Newsletters & Blogs: Marriage or Divorce?

Several clients asked me the same question this week: If I start a business blog, do I still need an emailed newsletter?

This is a good question you should be asking yourself if you have a business online and want to use the Internet to get new leads, create relationships with prospects and sell your services or products.

In the past, Denise and I always said, Yes, you should do both. We even wrote a special report in 2005, Top Ten Reasons to Do an Ezine AND a Blog. You can get it when you subscribe to Newsletter Nuggets over at my site Customized Newsletter Services.

Since things change rapidly in online marketing, I reviewed those top ten reasons to see what's changed about this issue since 2005.

Surprisingly, these are still ten very good reasons to do both an ezine and a blog for your business.

I would add that if one is taking up too much time and you must discontinue one in favor of the other, my vote is to keep on blogging and dump the ezine.

I'm not declaring the ezine to be dead, pas du tout! One successful client of ours announced this week he is changing the format of his ezine to simply be a weekly summary of his blog posts. So the ezine drives traffic back to the blog.

We still do a weekly tips ezine, and always feature our best blog post of the week, as well as our Blog Squad Events. You can subscribe here: Savvy eBiz Tips.

We've always said, the more ways you can get people into your sphere of influence the better, and the more ways you deliver your messages, the better. Let them choose how they want to read.

I'm throwing the question out: what do you think about doing both an ezine and a blog? Is an ezine still an important part of your marketing plan?

Comments

[Jan Marie Dore, The Professional Women's Online Marketing Coach]

Hi Patsi,
I'm glad you brought this question up. I'm looking for different solutions for my ezine now that I'm blogging. I enjoy blogging because it's so quick and in the moment. I find I'm having a harder time writing the longer articles for my ezine. If I could find an easy way to send my best blog posts by email to my subscribers, I'd do that. Perhaps I'll give it a try.

Thanks for the inspiration!
Jan Marie

[Shama Hyder]

Hi Patsi,

My eZine goes out every week and I update my blog regularly. The eZine articles also appear on my blog.

I don't thinking giving up an eZine is a good idea because MANY outside the industry are still not familiar with "blogs."