Add hyperlinks and include updates on old material should new information surface. The typical form of newsletter is a one-way communication where you provide information to customers, such as product updates and announcements. You have the option of formatting your e-mail by including colorized text and a variety of fonts, but not all e-mail software supports HTML mail. Consider writing your newsletter in plain text or offer two mailing lists- one for plain text mailings and the other for HTML e-mail.
Make sure you Include:
Table of Contents
Hyperlinks for customers who want more information for a featured topic
Exciting secrets or tips related to your product or service
Contact information
E-newsletters can take up a good amount of time if not managed correctly. The use of a list server (a piece of software that runs on your Internet provider's computer or on your own web server) is a good option. It will automatically manage a list of e-mail addresses. Once you send your newsletter to the list server, it distributes the letter to the stored addresses. For more information on list servers, contact your Internet service provider. If you opt to use another method, make sure you have a plan for handling incoming and outgoing mail when your customer base increases.
7.3 Steps for a successful newsletter campaign
Internet marketing with newsletters is probably one of the most effect marketing strategies. However, the whole process of devising and implementing a newsletter campaign involves considerable amount of planning. Given below are a few guidelines that would help you make your campaign a success.
Step 1: Determine what you can sell online, or how to monetize your site.
Step 2: People use the Internet for information. Try to figure out what information is unique to your business? Everybody is an expert in his or her chosen field. This information is valuable to others.
Step 3: Identify your target audience. Define your audience, and then find out where they are going online for information. E.g. which sites, newsgroups and discussions boards are the most popular. This technique alone will greatly build your traffic as well as your name. You’d be amazed at how many businesses still define their audience as "all people" or "everyone needs my product". This is not true. Contrary to popular business myth, the Internet is not a mainstream medium. Communities are usually quite passionate about their interests. Find your community and become an authority to them.
Step 4: Your website and newsletter content is the information that is your leverage. With proper content, the Internet can be the most successful medium to propagate the essence of your business. Content works in becoming your business’s USP. Your content will mean the difference in your site being an online business or merely a ‘brochure site’.
Step 5: Create and maintain your mailing list.
Step 6: Produce your newsletter. Email newsletters are great because you can include ‘hot links’ that will open a web page. Make sure you include the http:// and almost all email software will understand it to be an internet address, make it ‘clickable’, then open the page in your internet browser.
Step 7: Make sure you have autoresponders in place to field often-asked questions, and subscribe and unsubscribe your recipients automatically. (You will always lose a few. Don’t take it personally. Make it easy for people to off your list).
Step 8: Never SPAM. Spamming is the practice of sending information to people who didn’t actually ask for it. It has been an accepted practice in the offline direct marketing world but for some reason has become a really sensitive issue online. Don’t even try it. You could find yourself switched off by your ISP. They will not hesitate for fear of being listed world wide as a SPAM server.
