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Welcome to Alaska Web News!
This newsletter is intended to provide information, tips and advice to Alaska business owners on how to more effectively use the web to increase business. If you would like to be removed from the mailing list click the unsubscribe link at the bottom.
Beyond Email!
Last month we talked about email and what a powerful tool it can be for growing you online business. Now let's take the next step in marketing communications.
The first thing most of us do when we power up the PC in the morning is clean out all the spam and unwanted email from our inbox so we can see the mail we really care about. Mass emailing is not always a very effective marketing method as your email is identified as junk and deleted. The next time they see one of your emails it gets deleted without even being read.
Wouldn't it be great if you could send an email once a month to your customers and prospects that they would actually look forward to receiving?
Publish a regular newsletter
If you have a website then you should consider publishing your own monthly or quarterly newsletter. The benefits are obvious. You have regular contact with your customers and prospects, allowing you to keep your company in their thoughts as well as a vehicle for communicating important information.
So what do you put in your newsletter? Content is critical to the success of your newsletter. Publish the wrong content and watch your mailing list dwindle as people can't unsubscribe from your list fast enough. So what's the right content?
Deliver real value
Give your list subscribers information that they care about and will find very useful. If you own a photo supply store then reviews of new camera gear would be a great idea. What if you operate a flower shop? Perfect! You'll never run out of useful information to pass on about caring for flowers and plants. The seasonal nature of plants creates opportunities for seasonal articles. You could run an article in the fall about when to bring different plants indoors. Are you a chiropractor? People would love to get information about how to care for their back and prevent back injuries.
No matter what your business or industry, you have valuable information that your customers and prospects would love to receive.
Here are some additional content ideas:
- Industry related news items
- Surveys and opinion polls
- Contests
If you include news articles from another source be sure to credit the source and make sure it's okay to republish or link to the original material.
Of course you can also mention in your newsletter any current or upcoming sales, promotions, new items, etc. But the majority of your newsletter should be news not advertising. Think of your morning paper. How long would you keep your subscription if ads took over the front page and the news got buried in the back?
Okay, I'm sold but I don't have a mailing list
The best place to start building a list is with people who already know who you are. Go through your inbox. Anyone who has ever contacted your business should go on your mailing list. Certainly your existing customers should be added. If you have a storefront then have a drawing and put out a fish bowl for people to drop their business cards in.
All of your newsletter editions should also be published in a news section of your web site, along with a link to sign up for the newsletter. Here is an example of an excellent newsletter that we helped set up for one of our clients, Trek Alaska. The news page has a description of the newsletter, links to past issues and a link to sign up!
Get creative. Is there a club or organization in your area that's related to your business? Contact the leadership and let them know about your newsletter. Put a stack of printed copies of the newsletter in your store or include one with your monthly invoices. Include a printout of the most recent newsletter with every mailing you do. These are just a few possibilities but they should get you thinking of ideas that would work for your situation and business.
Start the presses
There's more to publishing a newsletter than just sending an email to a long list of recipients. First of all you will want to be able to send it out as HTML so you can include images and formatting. Most email programs don't allow the full flexibility you need. In addition if you send out an email to 400 recipients it will look like spam to a lot of email clients and your message may got blocked and deleted.
There are programs you can buy for sending out newsletters but the easiest method is to use one of the online services. When using one of the services you get the additional benefit of tracking. You can see how many people are opening your email newsletter, how many people are clicking on links and which ones. You can even get the email addresses of the people who clicked on various links so you can do follow up.
Consistency
Before undertaking a newsletter you should understand that it does take some work and a certain commitment of time. Decide how often you want to publish - quarterly, monthly or some other schedule. The important thing is to be consistent. If you publish monthly then set a date for the mailing each month and stick to schedule. Don't let it slide or throw something together at the last minute. Every quality edition that goes out helps to build your company's reputation and name recognition.
A monthly or semimonthly schedule is probably best. In order to publish a successful newsletter more frequently than once a month would require that the newsletter contain very timely information or late breaking news that your recipients will want to know about. Otherwise you risk annoying your customers. A realtor is an example of someone who might want to do very frequent mailing to let people know about new properties for sale.
Publishing protocol
Anti-spam regulations require that you include your company's physical address in your mailing as well as a link to be removed from the mailing list. You should put this link at the top of your newsletter not buried at the bottom. Why make it easy for people to unsubscribe? Because you only want to send your newsletter to those who want to receive it.
The payoff
There is a word for people who receive valuable information at no cost. They're called customers.
A newsletter is a marketing technique that takes time to develop and the payoff doesn't happen right away. But if you keep at it and continue to provide valuable information then you will see rich rewards for your efforts. Not only will you gain a reputation among your customers but other sites may start to republish your information or link to your site because of the quality of the information you provide.
That wraps it up for this month. Is there a topic you would like to see covered? Let us know.
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