Profiting From Online Newsletters

If you’ve done any marketing online, you know how important it is to provide quality content and information for your prospects.  One of the best ways to provide information and keep your business name in front of prospects is to create and distribute a monthly newsletter.  Your newsletter could be just the tool you need to drive traffic to your site and build relationships with customers.  Knowing how to successfully create and distribute your newsletter will help you to make it a successful marketing tool and justify the time and expense of putting a newsletter together each month.

Provide Unique Content

The Internet is full of article directories and free content web sites.  While these can help you market your business, they are not the best idea for putting together a newsletter.  It may be tempting to pull some free articles from one of these sites and place them in your marketing piece, but providing your readers with unique content is a better way to hold their interest.  If you can’t write well or don’t have the time to write, hire a freelance writer to put together some articles for each issue.  You can find a professional writer with reasonable rates that can help you turn your newsletter into a successful marketing piece.

Use an Attractive Format

If you are sending your newsletter in MS Word format or, even worse, in a plain text file, your subscribers may not be able to read or may not want to read each issue.  Find a software program that can help you format your newsletter in a way that is attractive and accessible to readers with different computer systems.  You can also hire a graphic designer to develop a template that you can use for each newsletter issue.

Meet Your Distribution Deadline

If you set a date for each issue, stick to that date even if you feel you don’t have time to put the newsletter together.  Your subscribers will be looking for your next issue on the date you announced that it will be published, so don’t disappoint them by sending it out late.  Set a schedule for creating your newsletter each month and stick to it.

Avoid a Pure Sales Message

Yes, your newsletter should market your business in some way, but you should not have the same sales message on every page.  People read newsletters to get relevant information that they can use.  Give them that information by providing content that does not contain an overt sales message.

Avoid Distributing Your Newsletter to Non-Subscribers

You may be tempted to send your newsletter to every person you ever meet, but that is not the right way to build your business.  Send your newsletter only to people who have requested that you send it to them each month.  One way to keep track of such requests is to have an opt-in form on your web site that allows people to request your newsletter.

A well-written, attractively formatted, and interesting newsletter can be a great marketing tool for your products and services.  Follow the advice above and you’ll be on your way to using your newsletter as an effective marketing tool.