Television, radio, advertising in newsprint or other print can
put a huge dent in your advertising budgets. Simply put, it just
becomes too expensive for the small business owner. What’s the
alternative? Newsletters are the alternative to the high cost of
advertising, and yet it is an excellent marketing tool for your
business. While saving a ton of money using this form of
advertising, many big companies and small companies are using
newsletters weekly, monthly to indirectly promote their products
and services these days. What does that say about using this
form of marketing? Everyone is on the same playing field when it
comes to newsletters! The key thing with newsletters is, which
ones get read? You want to make sure that it gets done right, so
you will be guaranteed that all your work putting together a
newsletter won’t go unnoticed.
In this section, read the top tips on how to create a ‘pro’
looking newsletter that will jump start a steady trail of
traffic to your website.
CONTENT AND FOCUS:
Your newsletter should focus on a subject in which you have a
great deal of knowledge. If you have a website that is geared
towards a specific product or service, you should take into
consideration what the focus of your site is. For instance,
let’s say that you specialize in Internet Marketing, you
wouldn’t write articles about ‘Automobiles.’ Articles should
have content on different marketing strategies and trends in
your field. Content is still king. I’m sure you’ve heard that
phrase throughout the web. Make sure what you write about has
substance to it and will hook the reader. A poorly written
article with not so great content will not get your newsletter
read. Make sure you start on the right foot with great and
interesting content.
SPELLING AND GRAMMAR:
Proofread all your content for grammar usage and spelling. There
is nothing worse than reading a newsletter with all kinds of
errors in them. If you’re anything like me, I have this pet
peeve on misspelled words and improper grammar usage. Have other
people proofread your content and make adjustments just to make
sure that you didn’t miss anything. It just doesn’t look
professional when you have all these mistakes in your
newsletter, and it won’t get visitors to come back to read more
errors!
TITLE:
Your title should sound intriguing and tell your potential
customers exactly what your publication is all about. The title
of your ezine is one of the most important keys in getting your
newsletter read. Be creative, and use different titles that
would get your publication listed towards the top instead of the
bottom. By doing that, you will give your publication an
advantage over the publications listed below yours. Many ezine
sites list their publications in alphabetical order, so when
coming up with a title, use the first three letters in the
alphabet, i.e. “Online Secrets”, you should say, “Advertising
Tips and Secrets.” You will be listed higher, which will put you
in a position to get the click through.
NEWSLETTER SCHEDULE:
You can publish your newsletter as many times as you like, but
the norm is once a month for most companies since they take time
and effort to formulate a quality newsletter. Anything that is
quickly put together at the last minute is probably not going to
be your best work. Just make sure that once you decide the time
frame or how often you will be sending out your newsletter, that
you stick with that. The worst thing you can do is to have
subscribers expecting a newsletter on the ‘first Wednesday’ of
each month, and for it not to be there. Stick and adhere to your
publication dates. No exceptions allowed.
STYLE:
The appearance of your site is one of the most important factors
in determining the success of your newsletter. A professionally
written, well-designed, content rich publication will guarantee
that your subscribers will return each time your newsletter goes
out. Keeping them there is the key. Only provide good quality
newsletters, with interesting and practical articles.
LAYOUT:
The format of your newsletter should resemble exactly or very
similar to the layout of your website. This keeps the
subscribers in familiar territory when they are viewing your
newsletter, they are able to pinpoint which website that
particular newsletter belongs to. If you do your research, good
newsletters are the ones that have the same format, color theme,
and similarity to their websites.
COLOR:
The color should reflect the colors of your current website.
Always use good taste in selecting colors. You don’t want to use
colors that are distracting or not pleasing to the eye. Three
basic colors within your newsletter is a good guide to go with.
Any more colors than three, can make your newsletter appear very
over stimulating and cluttered. Take a good look at your
website, from there, you should be able to come up with a
professional looking newsletter.
TABLE OF CONTENT: Include a table of content at the top of the
newsletter. This will allow the readers to scan the topics to
see if anything in the newsletter catches their interests. It
just shows a bit of organization as well as a sense of
professionalism when you provide a table of content to your
newsletter.
OPT-IN AND OPT-OUT:
Always give your subscribers the option to opt-in or opt-out to
receive your newsletters. If you’re concerned about why they
decided to stop subscribing to your newsletter, then by all
means, follow up with the customer and find out why they no
longer want to receive it. By offering them the option to
receive or not receive, is a good practice of common courtesy
behavior that you strongly adhere to. You wouldn’t want to keep
receiving newsletters that you politely asked to stop receiving?
Put yourself in their shoes by respecting their wishes.
TEST IN DIFFERENT FORMATS:
With the nature of the Internet and the various types of
programs that subscribers have, you may need to have several
formats for your newsletters for your subscribers to have the
ability to view them. Test them to your computer to make sure
that the font, size, and the style still comes out attractive
looking in various formats. If they are not to your liking, then
you may need to tweak them a bit until you are satisfied with
the look and outcome depending on the format. This does seem
like a bit of work, but you want to reach those customers who
don’t have the newer, faster programs.
Having your own newsletter will not only enable you to keep in
touch with your visitors, but will only increase your database
of targeted customers. Newsletters are cheap, and should be a
part of every small business owners’ marketing strategy. It will
be one of the best marketing decisions you will make.
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