| By Bob DeStefano
Is your email newsletter a success? The big challenge in producing
a successful email newsletter is generating content that will motivate
prospects and customers to open, read, and respond. E-newsletters that
simply provide a recap of your latest products and news may be of great
interest to you, but they are of little interest to your readers. To make
your e-newsletter a ‘must read’ and a valuable nurturing tool for you business,
you need to provide useful, objective information that will truly help your
prospects and customers do a better job. The following tips will help
you create an email newsletter your customers will love.
1.
Create Relevant, Customer-Focused Content
Your email newsletter is not for you –
it’s for your customers. You need to focus less on
your company and more on the issues and ideas your customers are
interested in. I like articles that focus on “how
to” tips, best practices and actionable strategies.
To help get you started, the following are examples of customer-focused
email newsletter content:
- Problems and
solutions. Identify common problems that your
readers might face and provide ideas on how to solve them.
- Lists and
tips. Provide actionable lists and tips with
titles that begin like “Seven steps to…”
or “The top five ways to…” or
“The top ten tips for…”
- Technological
developments. Inform your readers on how they
can take advantage of recent technological developments to improve
their operations and be more effective.
- Industry news
and trends. Write about new developments in
your industry that your readers can take advantage of. Make
sure to highlight why they are important for your readers’
businesses.
- Case
studies. Write case studies of how others have
improved their operations. Make sure to include details that
readers can learn from and success measures so your readers can gauge
the results achieved from these actions.
2.
Focus On One Core Idea Per Issue
Many companies pack way too much content in each issue of their email
newsletter. Interestingly enough, these are normally the same
companies that feel they cannot keep up with the creation of a monthly
e-newsletter. Focus on one idea per issue and resist the urge
to explain your entire field of expertise in each email newsletter.
You'll have more content to choose from for your next issue and your
readers will find your e-newsletter easier to read.
3.
Have a Conversation with Your Readers
When you write your articles, take a conversational tone in your
copy. Don’t feel you are writing your articles for
hundreds or thousands of subscribers. The reality is that one
person will be reading your newsletter at a time. Have a
conversation with each reader by writing the way you talk –
in a direct and friendly manner. Your readers will find it
much more appealing than if you write in a formal manner. In
fact, I feel you can break a lot of the rules your high school English
teacher taught you about writing. While writing your article,
and definitely after you’re finished, read it out
loud. Does it sound natural – just as if you were
having a conversation with someone? If not, go back and
polish the rough edges.
4.
Keep Your Articles Short and Scannable
Your articles need to be short and sweet. The best
e-newsletter articles are between 500 and 750 words of text.
Also, people scan information online before they read it in
detail. With email newsletters, you have about five seconds
to convince someone your e-newsletter is worth reading before they
delete it. Make your e-newsletters easy to scan by breaking
up the text in your articles into manageable chunks. Use
bullet points and bolded headers to make it easy for your readers to
scan and absorb your message.
5.
Make a Subtle ‘Call to Action’
Even though the focus of your email newsletter is to educate prospects
and customers, this is a great opportunity to present them with
relevant offers to generate leads and sales or encourage repeat Website
visits.
- Remember the
e-newsletter 80-20 rule. I like to see email
newsletters be 80% educational and 20% promotional. The
majority of the email newsletter content is useful educational
information, while the sidebar is presenting your readers with an
attractive offer that is relevant to the article content.
- Make sure
your offer is relevant. I know we mentioned
relevancy in the previous bullet point, but it is important to repeat
this idea again. Your offer must be relevant on a number of
levels to be effective. It should be relevant to the
reader’s interests, as well as relevant to the focus of your
article content.
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