Marketers who want to develop e-zines — a.k.a. online newsletters — would do best just to launch them quickly, despite imperfections, and smooth them out later, according to Bob Bly, direct marketing copywriter and e-zine developer.
“People who go out and read all the books about it will never get around to doing it,” he said at the fifth annual Mailer’s Co-op on Wednesday. He advised those who want to start them up to take no more than a month to get them off the ground.
On the question of format, Bly advised that companies with information-intensive services such as accounting software are best off using a text-only format, while firms with highly visual products such as flower catalogers would do better with HTML.
E-zines should also contain no more than seven articles and none of them should exceed three paragraphs. “The maximum reading time should be three minute,” he said. “If they’re longer, people won’t read them.”
Also, copy should contain no more than 60 characters per line, sentences should be short and headlines should avoid using all capital letters. “That might activate spam filters,” he said.
In addition, e-zines should give readers the chance to give feedback easily, said Bly.
In terms of content, Bly said e-zines should feature how-to articles as well as reader anecdotes. “People like to see their names in print,” he said. He also said it’s okay to run plugs for favorite service vendors.
Overall, he aims to have newsletters with 80% content and 20% advertisements, which can include links to other Web sites.
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