When a magazine seeks a startup they conduct research that allows them to see if their vision matches the demographic they are going after. They seek to discover what issues are most relevant to their potential subscriber base. The magazine will also develop the departments, or categories, that will be in the magazine. Then these magazines will seek to identify key advertisers who may have an interest in their magazine and its contents.

Once the first issue is printed and feedback is sent the magazine editor will pay attention to what is actually working compared to what research showed to be true. If alterations are needed the magazine will make those alterations in an effort to make their publication as useful as possible to their readership.

It is interesting that many ezines do not go through such a rigorous start. Many ezines are thrown together at the last minute and often contain items that somehow seem out of place.

Ezines can be delivered by email, but more and more online business owners are sending out email notification and inviting the customer to visit the online edition of the ezine.

In a perfect world you would hire someone to research and develop the ezine for you, but most business owners may not have the funds to do this, nor may they believe the ezine is an important enough marketing tool to push the issue.

If, as an online business owner, you want to develop an ezine for your customers you may want to take the time to work through the very same issues listed above for a magazine startup.

You really need to define your focus, you need to understand what your customers are most interested in and then you need to develop clean copy for them to read.

If your content is filled with errors you will find traffic will begin to decrease. If your content is off-target more readers will disappear. If your ezine looks thrown together it might be time to reevaluate your commitment to this tool.

It may be that you have an existing ezine that you know is not what you want and now believe it may be ineffective in its present form. Now would be a good time to put the ezine on hiatus and begin working toward developing a totally new ezine - new in content, focus and design.

Seek help if you need it, but make sure your company ezine is a positive business ambassador.