Web Writing (4 of 4)

Introduction

With a majority of companies sending regular email newsletters to their subscribers, it's important to make sure your e-newsletter keeps up with all email best practices and keeps your subscribers interested in you, your services, and their relationships with you. Following good Web writing principles, like the tips found in Articles 1-3 of our Web Writing Guide, will help make your e-newsletter successful.

The Definition

An e-newsletter goes beyond the scores of promotional emails and SPAM your subscribers receive each day and seeks to keep their interest on a regular basis.

Though sales can be a benefit, your newsletter's primary purpose is to retain and build customer relationships by providing regular communication, professional tips, informative articles, and news about you they'd like to know.

The Explanation

So how do you make sure you retain and build customer relationships through your emails? The key is in how you deliver these two concepts:
  • Respect | shown in the frequency and timeliness of your emails.
Be considerate of how many emails your subscriber has to deal with in a day--don't intrude when you're not wanted. Make sure your customers have opted-in to each communication they receive from you. Include a user-friendly unsubscribe link at the bottom of each email.
It's always better to email a smaller list of those who anticipate your emails than to a larger list filled with those who are all-too-happy to send you to the SPAM folder.
  • Relevance | shown in your attention to you marketing research and surveys.
It's a good idea to practice list segmentation to divide your subscribers according to their sales history and other demographics. It's also good to let your users manage their profile and preferences via a link at the bottom of each email. There are a number of good email applications that will let you do this.
After your lists are grouped, make sure you tailor your content to meet the needs and interests of the groups. You might want to take off your sales shoes when doing this, so you can more easily put on your subscribers' shoes. They'll thank you for it.

The Reason

Ignore the tendency to look for quick results. As with all relationships, company-to-subscriber relationships take time to build. But you can take heart--the results do come, and the pay-off is big. According to research by the Quris last year, "40% of email subscribers will go 'out of their way' to patronize a company whose email programs they like."

The Strategy

Your e-newsletters are an incredibly valuable way to keep and grow your relationships with your customers. Be sure to invest your time and resources to make your e-newsletters a regular part of increasing your Internet worth.

Read more about our Worthwhile Internet Mail List software. Built to facilitate communication and marketing for your organization, integrate this open-source PHP project software into your web site to manage and send email to thousands of subscribers.