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Your Newsletter: The Basics
by Brandon Milford
When designing your newsletter always keep in mind the amount of time you can expect your reader to spend viewing your newsletter. Everyone today is information hungry, but always in a hurry. How you display your content within your newsletter can capitalize on this assumption.
What Information Should I Include in My Newsletter?
Obviously this will depend on your business and the audience in which
you are marketing, but here are three recommendations:
• Announcements: Include recent information about
your company and/or products that impacts your readers. For instance,
you can include
a link to an upcoming tradeshow where your company will be exhibiting
or perhaps a seminar that your company will be sponsoring.
• Article: Include an article that relates to your products or services
and helps your readers. It is also a great idea to develop a resource
library that contains additional articles and provide a link for your
readers so they can find more information on similar topics.
• Case Study: Provide an example of a client who has achieved great results
while using your products or services. This will help build credibility
with your readers. Again, provide a link where your readers can view
additional case studies.
Those are three key items to include in your newsletter. If you include these you are keeping your readers up to date on recent information about your products or services, including an article providing value on topics affecting them and by providing a case study you are proving to your readers that others are achieving success by using your products or services.
Making Your Articles Easier to Digest
Think of how we read newspapers; the same holds true for how we read
material on the web. We skim headlines looking for something that interests
us and only then will we begin reading an article. We also stop to view
photographs and any visual cues offering greater insight as to the information
held within an article. I see far too many articles within newsletters
that are very long (greater than 900 words). When writing your article
try to keep it at 800 words or less and break each section into smaller,
easy to read blocks with bolded headlines over each section. This will
encourage your reader to skim your article and stop at each section they
find interesting. If you are finding it impossible to trim your article
simply find a good point within 800 or fewer words and provide a link
to a webpage that contains the article in its entirety.
Sharing Your Newsletter with Others
Always give your readers a reason and a means by which to share your
newsletter with others. By providing valuable and relevant content to
your subscribers they will be inclined to share this information with
others by forwarding your newsletter. Email marketing software, like
IntelliContact, provide a “Forward-to-a-Friend” feature that
inserts a link within the footer of your message allowing your readers
to easily forward your newsletter. The goal is to obviously reach out
to as many as possible by providing valuable, relevant, timely content,
and an easy way for your readers to share this information with others.
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About The Author
Brandon Milford is the Director of Marketing for Broadwick Corporation,
makers of IntelliContact, an industry-leading permission based email
marketing software. You can also read his blog at http://www.brandonmilford.com
If you are are looking for a solution to your email marketing and list management software needs we recommend IntelliContact. You can learn more about IntelliContact here.
