If you went to your email inbox right now
and counted up, you would probably find
that you subscribe to at least one if not several email newsletters published
by a web site that you enjoy going to from time to time. We like getting email newsletters in the same
way we like to subscribe to magazines at home.
They are fun, informative, sometimes humorous and they give us
perspective on a specialized field of knowledge.
So it might not surprise you to learn that
the newsletter is one of the most successful forms of internet marketing there
is. In fact, it may even have surprised
you that a newsletter is a form of internet marketing. But it is a potent way for an online retailer
to market his web site and online products or services to a focused customer
audience.
A newsletter is also an outstanding way to
sidestep the problem of failures of email delivery because customers will
partner with you to make sure that newsletter gets into their email box. This is a big difference from cold call
emails you may have used to use where you send purely marketing emails to
customers only to see them get trapped in spam filters and sink to the bottom
of spam quarantine folders never to be seen again. A newsletter is a marketing email that your
customer wants to see. In fact, most times the customer made an effort to log
onto your web site and find the newsletter subscription page to make sure they
got on your mailing list. This is a
refreshing change to see customers working hard to let you market to them
rather than buying software to dump your marketing emails into a spam folder.
The reason newsletters are so effective at
avoiding email delivery problems is that customers almost always will take the
time and effort to be sure to add the sending email address of the newsletter
you create for them to their "white list" of preferred email
contacts. And because a newsletter can
contain from ten to forty percent marketing material, it is like the customer
is treating your marketing message like royalty and making sure it gets to them
every week. In fact, customers become so
used to getting that newsletter that if it did fail to arrive, they would take
the initiative to find out why.
You don’t have to be a high speed publisher
to create a nice newsletter format to use each week. You can buy templates for the newsletter
format or use some of the default templates for newsletters that Microsoft Word
comes with. But you may want to enlist
the aid of your most computer savvy employee to create the newsletter each week
because it calls for some patient and artistic layout talents to make it look
good.
You might think of your newsletter as a web
page that you deliver to your customers.
It should have interesting and compelling content, just like your web
pages do. But there are also plenty of
spaces for advertising and promotional pieces that can be used to drive the
customer to the web site to make sales.
And because it is an e-document, links in the newsletter can immediately
transport the customer to the point of purchase on your web site shopping card
pages.
You can also use the articles you prepare
for the newsletter to talk about your products and services in an informative
way. By generating interest through text
discussion of what you sell, that creates desire to make a purchase as
well. You can even use the advertising
space in your newsletter to sell to affiliates and partners who want to market
to your customers. In that way, the
newsletter can be a direct revenue generator even before it serves to guide
subscribers to the purchase experience.
You may need to take advantage of the writers on your staff to create the
content of your newsletter each week.
But don’t overlook content that is already at your disposal. Articles, blog entries, discussions on
message boards and letters you get asking questions about your products and
services are natural article fill to use in your newsletter.
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