You may have read our post about Email Subscriber Lists. Now, let’s talk about the value of email newsletters.

Email newsletters can be great marketing tools, but only if they’re done right.  A good email newsletter can provide the recipient with valuable information and can demonstrate the sender’s expertise.

How do you know what kind of information to put in a newsletter to make them effective? The first thing is to know who your reader is.  It may be a mix of customers, potential customers, or competitors. You want to show you’re an expert in field, get them to interact with you, and gain and maintain customers. You also don’t want to giveaway any information to a competitor that is proprietary.

Start with what you know. You’re the expert in your field, and you want the recipient to know that you know your business well. This will build trust from them and make them into not only customers, but advocates of your business.

Another way to build trust with recipients of your newsletter is to include content that shows that other people trusted your expertise.  Include a section in your newsletter that is customer feedback.

Provide your recipients with a way to get answers to their questions. A good way to do this is with a “How To” section, that includes a link to your site where further information is available.  For example, if you’re a restaurant owner, you might want to include a section that discusses a new recipe you’re trying out and can even provide a link to the recipe at your website.

Putting links in your email newsletters makes them more interactive, which is good for your business.  Draw people to your site, get them to hang out for awhile.  If all the content is contained in the newsletter, they have no reason to visit your site.  Tease them with some information and then link them to relevant pages on your site. For example, of you’re a realtor, your newsletter can contain a link to a featured property. Include a picture and a couple of teasers and make them click the link for pricing and a virtual tour.

You should also include information in newsletters that has more general appeal, as not everyone who signs up for your newsletter may be a current customer, but has the potential to be one. This could include frequently asked questions or tips and tricks.  This again shows potential customers that you are an expert in your field and helps them associate positive feelings about your business with those topics.

Need help designing a beautiful HTML email newsletter or developing content for your newsletter? Alphabetix can help.

Tags: email marketing, marketing

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 10:02 am and is filed under email marketing, small business, web content, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.