If
you’re on one or more online mailing lists, you probably receive periodic
e-mail newsletters. You
may also find some of them more inviting than
others—because the good ones feature engaging content, are relevant to your
life, offer useful advice and information, or a combination of the foregoing.
The others likely make their way posthaste to your deleted box.
Read
on for practical advice on getting the most out of newsletters, and avoiding
the epidemics of non-reading and auto-deletion.
Stay in
touch with people on your mailing list. What do current and potential customers
want to read about?
If
you know any of your customers or clients personally, raise the subject of your
business’s newsletter and solicit their opinion. Chances are that if one of
more newsletter recipients is keen to hear more about a particular subject,
product, or aspect of your business, other people on the mailing list will be
interested in the same thing.
Once
in a while, it may also be a good idea to include a brief survey in the
newsletter, seeking feedback on particular items and articles. The results
won’t necessarily illustrate what all of your readers are looking for (since
those readers inclined to fill out surveys aren’t necessarily representative of
your entire readership), but they should give you a good idea of what’s working
and what isn’t.
Punchy
subject line and title lines.
Seek out
the most compelling piece of information from the newsletter to form your
e-mail’s subject line. The titles that link to articles in the newsletter also
need to be eye-catching in order to entice would-be readers to click on them.
Aim for brevity and impact.
Quality
content from elsewhere.
No one
has a monopoly on good ideas, and in the blogosphere, there is no such thing as
a monopoly on quality content. Keep an eye on blogs and news related to your
industry, and share posts and information you feel will resonate with your
readership and enhance your business’s reputation. If your company enjoys
positive press coverage, link to that too. (However, keep descriptions short
and avoid penning wordy, self-congratulatory articles. Most people won’t read
past the first couple of sentences.)
Mobile
compatibility.
The
internet is evolving rapidly from a stationary medium to a roving one, and your
newsletter must be versatile enough to accommodate the shift. Concentrate on
economizing words, and developing content that delivers the core message
without undue delay. Break lengthy paragraphs down into brief, digestible
segments. Use a large font for titles and sub-headings, and aim to make each
less than ten words long, if possible.
Finally,
preview your newsletter on a computer and on a mobile device before you
disseminate it. Make sure it reads well, and that there is no need to scroll
horizontally in order to read all or most of the content in each article. The
internet is full of well designed websites and online publications, and
horizontal scrolling irritates some people enough that they may be tempted to
move on after just a few seconds.
Consistent
scheduling.
Choose a
time of the month, week, or every two weeks to distribute the newsletter, and
stick to it. If the content you offer is worth reading, then the people on the
mailing list will look forward to the next issue, and some may even set aside a
few minutes to peruse it when it comes out. You can show respect for their time
by releasing new editions right on schedule.
