Email marketing is far from dead, despite the fact it can be a challenge to build an opt-in list of email addresses.

Even with the popularity and ease of publishing on blogs, an ezine should be a standard in your online marketing toolbox. Ezines are easy, accessible, inexpensive, instant, and interactive.

Here are ten reasons to publish an ezine:

1.  Gain name and fame; become widely known as an expert in your field to people you might not ever see or meet. You establish yourself as a thought leader and demonstrate your expertise in a way you could never do on a website or brochure.

2.  Cultivate a relationship with your readers; establish trust and credibility. Your ezine is an opportunity to teach, to share interesting information, and to share your philosophy and real life experiences. Readers get to know you. Show them what you know, and also that you care. (There is that old adage that says 'people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care!')

3.  Create quality content for your website. When you post your ezines on your website, you increase the chance of search engines picking up your site because you have more pages and more content.

4.  Stay in touch with past, present and potential clients. You never know when, where or why a person will contact you for services, so you need to stay in touch, and make it easy for them to contact you. Some say people need to hear from you 5-7 times before they are ready to hire or buy.

5.  Give people up-to-date information on programs, services and products you have created that can help them. How else will they know what you have to offer?

6.  Create alliances and affiliations with other ezine publishers, programs and service providers that interest your readers. They will love you when you offer solutions from other sources that you don't provide yourself. You become a go-to resource for many of their needs. You can also earn passive income through affiliate programs.

7.  Reinforce your branding. Your services may be great, but every business needs a look, a logo, colors, a name, a tag-line quote-things that sum up in one glance the essence or feel of who you are and what your business stands for. Your ezine is one more opportunity to put forth your brand.

8.  Expand and grow your database: Ezines can be forwarded to a reader's friends and associates. Your list of subscribers can grow with people you might never come in contact with. You can reach a global audience instead of your local area.

9.  Create a two-way dialogue with your readers: Ask your readers questions, survey them about topics, ask for their opinions and feedback. Your ezine can help you keep your finger on the pulse of your ideal clients; you can use their feedback to create more ezine content, or other products such as telecourses and e-books. And this in itself sustains the idea that you are really interested in them and in providing the kinds of services that are important to them: you care.

10.  Bottom-line: sales. You turn prospects into clients. Your ezine can be a magnet to your website, to your products, to your services. People are more likely to buy from you when they feel they know you. Ezines are particularly effective for selling services where there may be a long sales cycle and where the relationship is important.