Writing e-Newsletters ? Tricks of the Trade
Follow 10 simple rules of thumb, and you'll soon be writing great e-newsletters and reaping the rewards. Company e-newsletters can be an amazingly successful marketing technique. Whether you want to up-sell or cross-sell, establish your brand or establish your authority, or simply reach a wider market, an e-newsletter can do the job for you. You just have to make sure you write it right. Television, radio, and print advertising are often too expensive for many businesses to justify ? especially small businesses. Fortunately, there is an alternative. Today's internet and email technologies make company newsletters a very inexpensive, yet surprisingly effective, form of advertising. When it comes to newsletters, big companies and small are finally competing on a level playing field. So what is an email newsletter? An emailed newsletter serves much the same purpose as a traditional company newsletter. Think of it as a short newspaper ? but instead of relating to a town, city or country, it relates to your business. You can include articles on new products or services, awards, recent success stories and case studies, promotions, specials, share price rises, company events, research? And if it's a quiet month, you can simply write articles that might help your customers out. 10 Steps to Success Follow 10 simple rules of thumb, and you'll soon be writing great newsletters and reaping the rewards? 1) Keep It New! Your readers won't waste time reading something they already know, so make it news they can use. 2) Keep it personal: Always use your reader's name. Make sure when someone signs up, you get their name, then use it in the subject line, in the greeting, and anywhere else you can. 3) Know your reader: Find out what your reader is interested in. Do some pro-active research, invite response, or find an email marketing solution such as Ezemail** that tracks the links your readers click on and keeps a history of their activity. 4) Let them know you: Let your personality shine through. Readers are far more likely to become loyal if they feel they know you. Always include a bit of you in the newsletter, whether it's humour, personal details, personal anecdotes, or personal views. 5) Subject is Headline: The subject line of an email newsletter is like a front-page headline in a newspaper. You need to draw the reader in, so make it engaging and relevant (maybe promise a benefit) but no more than 25 characters so your reader can see it all before opening the email. 6) Use a Title bar: Make the most of the title bar to add visual appeal and establish brand awareness. 7) Make it 'scannable': Most people don't read online ? they scan. Make sure you use easy-to-read bullet points and sub-headings. Don't lose your reader's attention. Reading is physically more difficult online, so make sure you're concise. Use links to other places instead of writing long articles. 8) Use White space!: If your page is too busy, you'll lose your reader. Give them a chance to absorb valuable information by dedicating about 30% of your screen real estate to white space. 9) Easy unsubscribe: Make your unsubscribe easy to find. If it's obvious, they'll feel safe and can then appreciate the content. To many people, the ease of unsubscribing is an indicator of the integrity of your company. 10) Forward to a friend: Include a link to encourage readers to forward the newsletter on to their friends and colleagues. Find an email marketing solution which allows you to do this and sit back and watch your database grow! ** Ezemail enables you to create, manage, deliver and track your email marketing and sales communication. Email kathpay@ezemail.com.au or visit http://www.ezemail.com.au. About The Author * Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and Article Submission Specialist. He is a director of PublishHub and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com or http://www.publishhub.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to purchase his e-book, 'SEO Secrets'.
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Improve your prospecting by being more focused and personal than a newspaper ad;
Generate referrals Ask your clients if there's anyone they can suggest who would appreciate receiving your newsletter, as it's much easier for someone to suggest an addition to your newsletter mailing list than to flat out give you a name to call;
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Recover lost clients Many lost clients would like to revive their relationship with you, but don't know how, so add a personal note to a newsletter, and mail it to them;
Enhance other practice-building techniques For example, when contacting a client you might mention something from a past issue that's applicable to his situation, and in seminars, speeches and client meetings, use appropriate issues of your newsletter as handouts or to explain certain points.
Think of your client newsletter as an education tool, as well. It's a place to explain to your clients what they should know about your area of expertise, and how it relates to their situation. Look around at what other advisors are doing, and see what you think will work best for you and your clients.
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When deciding on the type of content you are going to use in your newsletter, keep in mind that you don't even have to write it yourself. The internet is a vast source of all kinds of free content (e.g. EzineArticles.com) that you can cut and paste into your newsletter.
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Convinced of the power of this tool yet? Good. The next question is which type to use: a paper version to be mailed out to your clients by regular post or an electronic version to be e-mailed. If you decide on a paper-based newsletter, you may wish to also consider an e-mail version. Why? For starters, it's cheaper.
Paper will cost you at least a dollar for each copy you have printed, folded, stuffed, stamped and mailed. But faxing or e-mailing as many as a thousand copies will cost you practically zilch (word of warning: I would suggest foregoing faxing altogether, as many people on the receiving end resent having their own paper wasted or their phone line tied up). An e-mail version is immediate and "in your face", whereas "snail mail" can take longer to cross the city than the ocean.
As most of the benefits of a paper newsletter apply to an electronic one, why bother with a paper version at all? More people have postal addresses than e-mail addresses. A lot of your prospects and clients may not have fax or e-mail access or might just prefer a paper version.
So go for both, but ease into your electronic version. Take a few months to get your routine established for consistent quality and delivery of your paper version before worrying about creating your electronic version.
Bringing it to life
When starting with your paper-based newsletter, keep it simple. When sending a monthly newsletter, I have always found one page to be enough - anything longer could end up in a pending file to be read later, maybe. Some advisors I know who send out a quarterly newsletter might put three or four pages together.
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Always be consistent
It's important that you establish a regular routine. Your delivery and quality of content can't be hit-and-miss, skipping some months because you were too busy or forgot about it. Your newsletter is a projection of you, so commit to getting it out on the same day every month (or three months, or whatever your timeframe may be), no matter what. If you don't do that, you'll just alienate your clients with your unreliable efforts.
So get your preparation and distribution systems for your paper newsletter well established and working smoothly and consistently before you even think about transferring it to e-mail. E-mail requires the same regularity, but a totally different system.
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Pro: It looks better.
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