Is Your Company Ready for an E-Newsletter?
By Sam PascuaOne of the best ways for a business to increase sales and profitability is to strengthen its relationship with customers. For an online business, this means increasing the frequency and relevancy of electronic communications. Blogs and interactive content like product reviews are helpful, but they only work if customers visit your site. In contrast, an e-newsletter lets you reach out to your customers wherever they may be, directing them back to your site to learn more.
A successful e-newsletter requires careful planning and commitment. Poorly crafted e-newsletters run the risk of boring or annoying customers and can actually hurt your business’s reputation and decrease sales. In contrast, a well-planned e-newsletter can be an invaluable tool for communication and sales.
Stick to a Schedule
A good e-newsletter needs to have a regular production calendar. How often you choose to publish it isn’t nearly as important as whether you are able to stick to that schedule. Whether you choose to send an e-newsletter once a week, once a month, or once a quarter, make sure your customers know when they can expect to receive the next edition. Once you have a regular schedule, you can create internal production calendars for generating story ideas, writing articles, collecting images, formatting the e-newsletter, and proofreading the final version. With advance planning, you can prevent the frantic last-minute rush that inevitably results in errors.
Know Your Readers
Unless you sell only a single product, you probably have more than one target market. You need to clearly identify the audience for your newsletter. Is it potential customers who are female and in their 20s? Or current customers who have been with your company for at least five years and purchase at least $5,000 of your product each year? With an appropriate database, you have the power to create customized recipient lists and target the types of individuals who will receive your e-newsletter. The more your e-newsletter can address their interests and concerns, the more likely they are to read the e-newsletter and answer your call to action. If your e-newsletter isn’t tailored for its readers, then it will probably end up marked as spam.
Include Relevant Stories
Including relevant stories goes along with knowing your readers. What will they want to read about? Will they really be interested in an article about why your company is changing its internal organization, or would they rather hear about recent product developments? Once you’ve identified the stories you want to cover, assign them to writers who will have the time to conduct in-depth research and include insightful quotes from the people who are closest to the story. This will give your articles a personal touch and make them more engaging.
Be Consistent
Ideally, each edition of your corporate e-newsletter should have a consistent look and feel. It should always be organized the same way, perhaps with one main article, two supporting articles, and a sidebar. The boilerplate text that describes your company and provides contact information should appear at the bottom in exactly the same way each time. Graphical elements and photographs should have consistent placement and support your company’s branding and colour scheme whenever possible. Design Industries can help you create a template that complements your website and other marketing materials.
Dot the i’s and Cross the t’s
Before sending out the e-newsletter, be sure to proofread it again and again. The e-newsletter is a great opportunity to make a positive impression on the recipients, but if it is full of typos, it will backfire. Also make sure that all the requisite information is included, especially when you’re announcing events or product launches. Remember the 5 Ws of journalism: who, what, where, when, and why. Finally, test all the links and the reply-to email address to make sure everything is functioning correctly before you hit “send”.
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