Award-winning WordBiz Report eschews paid subscriptions to maintain ad and special reports revenues from large database. (Online Publishing).Debbie Weil's WordBiz Report (www.wordbiz.com) is a lively production, led off with a distinctive blue and yellow nameplate featuring Weil's smiling face and characterized char·ac·ter·ize tr.v. character·ized, character·iz·ing, character·iz·es 1. To describe the qualities or peculiarities of: characterized the warden as ruthless. 2. by lots of informative and lively features and articles focusing on online copywriting Copywriting is the process of writing the words that promote a person, business, opinion, or idea. It may be used as plain text, as a radio or television advertisement, or in a variety of other media. and content. "The goal of the publication," Weil said, "is to explore how words drive revenue online through effective e-newsletters, e-mail promotions, and killer web content." The newsletter features original reporting by editor Weil, including: * Tips and case studies about effective e-newsletters and web content, * Online copywriting best practices, * Before and after web copy makeovers, * Exclusive interviews with e-marketing executives, * Book giveaways, and * Smart thinking and links to useful resources. Launched in July 2001, the newsletter now has a circulation of 12,000 vice presidents, directors and marketing managers of Global 2000 companies and CEOs and principals of small businesses in e-business, finance, marketing and communications. Its design, content and accomplishments won WordBiz Report the Gold Award in the 2002 Newsletter Awards Competition, Online Category, sponsored by The Newsletter on Newsletters. In her entry statement last October, Debbie Weil said she planned on switching to paid subscriptions by late fall, but she more recently said she decided not to move to paid subscription. "Several reasons," she told NL/NL: "1. The spam filter A software routine that deletes incoming spam or diverts it to a "junk" mailbox (see spam folder). Also called "spam blockers," spam filters are built into a user's e-mail program. problem really started to explode (1) To break down an assembly into its component pieces. Contrast with implode. (2) To decompress data back to its original form. last fall, making it difficult to successfully deliver legitimate e-mails. It struck me as unwise to try to 'deliver' a paid product that might not get there. "2. After really digging in and doing some market research and competitive analysis, I came to the conclusion that my product, WordBiz Report, is not differentiated enough from a handful of other e-letters on the topic of 'online marketing' to make it worth paying for. These would include the ones I consider to be the best: Anne Holland's Sherpa e-newsletters (www.marketingsherpa.com), Allen Weiss's Marketing Proft. com, ClickZ. com, Larry Chase's Web Digest for Marketers (www.wdfrn.com), Ralph Wilson's newsletter (www.wilsonweb.com), and a few others. "3. I realized there was more upside Upside The potential dollar amount by which the market or a stock could rise. Notes: This is basically an educated guess on how high a stock could go in the near future. See also: Bull, Downside in growing my list and being able to market to a list of 12,000-than having a list that could be possibly as small as several hundred. "4. I agonized ag·o·nize v. ag·o·nized, ag·o·niz·ing, ag·o·niz·es v.intr. 1. To suffer extreme pain or great anguish. 2. To make a great effort; struggle. v.tr. over a pricing level (per month, six months, annual, etc.) but finally realized this was not the key issue. "5. Finally, I came to the conclusion that as a company of one, I didn't have the resources to produce both a stellar paid version and an unpaid version that was good enough (i.e., intriguing in·trigue n. 1. a. A secret or underhand scheme; a plot. b. The practice of or involvement in such schemes. 2. A clandestine love affair. v. enough) to get readers to continue opening it." Revenue sources Regarding her online ads, Weil said, "I sell three display ad positions as well as two-line text ads. The display ads are text as well. They're not banners. Ad sales have been difficult and slow since the beginning of the year. I wear all hats, including that of ad salesperson. It's hard to devote enough time to selling ads. This is only one source of revenue for me. On the subject of WordBiz Special Reports, she said, "In mid-December, I launched the WordBiz store (www.wordbizstore.com) to sell e-book or PDF (Portable Document Format) The de facto standard for document publishing from Adobe. On the Web, there are countless brochures, data sheets, white papers and