Title: Ezines – Selling Your Image Word Count: 426 Summary: There was a time when it was routine to find a door-to-door salesman at your door trying to sell cook wear, a new vacuum or insurance. For the most part the rise in “No Solicitation” policies in many communities have rendered this method of marketing an antiquated throwback to another era. Telemarketing was making significant inroads, convincing customers to buy products or services sight unseen. The national “Do Not Call” registry gave America back their evening meal. ... Keywords: marketing,internet marketing,site promotion,ezine marketing Article Body: There was a time when it was routine to find a door-to-door salesman at your door trying to sell cook wear, a new vacuum or insurance. For the most part the rise in “No Solicitation” policies in many communities have rendered this method of marketing an antiquated throwback to another era. Telemarketing was making significant inroads, convincing customers to buy products or services sight unseen. The national “Do Not Call” registry gave America back their evening meal. Often what starts out positive can end up being perceived as negative when consumers find themselves overwhelmed or having to short circuit a salesperson’s pitch prematurely. When customers have bad experiences with a persistent salesperson they are less inclined to listen to any future pitch. Ezines have the potential to be a positive marketing tool, but ezines can also be abused. The balance point is when the ezine is both infrequent and anticipated. If you like to share lost of information in an immediate way consider using a blog with a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. This can allow those most interested in the immediacy of the information to gain access to it. However, for those fringe customers who aren’t really sure about you or your product you should use ezines with velvet gloves. Customers may require multiple contacts before they will trust you enough to make an online purchase with your ecommerce business. If you push too hard before establishing trust you will ‘spook’ the customer. Your content should be relevant to your product or service and may include quotes, statistics or even a short bit of clean humor. These short ‘fillers’ can provide a solid way to break up the larger portions of text you may have in your ezines. In radio and television advertising there is a term called “imaging”. This term is used to describe a method of marketing your company using branding instead of using strong-arm tactics. This type of advertising is designed to instill a sense of trust in your company without directly asking the listener or viewer to actually make any buying decision. This is the type pf approach that may be best suited to ezine marketing. As a web business you should work at enhancing the image of your online firm. This is done through comprehensive knowledge-based material that lets your potential customer understand that you are very knowledgeable about the product or service you represent and that in the end you are more likely to have additional answers if needed. Sell your image first – everything else will follow.