BETTER BIZ WRITING TIPS - ISSUE 2 - JUNE 2008
CREATING EFFECTIVE EMAIL NEWSLETTERS
Customer retention remains a big challenge for many businesses and finding new customers and clients can be a slow and expensive process. Keeping your name out there calls for constant contact and while companies utilize everything from direct mail to cold calling, nothing reaches a larger audience in an inexpensive and efficient manner like an email newsletter.
The most important element of a successful newsletter is its content. Plan a calendar of themes and topics up to a year in advance so that you're not scrambling for content at the last minute. Avoid sales pitches and focus on delivering your subscribers content that informs and educates them about your product, service or industry.
Keep your newsletters short and sweet, preferably in an organized format that puts the most important leads and captivating messages center stage. The online world has infinite content and small attention spans and marketing experts say that readers will ditch your website or email newsletter if you don't capture their attention within the first twenty words or two seconds. Think of the subject line and intro to your newsletter as a billboard on the freeway-readers are driving by at 70 miles per hour and you have to get to the point quickly.
Email newsletters can appeal to a variety of businesses: accountants can inform their clients of new tax laws; attorneys can keep their clients up-to-date on new regulations, court decisions and firm developments; dentists and physicians can educate their patients about health-related topics or dental care tips; and construction companies can inform their subscribers of new projects. For larger organizations, email newsletters are an easy way to reach employees and internal departments with company news, trade-related articles, personnel profiles and content that can create synergy throughout the organization.
While some small businesses wrte the newsletters themselves, it can often be beneficial to enlist the services of a professional writer. Contracting the work out to a writer not only provides you with professional content but saves time so that staff isn't bogged down on having to worry about newsletter deadlines.
The layout and design of an email newsletter can vary depending upon your target audience. Newsletters are generally constructed in text-only format or in html which allows for the use of graphs, photos and tables. While text-only newsletters are the simplest to produce and can be read by all browsers and email programs, html format allows for visually appealing graphics, images and videos. Companies such as Constant Contact and iContact provide easy-to-use templates that make it a simple process for just about anyone to create a beautiful newsletter with a professional layout.
Just like an advertising campaign, an email newsletter or marketing campaign must be repetitive to be successful. Although some companies might have enough relevance and content to produce a weekly email, a monthly or quarterly email newsletter will suffice for most. Fail to contact your customers and you may lose their business but contact them too frequently and your emails may be written off as spam. Your regular email newsletters and messages keep your business on the radar and, through time, help create branding and name recognition.
Although email newsletters are inexpensive and there's little cost difference between sending it to 100 and 5,000 addresses, cultivate and manage your list carefully. Expert marketers usually advise against buying a list and say it's better to hand-pick your own with targets that can utilize your products or services. Through such services as Constant Contact, iContact and Yahoo Campaigner, you can not only send out your newsletters but track who opens it, when and whether or not they click through to your site. Tracking and analyzing this data not only helps you cultivate and strengthen your list but helps you better aim the content and editorial to your subscribers.
|
