Critical Components Of The Free E-Letter

1. Your E-Letter Must Be A Good Read. Make sure the information is value-oriented, useful, and benefits your target audience. Copy should be in simple, lay terms. Pull your reader in by telling a story or using personal events. Your tone should be first person like you are talking to your friend. Offer actional advice or take-a-ways your subscribers can easily implement in whatever niche they're in.
   
2. Remain Informal With Copy. Some tips and tools to help make sure content suits your readers:
   --Flesch–Kincaid Readability Scale.
   --Grade Level of 6-8th grade is ideal.
   --Check out this free tool where you simply drop in the content and you get a readability score http://www.standards-schmandards.com/exhibits/rix/ .
   
3. Building A Community of Loyal Readers
   --It helps the LTV (life time value) of your publication and subscribers as well as related product line
   
4. Quality names. Make sure your prospecting efforts brings in qualified, targeted names to your file. Or else you'll see either high monthly subscriber attrition (over 2% of file size), high email bounce rate (due to bad email addresses), or low open rates.
   Sources include:
   --PPC, newsletter ad swaps, organic search = Excellent acquisition source of names. Typically offers highest LTV
   --Banner ads, polls = Good source of names
   --Co Registration = Mediocre - to - good source of names (if done correctly with immediate launch of introductory email series for bonding)
   --Sweepstakes offers = Bad source of names. Typically, lack of connection between the offer and the front end product. Most leads that come in this way, are bogus OR forget what they signed up for and don't open your ezine.
   
5. Bonus. Offer an incentive for prospecting efforts:
   --Free special report
   --Free white paper
   --Free analysis (via survey, poll, etc.)