12 Sep Ten tips for e-mail newsletter success

Ten tips for e-mail newsletter success

Why this sudden increase of newsletters in your inbox? Because it’s incredibly easy and cheap to send e-mail newsletters thanks to a profusion of Web-based e-mail newsletter services.

Aren’t newsletters just viewed as more spam? Not if your recipients have signed up to receive them – and not if you do them right.

Do they work? Absolutely! If what you want to do is to keep your name in front of customers and prospects – and make the occasional sale.

Here are some tips:

1. Make it meaningful. Readers should get something from bothering to open your newsletter. It doesn’t have to be a lot. If they learn one new, useful thing, they’ve benefitted. Discounts and sales are always enticing.

2. Keep it short. People have limited time. The recipient needs to be able to get something valuable from your newsletter in less than a minute.

3. Use a descriptive subject line. It’s not particularly exciting to just see “This month’s news” or “This month’s specials.”

Instead, indicate what they’ll find right in the headline. “This month’s special – 50 percent off all outdoor furniture.” Studies show subject lines with fewer than 50 characters are best.

Avoid subject lines that will get you blocked. Spam filters block subject lines with words like “free” or dollar signs or all caps.

4. Send it regularly. Once a month or every two weeks is ideal. More than that is probably overkill, unless you’re providing real news.

5. Maintain your branding. Make sure your company name is very visible. Use the same colors, fonts, and taglines you use in the rest of your branding.

6. Only send it to people who’ve signed up. This is called “opt in” and most e-mail newsletter services will send to your e-mail list only if people have signed up to receive it – or have given you their business card.

7. Provide an “unsubscribe” option. Once again, this is required by most e-mail services. And it’s the law.

8. Use an online e-mail newsletter service. There are a bunch of great, inexpensive services, such as Constant Contact, Vertical Response, and Emma. It costs about 1 cent per person per mailing. There’s even a free service, Mail Chimp, if you’re sending to fewer than 500 recipients.

Newsletter services provide templates or design services, making it easy to design your newsletter. They manage all technical aspects.

9. Use analytics. E-mail newsletter services generally provide a great deal of information about how well your newsletter is doing – who’s opening the newsletter, how many people are clicking on which links, and so on.

10. Encourage sign-ups. Put sign-up links on every page of your website. Gather business cards for newsletter sign-ups at trade shows or networking events. Make sure all your customers are on your list.