A Successful Newsletter: What Is It And How Do You Get One?
Posted by Sensible Marketing Guest Author | Posted on 09-05-2009
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Newsletters have long been a great way for businesses and organizations to keep in touch with their customers and members. Even in these days of the internet, a successful newsletter is a valuable commodity.
A successful newsletter provides the reader with what he or she is looking for. A successful newsletter accomplishes something: it brings in more sales, it provides necessary information, it markets a product or service and it provides you with a connection with your readers.
How can you get a successful newsletter?
In order for a newsletter to be successful, it needs to remain focused on the people who are reading it. What do you want your readers to know? How does that information compare to what your readers want to know?
Once you know what you want your readers to know – and you’ve listened to their feedback so that you know what information they are looking for – you need to figure out how to convey that information.
You will need to determine how frequently to send out your newsletter. How often, realistically, will you be able to send out your newsletter? Keep in mind that you will need to gather articles and edit the content of your newsletter. Not only that, but your readers will come to expect that they will receive your newsletter on a regular basis.
In other words, thinking about your reader means that you need to do more than just getting the information that they want to them. It means getting them that information when they expect to receive it.
It also means finding the best way of presenting that information to them. In electronic newsletters, you will need to determine whether your newsletter will go out in a plain text format or if you will use an HTML formated template.
When you use an HTML formatted template, you will be able to send a newsletter that has the same look for every issue. Though you will be sending out a larger file, you will also be able to provide your readers with more information: you’ll be able to include links to specials that you have running on your websites, to articles that they would be interested in reading, or even to the products that you have reviewed in your newsletter.
Being able to use these links can be extremely valuable. For your readers, these links can be as valuable as the tips and product reviews that you include in your newsletter.
How do you provide your readers with these links, tips and reviews? The simple answer is that you need to start with the basics.
Keep a list of the ideas that you have for your newsletter – the topics that you want or need to address. Write your newsletters in stages and be sure to have a plan in place.
That plan should begin with a commitment to sending out a well-written newsletter. Your newsletter should be clean and simple because that will make it easier to read.
Using varied sentence lengths, using active verbs and expressing opinions without jargon and cliches will all add to the readability of your newsletter. A strong start will draw the readers in, and a strong finish will keep them coming back for more.
Consider for a moment the newsletters that you read on a regular basis: take notes about what draws you to them. For most people, that list will include the information itself, the tone or the newsletter and the writing itself – among other things.
Once you have determined which elements of a newsletter draw you in, try to re-create them in your own newsletter. Listen to the feedback that you receive and respond to it.
