Your Newsletter

Publishing a newsletter is simple and inexpensive, and is an important part of your overall Web marketing strategy.  This issue explains why a newsletter is important, helps you in setting your goals for it, provides some warnings and discusses the tools question--that is, should you publish one? This issue has a new format, thanks to Mary Johnson, who didn't like the previous format.  If you like it or not, I'd love to hear from you.  Just click on the "send comment" link at the bottom of the page.  The "visit site" link will take you to the site, where you can read back issues of this newsletter. back to top Why a Newsletter? There's a lot of research suggesting that, in today's crowded advertising market, where we are exposed to company names literally all day long, that we don't even take a new company name or brand seriously until we see it in a credible setting at least seven times.  If you have a nice Web site, and a visitor sees it and likes it, what next?  At the first encounter, the visitor isn't ready to buy.  So now you hope that visitor remembers your URL on first exposure (and what do you think is the chance of that?) or finds you again when searching. But suppose you provided a method for the visitor to tell you "I'm interested but not quite sold.  Please tell me more and remind me of my interest in your site."  Now that visitor can get the remaining six exposures through your newsletter, bringing her to the point of being ready to do business!  However, as they say in the TV ads, there's more!  How would our predecessors in print advertising have enjoyed being able to design a newsletter and then have the prospects pay for the printing and mailing!  That's what the Internet gives us. All we have to do is design it, and the delivery and printing is paid by our prospects! back to top Content The most common mistake that's made in newsletters is to use them to sell!  Yes, it's intended to help make sales, but the purpose isn't to just convey price offers and comeons.  Your visitor isn't ready to buy, or she would have bought on the last visit.  You're selling at a distance, so you need to build up confidence and familiarity.  Make the visitor comfortable with you and your company, so that purchase (or other transaction that you seek) will happen. In the newsletter, convey information about the organization, how it does business, the sort of service that's provided, and the staff.  Give the kind of information that a physical visitor would get by coming into your store, looking around, and saying hello to your staff.  Find interesting stories to tell.  Readers of your newsletter who like it will be grateful if you follow a consistent pattern with your newsletters.  Perhaps you have an introduction that surveys the content, one or two sections about the content, and then a summary.  Like this newsletter!  Or you might have a section about your company--or your area of business--in the news.  You might always then talk about a new feature that you've added.  And then introduce one staff member.  Remember, each of these visitors has left an "I'm interested" card with you.  Now it's your job to provide them the right information so that they can make the decision to buy.  When they do decide to buy, they're likely to come in a regular price--there's no reason to expect that they didn't buy at first because of price. Which is why you don't want to put price offer after price offer in your newsletter--all that does is reduce confidence in your price structure. back to top A Warning Be careful with your subject line. There are a number of programs between you and your subscribers that are looking for unwanted email, and they will dump your wonderful newsletter right into the bit bucket if they don't like it! One good word to avoid entirely in the subject line is free.  That word  by itself can get your newsletter not delivered.  And don't put exclamation points into the subject line either, for the same reason. back to top Tools If you know me, you know that I use tools for as much of my work as possible.  I have limited time to get it done, so I'm happy to pay for something that makes the work go faster. I prefer a mailing list tool that runs on my own PC.  A hosted service is OK, but you pay every time you use it.  With a PC tool, you pay just once.  Your email service from your own site can send your newsletters, but then you have a lot of setup to do if you want to change ISPs.  I found a mailing list tool that runs on my PC and handles subscribes and unsubscribes without bothering me.  It has an html editor so that I can easily compose newsletters.  It's called Mail List King, and it's from Xequte software.  They have a range of good products that are not expensive, and they keep making them better. But what I like may not be what you like.  Try a few different mailing list tools, and decide what appeals to you.  The goal is to find something you like to use so that you can establish a regular pattern of getting the newsletters out and a pattern of content that your readers will come to know. back to top The Bottom Line I hope that this issue has convinced you that you need a newsletter!  If you don't have one, then you are letting your half-sold visitors off the hook, to be sold by another site that offers them a newsletter.

visit site     send a comment      unsubscribe. Web Marketing Advantage - 8833 Harness Trail, Potomac, Md.  20854  301 983-0452 Copyright 2009, David C. Roberts Unlimited permission to copy and forward this document is given provided that it is copied in full and attributed to http://webmarketingadvantage.com