Entrepreneur's Journal: Creating a killer newsletter

Posted Jan 12th 2008 2:00PM by Tom Taulli
Filed under: Marketing and Advertising, Small Business

As a business owner, you are certainly an expert. You keep up with industry trends, you understand the benefits of your products and services, and you have creative ideas.

So why not provide some of your wisdom to your customers – through an email newsletter?

Actually, with web services like Vertical Response and Constant Contact, it's fairly easy to set one up. But before getting started, let's take a look at some things that will help your efforts:

Content Is King: Yes, it's a cliché. Then again, it seems that newsletter writers spend lots of time on the design of the email, not the content. Don't fall into this trap. Instead, try to come up with content that your readers can't wait to read. Some ideas:

Tips
Recent experiences
Innovative uses of your product
Profiles of customer successes
Industry statistics
How-to pieces

Oh, and make sure you spell-check your email and have someone provide some editing.

What's more, you don't have to write all the content. You may want to have guest writers. Or, you may even excerpt useful pieces from bloggers (who typically like to get exposure).

Power Headlines: In an email inbox, you are competing among many messages. Thus, you need a headline that stands out. For example, use catchy phrases like "tips," "secrets," and so on.

Although, don't be too hype-y. Says Janine Popick, the CEO of Vertical Response and a popular blogger: "If your headline is too promotional, it might be a problem with spam filters from major providers, like AOL, Google, Microsoft, and so on. Stay away from words like 'guaranteed' and overuse of punctuation."

Spread the word: Chris Baggott, the co-founder of ExactTarget and the author of Email Marketing By the Numbers: How to Use the World's Greatest Marketing Tool to Take Any Organization to the Next Level, recommends that you put your sign-up form on all your website pages.

There should also be off-line marketing, such as at the store counter.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

Tags: Email marketing, Email newsletters, EmailMarketing, EmailNewsletters, featured, small business, SmallBusiness