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Creating newsletters that sell as well as inform

Offering free or paid newsletters or eZines can bring huge benefits (and profits) to your web site - if you do them correctly. In this article, we will consider how having one or more newsletters can be one of the most important components for you to drive traffic to your web site and build your online business.

The popularity of online newsletters is based on the need for information. A big reason people go online is because they want and need information quickly and that is exactly what newsletters provide.

Online newsletters are usually delivered via email, however, some are sent as HTML pages located on a web site. Even though newsletters which are delivered as HTML pages can also be sent via email, there are security and tracking issues that some people would rather avoid.

For this reason and others, many professionally created email newsletters are sent both as text and as HTML, and the recipient's email software (or 'email client') determines which version will be displayed according to the software preferences settings.

There are many advantages of establishing a business newsletter, however newsletters do require a bit of work to get started and maintain so they may not be for everyone.

The two main advantages are:

- Being able to maintain regular contact, and
- Being able to build a relationship with your subscribers

Newsletters allow you to maintain regular contact with your web site visitors and for this reason you may want more than one. It's a bad marketing practice to assume both your current and prospective customers and clients all have the same level of understanding of your products or services.

Ideally your introductory newsletter is set up to 'groove in' those who are new to your business. Once they become paying customers they can then be migrated over to a client newsletter that discusses your products and services on a different level of applicability and understanding.

This is vital to your business success, because rarely do people buy on their first visit. In fact people usually have to be exposed to an offer several times before they actually make a buying decision.

A newsletter allows you to keep an ongoing connection with your site visitors by reminding them of how your products or services are suited for their needs.

Your newsletter can share actual stories and/or case studies to help your prospects better relate to how your solutions would apply to them.

Newsletters give you reasons to send potential customers emails packed with informative articles and, of course, one or more carefully crafted sales messages.

Newsletters are great for building trust and relationships online if your newsletter provides regular, quality content which your subscribers can really use. If you avoid boring people and truly strive to provide useful info, most prospects will eventually have reason to trust your opinions.

They will begin to feel that they know you. This is very important as developing relationships with your existing and potential customers is vital for any business.

One often overlooked advantage of having a newsletter, is the income it can generate from selling advertising space in it. There's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't - after gaining your client's trust - ensure they having additional trustworthy products and services presented to them.

I believe you have an ethical responsibility to look out for your client's best interests and do what you can to ensure that they don't make a bad decision by purchasing a product or service that might not live up to their expectations or needs.

When selling ad space in your newsletter, you usually need a fairly large subscriber base before other businesses will be interested in advertising. This is not that hard to achieve, especially if it is regularly packed full of quality content, so this is another good reason to respect your reader's attention and valuable time by giving them useful info.

Even better, your online customers will probably become your offline customers, too, if they trust and value the information you regularly send them in a newsletter. Put simply, a newsletter is your way of helping people and if you help people online in a business capacity, eventually many will buy from you.

That said, keep in mind that running your own newsletter can quite often involve a considerable amount of work depending on what you want it to achieve. It is vital that you or your staff regularly write as much quality content as possible on a wide range of topics related to your products and services. YOu want to have plenty to choose from and anything let over can always go on your site elsewhere of into your bog - assuming you're up to blogging for fun and profit.

Depending on your target market(s), what they need and what you have to say, your plus your strategy and goals, a newsletter should be sent out anywhere from every week to at least every month.

This is not always easy, but you've got to set aside the time to get the content written. If you're really pressed for time, you can have a ghost writer or maybe one of your staff do the bulk of writing for you while you handle the final editing and approval.

As if all that isn't enough, another aspect of newsletters which adds to your work load is maintaining your email addresses or your ‘list’.

Your lists are always, ALWAYS your gold mine, plain and simple. They are your prospects and your exiting customers and you should protect them as if they are your most valuable asset - because they are.

If you’re put out of business tomorrow by a natural disaster or some other unexpected occurrence, you’re back in business again as soon as you take your list to an Internet connection and send out the next newsletter or special offer or something to generate some revenue.

You can replace everything but your life and your list.

Maintaining your list is key. You might write an issue with too much hype of terminology that SPAM filters will flag and snag. This would mean that your message are not getting delivered and all the time and effort and resources you invested is wasted to a large degree.

That's why many newsletters are linked to in an email and actually delivered on a web site. Besides, once the reader is on your web site, they are that much closer to making an quick buying decision.

If you have email addresses that are wrong they'll most surely get bounced back. That's another reason your newsletter might not get delivered as expected.

Maintaining a list or lists of active email addresses is crucial. Make sure you groom your list and keep it clean of deadwood.

Also keep in mind that having a bunch of inactive email addresses is virtually worthless. It's much better to have a 'quality' list than a 'quantity' list, because if people don't read your newsletter, it doesn't matter how big your list is.

In conclusion, a business newsletter can have a very positive, proactive marketing impact for your company. If you wish to see the full potential of your newsletter, though, realize and accept that it can take some effort to get off the ground - at least in the beginning.

Of course you can start by adding emails in your desktop computer's email software, build a list slowly,and send it out as a BCC (blind carbon copy) message. But if you're serious about maximizing your online success, you'll want to get set up with a sequential autoresponder (usually as an additional monthly service from an online company) and put your newsletter on automatic so you're free to do other important activities - like run your business.

If you dedicate yourself to keeping it alive and with quality content, you will find it well worth the effort.

Warmly,

Vince