s the consistency and frequency that builds relationship with your readers, builds your credibility and perception as an expert, builds trust. That being said, a good newsletter marketing strategy is to have one newsletter that you use all the […]
Using Ezine Titles in the Subject Line

Here’s what I recommend: Put the name of your ezine in brackets at the beginning of your subject line. This tells receivers it’s a newsletter. Put the main subject of the newsletter after the newsletter name — not just the month. When people know the content of the newsletter, they’re more likely to open and […]
Getting Rid of Gobbledygook

I’m amazed at how frequently I receive ezines with strange characters in the subject line. As an example, instead of [Tara’s Tips] September 2009, the email subject line will say [Tara’s Tips] September 2009. What’s going on here? Surely “Tara” didn’t intentionally put that gobbledygook in there. Or in the body of the ezine either, […]