The Shel Horowitz E-Zine Experience

Everyone likes to save money, both in business and on pleasure. That’s why Shel Horowitz’s e-mail newsletters appear to be flourishing.

Horowitz is an author, public speaker and marketing consultant. He started the e-zines to promote his books, but now finds them more useful in bringing in consulting clients.

His consumer e-zine, Frugal Fun Tips, offers 8,000 readers quick tips on how to save money. The possible areas of savings? Travel, dining, entertainment, romance and more. It was launched in 1997.

Frugal Marketing Tips, which was started the same year, brings low-cost marketing ideas to 6,000 B-to-B readers per month. They learn everything from how to get free publicity on a radio show to how to profit from niche markets.

But Horowitz’s e-zines aren’t only about doing things on the cheap.

The Positive Power of Principled Profit, launched in 2003, provides insights on ethical marketing and customer service. It now goes to approximately 1,400 readers per month, including owners, managers, academics and people interested in improving the world. Each issue profiles an ethical business and reviews relevant books.

Horowitz doesn’t sell the books that he reviews in his e-zine, but he does provide Amazon links. “I do it because in my book I discuss the philosophy that competitors are really allies that you haven’t built relationships with yet,” he says. “By reviewing more books in the areas that I write about I’m building the audience for those types of books.”

Horowitz has authored numerous books of his own, including “Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First.” Contrary to his plans, though, the newsletters don’t actually sell many books.

So what’s the benefit?

“I’m of the belief that when someone is at your Web site, even if they have great intentions and bookmark you they probably won’t come back,” Horowitz says. “So a newsletter is a way that I can keep in front of them month after month with their permission.”

The audience for his newsletters grows primarily from visitors to his Web sites and from his active participation in on-line discussion groups.

Horowitz is looking to bring all hosting in house but presently the two Frugal newsletters are served by Yahoo Groups and the Principle Profit newsletter is hosted by SiteSell.

What he doesn’t like about outside hosting is carrying other people’s ads in his newsletters. “When someone sends out your newsletter for free they’re putting in ads,” he says. “I have no say in the ads and often I’m not happy with them.”

Horowitz doesn’t track opens or click-throughs since the newsletters are sent entirely in text.

As for audience participation, Horowitz has conducted some surveys, but he says that readership involvement is generally poor. “I’m not sure why they don’t work,” he adds. “But where they have worked is that I’ve gotten valuable advice on naming my most recent book.

Although he always runs his e-newsletters through a spam checker, he admits that they are much tougher to get through than in the past. In response, he has changed his style, avoiding all caps, for example.

ROI

Horowitz hasn’t sat down to figure out ROI. But he says he can expect to get five or six consulting clients a year from the newsletter and a few dozen book sales. “I’d rather have a $3,000 consulting client than sell 20 books,” he says.

But the indirect payoff is that articles get archived on his Web site and Google pays him a few thousand dollars yearly to display ads. What he cannot quantify is what it does for his reputation as an expert, he says.

“Once a newsletter had a mailing glitch and I sent out apologies to the readers,” he says. “I got notes back saying, “Don’t worry, we’ve all done it.” It wasn’t the return notes that impressed him as much as seeing who his subscribers were.

“There were two top names in the Internet Marketing field who wrote me. I went back to one and became his client and then he became my client,” Horowitz continues. “And he gave me an endorsement for a book – something he doesn’t do often. Now you can’t put a number on stuff like that.”

Horowitz adds that he hired his assistant who has been with him for about six years by listing the job opening in his newsletter. “I got 17 responses and made a terrific decision,” he says. “You wanna talk about ROI? It’s phenomenal.”