E-Newsletter Marketing
E-newsletters are a great vehicle for small direct marketers. More so than virtually any other online communications, they can level the economic playing field. Costing only a few thousand dollars, digital imaging and other computer-based graphics techniques lets small businesses create e-newsletter retention and informational campaigns that have high production values.
Get the relationship off to a good start
Do privacy, opt-in and unsubscribe right by respecting the e-newsletter audience member with a documented “no sharing of email addresses” privacy policy, explicit opt-in and readily available unsubscribe capability.
Get their attention
By paying attention to production values with a great looking e-newsletter which uses well-designed graphics, an appropriate layout and plenty of images or photos. Offer a high-impact, sophisticated e-newsletter in the same league as large competitors.
Keep their attention
They’ve opted in and will likely open the first one or two e-newsletters. Now it’s imperative to have great content that will keep subscribers engaged. Think like a publisher as much as a marketer and build a community of interest.
Know when to sell them
Cascade your content with adjacent synopses and links to lead the reader from interesting editorial pieces into more product/offer oriented content with successively stronger direct response calls to action.
Respond appropriately
If someone has shown a deep interest in a particular product, send him or her more information; if she or he would like to schedule a sales appointment, give the prospect a call.
Keep their attention for the long-term
Measure not only open rates and purchase transactions, but also content popularity (what are they reading, how long are they spending reading it?). Use that analysis to tune the content over successive e-newsletter editions to hang on to your audience. An auto dealership discovered that its e-newsletter readers are more interested in what they could do with their cars – movie or restaurant reviews that would help them plan excursions – than in tips about automotive maintenance.
Segment your audience
Consider providing separate e-newsletter variations based on clusters of content popularity. For example, offer a product line specific e-newsletter to subscribers who have shown a more focused interest.
Lower the threshold to viral marketing
Sure you should invite subscribers to “tell a friend” about the e-newsletter, but consider lowering the barrier to vial marketing by making it easy for a subscriber to forward just an article from the e-newsletter.
Sustain and supplement the content with audience contributions
Invite email responses to e-newsletter content, use and report on surveys in the e-newsletter and consider using a moderated blog with audience posting as a source of e-newsletter content.
Plan for and play with the future
Try inserting a podcast in your e-newsletter and see how it pulls. Consider offering you e-newsletter content as an RSS feed, particularly if you have a techno-savvy audience.
David Fish is the chief executive officer of iMakeNews, Inc. (IMN), an e-communications service provider based in Waltham, MA.
