One of the most effective marketing tools you can use to promote your web
site is a regular newsletter. A newsletter -- whether daily, weekly or
monthly -- gives you a chance to connect with your more loyal visitors. It
gives a reason for your audience to come back to your site, peruse your new
content and check out your current offerings.
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Here are some pointers to keep in mind when starting an email newsletter:
1. Decide on
the objective of your newsletter.
The objective will shape the contents of your newsletter, and create its
value to your customers. Is it designed to educate your customers? Putting
in a lot of articles (original or submitted by contributors) can do the
trick for you.
You can also design your newsletter as a tool to generate consistent
traffic. Instead of publishing the entire article in the email, your
newsletter can contain a blurb about the article and a link to lead them to
your site to read the full content. Not only does it generate more page
views for your site, but also it reduces the kb size of your email if you
are sending out your newsletter in HTML thus
saving the subscribers with valuable bytes in their inboxes.
Some people create newsletters primarily as a revenue-generating
mechanism designed mostly to please the advertisers. Most of these are
nothing but ads, with little content. While this approach may give you
income, you must consider how many among your subscribers enjoy reading
nothing but ads every time. The ideal thing to do will be to balance the
need of your advertiser and the reader.
2. Have a site
where people can check out what you offer, subscribe to your newsletter and
post archives of your newsletter.
There are newsletter publishers who do not have a web site. While a web site
is not absolutely necessary, it is easier to attract subscribers if there is
a site where they can see what you are offering and fill up a subscription
form..
Without a site, your list will grow only through the power of the word of
mouth and direct referrals. If you have a really unique and excellent newsletter, this may not be
a problem. But if your content is something commonly offered or similar to
content also offered by other newsletters on the same topic, it would be
hard to increase your subscriber base. In fact, your subscriber base may
slowly diminish without being replenished.
3. Find a bulk
mail friendly ISP. If you
will be sending out your newsletters from your computer using either your
dial-up or high-speed Internet access, find an ISP that will allow you to do
so. Depending on your account, your ISP will allow you to send only a given
number of emails per day. This is particularly true for home personal
accounts.
EarthLink, for example, will shut down your account if they notice that
you are sending more than 100 emails a day. A hundred emails, for them, are
way beyond the normal number a person sends in a day. If your newsletter
grows to a hundred members or more, they will require you to transfer to the more
expensive business account (or change your ISP).
4. Use a
mailing list software. If
you have a dozen or so subscribers, you can use your mail client such as
Outlook or Eudora to send out your newsletter. One note of caution: avoid
sending through your mail client and have your subscribers' emails shown in
the cc. Or even bcc. It screams amateur, and allows other people access to
your subscribers' emails.
However, as soon as your subscriber list grows, you must have a scalable
system powerful enough to manage the process of sending out your emails.
Find software that would allow you to add people to your list automatically
and send out your newsletter. Some even offers personalization, anti-spam-security,
list importer/converter, automatic un/subscription, send report/statistics,
address-error-check/report, full online administration, newsletter and list
editing, upload function, subscription date and IP-logging, data dupe
checking, re-subscriber recognition and more.
Check your web host if they provide free mailing list software to their
clients. Otherwise, visit CGI-Resources at http://www.cgi-resources.com
for a listing of software that you can use. Prices vary from free to $400.
Some of the mailing list scripts out there include:
Sparklist http://sparklist.com/solutions/software/levels/
Mass e-Mailer ($79.95) http://www.mass-emailer.com
5. Use turnkey
solution. If you have no
time or skill to install CGI scripts or want a hassle-free management of
your mailings, you can subscribe to online turnkey solutions providing
support to newsletter publishers. Most of these companies offer features
such as response tracking to help you evaluate customer response, list
management, data collection, and even templates for your newsletters.
The most popular of these include:
Constant Contact http://www.constantcontact.com
Topica http://www.topica.com
6. Decide on
the modality of your subscription: opt-in or double opt-in.
Many newsletter publishers use the opt-in modality, but the major marketers
look for double opt in subscription. Double opt-in is when a person submits
a request to subscribe either through direct email to your list or using the
subscription form in your web site. You then send a confirmation of the
email, with the request that if the person indeed wants to subscribe, to
send back the email with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
Try to avoid the opt-out modality in subscribing a person to your
newsletter. Opt-out is when a user fills up a form on your site get a free
report, for example, and they are automatically subscribed to your
newsletter unless they specifically "opt-out." It is also the
strategy employed by some marketers when they send their newsletters to a
"targeted list" (usually from mailing lists they bought) and the
recipient is automatically subscribed unless the person sends an email
stating that he/she wishes to unsubscribe. This action is tantamount to
spamming, and it can ruin your reputation as a responsible Internet
marketer.
7. Develop the
content of your newsletter. The
quality of the content of your newsletter will dictate its stickiness and
value to your subscribers. The more original and informative the content,
the easier it will be for you to retain your existing subscribers and
attract new ones.
There are three ways to develop content for your newsletter: you can
produce all-original content; use articles from various article databank; or
develop own content mixed with article submissions from other authors.
Using articles from databanks like EzineArticles.com allow you to easily
choose articles to use from a wide range of topics. However, you run the
risk of your subscribers reading your same content someplace else.
Originality is now lost: you will simply be recycling the same material that
has been published in a dozen or so newsletters. Nonetheless, article
databanks have provided an indispensable service to many webmasters, and
here are some that you can use:
EzineArticles.com http://www.ezinearticles.com
Free Content http://www.certificate.net/wwio
EzineNewswire.com http://www.ezinenewswire.com
FreeSticky http://www.freesticky.com/stickyweb
4FreeContent.com http://www.4freecontent.com
Producing a regular newsletter is a rewarding, but time consuming, effort.
Its success hinges primarily on its quality, so every effort must be taken
to ensure that you are producing a valuable resource for your subscribers.
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About the Author:
Nach M Maravilla is the
publisher and CEO of Power Homebiz Guides.
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