Now, we look at the benefits of a newsletter, how your clients view online marketing, discussed various forms of third party newsletter software and the best practices of producing a newsletter.
Benefits of a Newsletter
1. Keep in touch with your audience.
2. Press releases, promo codes, membership, tips and tricks, advice…the possibilities are endless.
3. Why? Enhance your authoritative stance, provide helpful information, boost sales.
Traditional Marketing
How Many People visit a web site because of Marketing?
89% Print Ad
83% TV
65% Radio
79% Internet Marketing/Search Engine Marketing
Newsletter Discussion
1. Management of Information; Assign responsibility so the newsletter doesn't get left behind. Many start strong but once the novelty wears off and schedules get busy, they get forgotten.
2. Sign up Length; Name and E-mail. Too much information to fill out and you will lose your user.
3. Appropriate Welcome; When starting a Newsletter, it is okay to send a 'Welcome' Newsletter with an option to 'Opt In' to receiving the newsletter.
4. ICANN SPam; http://www.icann.org/en/faq
Federal Guideline http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/spam/business.htm
1. You are not allowed to falsify the header information.
2. The subscriber must initiate a request for you to email them. No harvesting, buying lists, an other related types of behavior.
3. There must in every email be the means with which to unsubscribe.
4. You are not permitted to use misleading or deceptive subject lines.
5. Violating these guidelines will result in fines and can result in imprisonment.
Newsletter Best Practices
1. Retention – Information vs. Sales; It's okay to promote products and services, but if there isn't a balance of great information, users will dis-engage.
Frequency – Depends on audience and industry. A cooking site that sends out recipes may want to send out a newsletter per day, while a landscape company may send one quarterly.
When to Send – Tuesdays and Thursdays are best
Design Layout – Branded and clean, call to action, link to web site or related articles.
Analytics/Reporting – Trends and baseline growth. This is best done with a third party newsletter software such as Constant Contact which as analytics built in.
Newsletter Tips
1. Place your sign up form in a highly visible place, it is a good reputation builder and traffic producer.(See Visit Bend)
2. Make an email address to use just for newsletters.(i.e. newsletter@smartz.com)
3. Develop a template, and use it every time so when they preview the email they recognize it.
4. Give stuff away to your newsletter subscribers. Extra codes, images, information, or even e-books to help them decide to sign up.
5. Include a "send to a friend" form in your newsletter so the subscriber can send it to friends. So clearly, you see now you also need a subscribe link?
6. Give them a tease of information...not too much. This is advertising, you want them to have enough to want more, but not enough that they think they have it all....we want them to visit.
7. When you are starting out, you might try finding a website in your area of relevance to advertise you in their newsletter or site for a little boost.
Advantages of Third Party Newsletter Software (Such as Constant Contact)
1. Tracks how many:
-read the email
-emails bounce back
-click the links in the email
-unsubscribe
-forward it to a friend
2. Has better subscriber list management
-Can delete entire lists
-Better bounce back management
-Disallows re-subscribes (allows continual re-importing subscribers)
3. Disallows bad characters
4. Has automated unsubscribe
5. We generate a nicer template
Resources
E-Newsletter Marketing Proves Worthy by Wendy Roe
