e-Newsletters = e-No Brainer
By Scott Gillespie
When many people think about Social Media, they think along the lines of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and dozens of other websites that provide social media services.
However, lost in the shuffle are a couple of very effective tools that are every part of the Social Media world - blogs and e-newsletters. For this week, let’s focus on e-newsletters. The benefits and advantages of using e-Newsletters and numerous, but let’s take a look at three of the biggest reasons why to use an e-Newsletter.
1. Relationships - With a written e-Newsletter, you are able to build a relationship with your customers and prospects. Every issue you send is packed with usable and valuable information that your readers will look forward to receiving. And the more they receive good stuff from you and the more they look forward to receiving it, the stronger the bond that is built between the two of you. Being yourself when you write will also connect you personally as well as professionally.
With this written connection, the relationship you build is that of a trusted advisor. The more and more you give through sharing valuable ideas with your readers, the more and more they will view you as the authority in your industry. When it comes to making a buying decision, people like to do business with people they like and people they see as a leader in that arena. If you can be both to them, you’ve drastically shortened the playing field!
With an e-Newsletter, there are also ways you can make them interactive which further connects you one-on-one with each of your readers. One way is to provide a way for readers to leave feedback for you one each issue or each article. Another is to provide reader responses or comments that you receive that may provide value for the rest of your readers.
2. Timeliness - This benefit is important on multiple levels. First, when the e-mail is written and sent, it is immediately received by your target audience. You do not have to wait for a direct mail piece to be printed and delivered. And you don’t have to wait for the Sunday paper to hit or for your audience to tune in the station you are advertising on. With e-Newsletters, you only have to wait for your readers to check their inbox - which with some people is as frequent and involuntary as breathing.
Another aspect of timeliness is the type of response you can get. If your e-Newsletters are providing valuable information and ideas and contain an effective call to action, a simple click of the Reply button gets the ball rolling. More and more, people are more apt to hit reply than pick up the phone and call you. It’s immediate, too!
A third aspect of timeliness comes from a slightly different perspective. Assuming you are delivering great content, if you send out an e-Newsletter once a month on the 1st of every month, people will look for your letter on the first. If you send it weekly, your letter and the day of the week it is delivered becomes synonymous.
This creates a subliminal relationship that your readers - customers and prospects - can trust you to deliver on your product or service. This brings up a third trait that people look for in making a buying decision - a person they can trust.
3. Insight - Publishing an e-Newsletter can provide you with valuable insight into the minds and interests of your readers. Much of this insight is gleaned through the reporting functionality that most e-Newsletter services provide.
For example, let’s say you publish a weekly e-Newsletter for your bakery and at the end of each of your featured articles you place a link for people to click on for a delicious recipe. You may have various types of recipes for breads, cakes, pies, cookies, donuts and others. Each time someone clicks on that link, it is recorded and tracked in your report file. You can see in real time how many people are interested in a particular kind of recipe.
Over time, you can compile this information and see what kind of trends there may be. If you’re finding that more people click through for your cake recipes, you can focus more time, information and frequency in that area.
Taking that a step further, you can also segment your subscriber lists into sub-lists where you can send all of your cake lovers “special recipes” or offers outside of your standard e-newsletter.
CAUTION! - Do not send out “ME”-Newsletters!! Your readers will not want to read about you every week. Your e-Newsletter is not a weekly or monthly advertisement - at least not directly. Your e-Zine must contain valuable information for your readers to use regardless if they ever pick up the phone or hit the Reply button. If your content falls short of that, your readers will get an itchy trigger finger to hit the UnSubscribe button and they’re gone!
Well there you have it. Three very solid reasons to make sure that you incorporate e-Newsletters, not only into your regular marketing efforts, but especially into your Social Media marketing efforts.
Now Go Get ‘Em!!
By Scott Gillespie
When many people think about Social Media, they think along the lines of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and dozens of other websites that provide social media services.
However, lost in the shuffle are a couple of very effective tools that are every part of the Social Media world - blogs and e-newsletters. For this week, let’s focus on e-newsletters. The benefits and advantages of using e-Newsletters and numerous, but let’s take a look at three of the biggest reasons why to use an e-Newsletter.
1. Relationships - With a written e-Newsletter, you are able to build a relationship with your customers and prospects. Every issue you send is packed with usable and valuable information that your readers will look forward to receiving. And the more they receive good stuff from you and the more they look forward to receiving it, the stronger the bond that is built between the two of you. Being yourself when you write will also connect you personally as well as professionally.
With this written connection, the relationship you build is that of a trusted advisor. The more and more you give through sharing valuable ideas with your readers, the more and more they will view you as the authority in your industry. When it comes to making a buying decision, people like to do business with people they like and people they see as a leader in that arena. If you can be both to them, you’ve drastically shortened the playing field!
With an e-Newsletter, there are also ways you can make them interactive which further connects you one-on-one with each of your readers. One way is to provide a way for readers to leave feedback for you one each issue or each article. Another is to provide reader responses or comments that you receive that may provide value for the rest of your readers.
2. Timeliness - This benefit is important on multiple levels. First, when the e-mail is written and sent, it is immediately received by your target audience. You do not have to wait for a direct mail piece to be printed and delivered. And you don’t have to wait for the Sunday paper to hit or for your audience to tune in the station you are advertising on. With e-Newsletters, you only have to wait for your readers to check their inbox - which with some people is as frequent and involuntary as breathing.
Another aspect of timeliness is the type of response you can get. If your e-Newsletters are providing valuable information and ideas and contain an effective call to action, a simple click of the Reply button gets the ball rolling. More and more, people are more apt to hit reply than pick up the phone and call you. It’s immediate, too!
A third aspect of timeliness comes from a slightly different perspective. Assuming you are delivering great content, if you send out an e-Newsletter once a month on the 1st of every month, people will look for your letter on the first. If you send it weekly, your letter and the day of the week it is delivered becomes synonymous.
This creates a subliminal relationship that your readers - customers and prospects - can trust you to deliver on your product or service. This brings up a third trait that people look for in making a buying decision - a person they can trust.
3. Insight - Publishing an e-Newsletter can provide you with valuable insight into the minds and interests of your readers. Much of this insight is gleaned through the reporting functionality that most e-Newsletter services provide.
For example, let’s say you publish a weekly e-Newsletter for your bakery and at the end of each of your featured articles you place a link for people to click on for a delicious recipe. You may have various types of recipes for breads, cakes, pies, cookies, donuts and others. Each time someone clicks on that link, it is recorded and tracked in your report file. You can see in real time how many people are interested in a particular kind of recipe.
Over time, you can compile this information and see what kind of trends there may be. If you’re finding that more people click through for your cake recipes, you can focus more time, information and frequency in that area.
Taking that a step further, you can also segment your subscriber lists into sub-lists where you can send all of your cake lovers “special recipes” or offers outside of your standard e-newsletter.
CAUTION! - Do not send out “ME”-Newsletters!! Your readers will not want to read about you every week. Your e-Newsletter is not a weekly or monthly advertisement - at least not directly. Your e-Zine must contain valuable information for your readers to use regardless if they ever pick up the phone or hit the Reply button. If your content falls short of that, your readers will get an itchy trigger finger to hit the UnSubscribe button and they’re gone!
Well there you have it. Three very solid reasons to make sure that you incorporate e-Newsletters, not only into your regular marketing efforts, but especially into your Social Media marketing efforts.
Now Go Get ‘Em!!
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Issue #60 ~ June 1, 2010 Printer friendly PDF file