technical manuals in the PDF format. reports. I am continuing to develop more products plus will be selling a few carefully selected products by other writers. This is a continuing and growing stream of revenue. I see a lot of potential in it. And, of course, I am marketing these products to an audience of 12,000-hence the advantage of keeping my newsletter free." Links and clicks Impressed im·press 1 tr.v. im·pressed, im·press·ing, im·press·es 1. To affect strongly, often favorably: by the number of links Weil provides in her newsletter, we asked her if she could put a number on them. "I've never counted the links to other sites or articles," she replied. "That's an interesting question no one has ever asked me. I've never thought of it as a metric worth measuring. "If anything I try to limit the number of links to outside pages or sites or articles in order to keep my readers where I want them--inside the environment of WordBiz Report. My formula is to include a couple of short articles in entirety The whole, in contradistinction to a moiety or part only. When land is conveyed to Husband and Wife, they do not take by moieties, but both are seised of the entirety. (including the Publisher Note)--and then write a short blurb blurb n. A brief publicity notice, as on a book jacket. [Coined by Gelett Burgess (1866-1951), American humorist.] blurb v. or intro teaser teaser an animal used to sexually tease but not to impregnate the members of the opposite sex. Usually males and they may be surgically prepared to ensure that they cannot mate or are not fertile. for the other articles that requires readers to click through to my site to read the whole article. "One key lesson to do this (I always do it on the lead article, for example) is that I can measure the number of readers who click through for the full story. So I can tell whether or not they're interested in the topic. High click-throughs for the lead article mean-bingo--hot topic that has captured their interest." Text vs. HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. Until recently Weil made WordBiz Report available in both text and HTML, but she then made the decision to discontinue dis·con·tin·ue v. dis·con·tin·ued, dis·con·tin·u·ing, dis·con·tin·ues v.tr. 1. To stop doing or providing (something); end or abandon: the full "text only" edition. "Too much work to put this together separately in addition to the HTML version," she said. "And not enough ROI (Return On Investment) The monetary benefits derived from having spent money on developing or revising a system. In the IT world, there are more ways to compute ROI than Carter has liver pills (and for those of you who never heard of that expression, it means a lot). . In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , because of the technology I can't track the number of text readers who open their newsletters, nor (for the most part) can I track what they click through to. "What I'll do going forward is send them a short text message that says something like, 'The new issue is ready. Lead article is about XXX. You can read it on the web at http://www.wirdbiz.com/newsletter/index.htm.'" Consulting business Asked if the newsletter has helped her copywriting consulting business, Weil said, "Yes, the newsletter has brought me some consulting projects from readers. Not a huge amount, however. And that is not a business goal of the publication. My goal is to make it a self-sustaining endeavor based on: ad revenue, special report and e-book sales, and, most recently, event sales. "I'm putting on my first-ever public seminar on May 21 ('How to Take the Pain Out of Publishing an E-Newsletter'), and I'm selling the workshop through the newsletter--as well as any other way I can: local events calendars, ad swaps in other e-newsletters. "Editorial quality Weil concluded our interview by saying, "Maintaining the editorial quality is paramount to me. As a solo publisher, I wear so many hats it's hard sometimes to spend as much time on the editorial as I'd like to. But frankly I love doing this. I wouldn't have it any other way. With an MBA MBA abbr. Master of Business Administration Noun 1. MBA - a master's degree in business Master in Business, Master in Business Administration under my belt, I enjoy the 'business end' of publishing the newsletter just as much as the editorial and creative aspects. "WordBiz continues to be a work in progress. I continue to work at growing the list, improving the editorial, and generating more revenues from ancillaries as well as ad sales." 3601 Newark St., NW Washington, DC 20016, 202-364-5705 fax 202-68 6-4 746 www. wordbiz.com |
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