More Consistent Ezines: The Secret Is Planning

A consistent ezine, one that is published on a regular schedule, builds better relationships with your clients and prospects than one that is not consistent. But sometimes life can get in the way and before you know it, you've missed another ezine deadline. Why not nip this trend in the bud by planning your issues months ahead of time?

The best ezine plan is created six to 12 months in advance. Basically, you are creating an editorial calendar, a tool commonly used by professional magazines. This tool can help you publish a more consistent ezine that your readers look forward to, open and read regularly.

Step One: Take a look at your calendar.

Get a calendar or piece of paper and jot down important monthly events that you might want to recognize in your ezine. This might include annual holidays; yearly conventions, workshops or bootcamps you either hold or attend; promotions you may be planning for new products or services; etc. This gives you a big picture of what the coming months may hold.

Step Two: Plan out your "big" topics for each issue.

Let's say you have a monthly ezine. Do any of the events you wrote down in step one help you choose the "theme" of that month's issue? Write down what the main topic, your featured article, will be for each month's issue.

Step Three: Flesh out your editorial calendar.

Now that you know what each issue of your ezine for the coming six to 12 months are going to be, you can start planning what the supportive material will be. Do you regularly include a "from the editor" or personal note type of section? Jot down what you'll talk about for each month. What about featured products or services? Do you have any that lend themselves to a particular issue's theme? Jot that down.

There! Now you have a plan for the year. You now have two choices:

* Use this plan to keep you on schedule throughout the coming months. Looking at it when you go to prepare each issue; or

* Use this plan to create all the content for the next six months to a year right now. Do this and you'll open up more time to work on other projects later.