Creating Your Email Newsletter
If you've never done one before, creating an entire email
newsletter can seem like a daunting task - and more so when you
think about putting one together as a regular thing. But it's
not that hard. Here are some guidelines to follow.
1. Don't expect more than five minutes from your customer. He's
busy: running a business, surfing the Internet, changing
diapers, checking out new ringtones. A newsletter of between 500
and 1000 words per issue is ideal for most, especially if you
include click-throughs for your website, where they'll find more
content.
2. Keep it simple and short. Subdivide that short newsletter
into bite-sized bits, smaller articles of 200-500 words. Use
short paragraphs and lots of bullets.
3. A picture really is worth a thousand words, but only if your
customer accepts HTML. If your customers accept HTML in their
inbox, you can include images of your products in your
newsletter. You should always be ready with a text version, just
in case they can't accept HTML.
4. Your newsletter should be supplementary to what's on your
website. Your primary goal for your newsletter is to get your
customer to your website, where they will buy products. Always
keep that in mind when composing your newsletter.
5. To maintain a high level of presence in your customer's mind,
you should send out a newsletter every four weeks. More
frequently can get annoying, and less frequently may cause your
sales to drop off. With a short newsletter, this can be very
doable.
6. Content can be anything useful and entertaining. If you run
an online bookstore and want to have short stories and book
reviews for your content, that's fine; if you sell genetic
engineering products and want the latest technology news, that's
good too. The key is that it must captivate your customer and
get them to your website.
7. Use email newsletters to communicate information about sales.
Remember, this is a marketing tool. If you have a hot buy, write
an article about it in the newsletter; for instance, if you're
trying to get rid of H-scale train track, write an article about
H-scale trains and advertise after the article that your track
is on sale, with a click-through to the site.
8. Use email newsletters to reward your most loyal customers.
With good email newsletter programs, you can subdivide your
newsletter so that you can target your most loyal customers with
coupons and discounts just for them. The corporate marketers do
it; you can, too.
9. Use email newsletters to instigate that first sale from new
customers. Have a special newsletter in reserve that introduces
new customers to your site, and include a nice coupon in it to
encourage the first sale. It's much easer to get the second and
subsequent, once they're in the habit of buying from you online.
10. Keep good statistics on your email click-throughs. Again,
with good email newsletter programs, your click-throughs - the
times your customers click on links in the newsletter to go to
your website - are recorded. If you know what customers click on
and what they ignore, you can set up subsequent emails
accordingly to maximize click-through.
11. If you can, find out more about your customers. The more you
know about your customers, the better you can target your
newsletter. Run surveys from your site, or simply ask for more,
optional information when your customer signs up for your
newsletter.
12. Use your newsletter to sell advertising to your vendors and
affiliates. With a good customer base and proven sales from your
newsletter, you can sell advertising space to related
businesses, or even to your vendors when they want to push a
product. Don't overlook the eventual money-making potential of
your newsletter!