Many organizations are replacing their hard copy, dead-tree-edition newsletter with an email publication. Emailed newsletters have the benefit of requiring fewer resources, going out faster, reaching a wider audience with less effort and being easier to correct if a mistake slips in. However, many of them end up being ignored just as much as their physical counterpart.
Every interaction designed for a brand, whether print, online or face-to-face, should be something that advances the brand’s purpose. If the audience’s reaction to anything you send out is ‘what was the point of that?’ – or worse, no reaction at all – something has gone wrong. There are, thankfully, several tips available for making sure that even a newsletter can have the desired effect and reach audiences with the message you want them to get.
Tip #1 – Have a Clear Purpose, and Stick to it
Your organization has a purpose, and your brand has a purpose. It therefore follows that whatever you publish under the aegis of either should support that purpose. The most important thing to remember about your audience is that they are people. It is quite likely that they have jobs, interests and activities entirely unrelated to anything you wish to send them. In general, people are quite good at discerning what things are worthwhile and speak to their interests vs. things which are a waste of their time. The quickest way for your newsletter to enter the latter category is for it to be pointless.
When putting together a plan to launch or publish a newsletter, stop and ask yourself what purpose it needs to accomplish. If you can’t answer in less than 10 seconds, it is time to re-evaluate. Make sure that the newsletter provides strong content related to your primary goal as a brand and understand exactly why the newsletter is needed to get this content to the audience.
Tip # 2 – Combine Sign-up With Registration
People are also creatures of habit, and will often keep on features simply because they’re offered. Make sure that the signup form for your organization automatically includes the email newsletter as part of the package, so that registering signs the audience up for the newsletter as a matter of course. If they dislike it, they can choose to opt out later, of course, but having it in front of them from the beginning means it is more likely to get to them, and thus they are more likely to read it at least once.
Tip # 3 – Protect Yourself from the Spam Patrol
Spam protection is a huge deal on the web at the moment. It isn’t just a matter of disliking clutter or being irritated at receiving the same mindless emails again and again, either. Many spam messages contain viruses, malware, adware, spyware (and probably other ‘wares
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