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How To Write An Effective Email Newsletter

How To Write An Effective Email Newsletter

By Tom Pick [Original source]

Email newsletters are a popular marketing medium for professional services firms for several very good reasons. They:

• Maintain Relationships: E-newsletters enable firms to maintain relationships with clients while cross-selling and upselling their services. At the same time, e-newsletters “nurture” prospects who aren’t yet quite ready to buy.
• Showcase Your Expertise: E-newsletters position your firm as an industry expert.
• Spread Word-Of-Mouth Marketing: E-newsletters are easy for recipients to forward to colleagues.
• Provide Client Feedback: You can collect valuable feedback from your clients and prospects through surveys, polls, and links to online forms.
• Are Cost-Effective: E-newsletters are far more cost-effective than printed mail. Plus, they don’t waste trees, and don’t cause paper cuts.
• Are Easy To Use: E-newsletters are easy to create. Use a hosted email service provider and your team can concentrate on creating great content, rather than focusing on more mundane tasks such as writing HTML code or managing subscriber lists.

Because of their utility, e-newsletters have become much more common over the last several years. And there is no doubt that inbox clutter is an increasing problem. Despite their increasing ubiquity, however, newsletters can still be a powerful marketing tool – but they must be well-crafted to stand out from the crowd. Here are a few tips for creating newsletters that will help you to successfully attract and retain readers.

Content Tips

Provide News That Is Interesting To Your Reader.

Unless you’ve got a really hot new product to announce, your latest “company news” is likely to make readers hit the DELETE key faster than you can reel off your elevator pitch.

On the other hand, news about industry trends or statistics – buying patterns, inventory levels, employment, products, regulation – is generally of interest. The more industry-focused, the better. Bookmark key sites or use a newsfeed service such as Moreover to collect this type of data.

Offer Tips And Advice.

Business readers are naturally drawn to any article with “How To” in the title (assuming it’s actually something useful). Tap the knowledge within your firm – engineers, developers, field techs, consultants – to develop these articles.

Develop Case Studies.

Stories about how real companies solved real problems are always interesting (Marketing Sherpa built an entire business around marketing case studies). Try to let your client’s words promote your company rather than being too self-promotional. Make sure the case study also makes your client look good, of course, and gain their approval by promoting the case study in publications that target their prospects.

Make It Interactive.

Include a quick poll relating to an industry topic (e.g. “How effective is podcasting at generating leads for your company?”). People love to have their voice heard, even if only through a quick vote, and to see how their peers view an issue.

Have A Voice.

Express an opinion about a industry topic of interest, similar to what bloggers do (if your company has a blog, your newsletter is a great place to link to your latest post).

Make It Fun.

Business is serious, but doesn’t always have to be humorless. Include a cartoon, a link to an odd (but not offensive) website, a trivia question about a completely unrelated topic (e.g. one-hit wonders of the music world, movies, TV, history, etc.), a quote-of-the-day, or something else amusing or off base.

Formatting and Technical Tips

Keep It Short.

Keep the body of the newsletter short by providing headlines and excerpts linking to longer articles on your website or blog. This enables readers to scan the content quickly, then link out to articles of interest.

Provide Both HTML And Plain Text Versions.

Most hosted email services allow you to set this up automatically. Some readers prefer the nicer HTML look, while others won’t be able to view an HTML version due to firewalls and filters.

Provide An RSS Feed.

Create an RSS feed of your newsletter content for readers who prefer that option. You can also use services such as Feedburner to promote your newsletter RSS feed.

Use A Professional And Relevant Subject Line.

The more reader interest-specific the subject line is, the better. “Your XYZ Company Newsletter” is accurate but b-o-r-i-n-g. On the other hand, subject lines that include phrases such as the following are effective at grabbing readers’ attention:

• How to…
• 10 Signs It’s Time To…
• Secrets of…,” “10 Successful…