Selling Your Vision in Your Ezine - Make Your Vision Real to Yourself
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Stop talking about just the cash flow; let everyone get with the vision. When I started writing for www.devhardware.com, I discovered that the vision in the opinions section is to provide information on trends and future events. You and your design and copy team should sit and talk about your vision all the time. The cash flow is your reward for pursuing vision. If you abandon vision in pursuit of cash flow you will discover that as soon as you start chasing the money, the money starts running.
If people catch your vision, they will probably just throw money at you. If they don't, then you better have great benefits and credentials. But a vision will make them disregard all that as they beat a path to your door.
Real Experiences
Most ezines contain features and benefits. As a designer/copywriter I find it hard to incorporate vision into content if the vision does not exist (hence hours spent laboring over key word research). Currently however I am working on three projects that actually have visions, which opened up multiple key word possibilities which had few competitors yet had wide appeal (a real niche market). The presence of a vision makes the process of generating content relatively interesting.
The one I will use as an illustration is a computer tips site. The owners (my resident experts on all things programming and hardware) are thorough bred geeks who write C++ and assemble systems to relax. I was clueless about what to do with their site so I decided to reinvent it (and even rename it) and build it around finding computer resources which will help you slow down physical upgrading while maintaining the relative speed of your PC, to "improve your computer's performance." We flooded the site with tips, got fellow technophiles to generate content and are monetizing aggressively with affiliates. It was fun to do and we did it like we were just kicking it.
Constant Reinvention
The ezine is still in its delivery stage since we haven't built up a database, but without a doubt it will have our vision, "improve your computer's performance," all over it. Right now we are working on the technical aspects of the ezine delivery and on who our target demographics should be. It is inevitable that both our market and our product will evolve over time, and quite possibly our vision as well.
So even when "selling your vision," you must realize that it will inevitably change, and you have to understand the times you live in. For example, currently interactivity is in with web site design, and static is out. It is all "web 2.0." If you are still keeping a static site and your competition is light years ahead, then you have to tailor your vision to fit the terrain. You must not expect to remain stationary but be open to varying routines, themes and even varying your "vision."
Yes, do buy Michael Katz lunch if you ever catch up with him.
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