Are you among the thousands of professionals who have a newsletter that doesn't get results? ... Do you struggle to get your newsletter out to clients and prospects on time every month?

Yes? Then maybe you are guilty of committing one or more of the following deadly newsletter sins:

1. You spend hours surfing the 'Net, researching for an article, getting 'screen sucked' without any apparent value

2. You format it yourself using your Outlook email program

3. You send your ezine from your email program

4. You get business cards of people you meet at events and add them to your subscriber list

5. You manually add and delete email addresses from your list

6. You manually send subscribers a welcome message, thanking them for signing up for your ezine

7. You miss your monthly or weekly ezine deadline and send it out 'whenever you can'

8. You only send it out whenever you have a new product or service to announce

9. Your ezine consists mainly of sales copy, with a clear call to action: buy your product

10. Your ezine is purely information-based, with interesting articles, but with no reference to your products or services, and no call to action

Okay, I'm exaggerating here, I'm sure you are more sophisticated than that!

You may already use one of the list management services such as Constant Contact or Aweber and would never think of committing these 'faux pas'! Or perhaps you still print out and mail newsletters, and have decided to start emailing your company newsletter to save costs.

You have a list of people you've met at conferences and trade shows, and are not sure if it is permitted to add them to your subscriber list. Maybe you're scratching your head wondering where you'll find the time to do your electronic newsletter ("ezine"), so you keep putting it off.

So many questions! If you are an entrepreneur or a small business professional learning how to use the Internet, you already know how fundamental an emailed newsletter is for your online marketing.

How do you learn all this while still managing your business and other marketing tasks?

Did you know that you can send out your ezine through your shopping cart, if you have the right one?

These are some of the advanced secrets that insiders use to get better results from their ezines. Emailed newsletters are getting more complex, with laws regulating what you can and cannot do. The percentages of opened email rates are getting lower each year. Yet ezines are still a fundamentally effective way to market your products and services online…if you do it right. If you follow best practices of successful ezine publishers on the Web, you will reap many benefits.

When your readers receive your ezine regularly, they have a chance to get to know you. You will be seen as a credible expert in your field. They will be ready to call you for products or services. They may even forward your ezine to colleagues, increasing the number of people you reach. You can communicate to a global audience. Some readers will convert to clients; others will propose joint venture business opportunities. Your business will grow as will your list of subscribers over time.

Caveat: you must do your ezine right, according to best practices. Otherwise it will become a time- and energy-consuming task instead of effortless marketing. Be wise and invest in learning how to do an ezine that gets results.