Question

Topic: E-Marketing

What Makes E-newsletters Memorable & Productive?

Posted by Anonymous on 6/6/2010 at 12:48 PM ET 125 Points
Some say that email newsletters are no longer effective.

But is it true their days have past? What gives a business the best chance of making a good return on their investment of time and effort?

What should every e-Newsletter offer to customers, prospects and the general public? And what delivery or presentation options will improve its odds of succeeding?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 6/6/2010 at 5:43 PM Accepted
    E-newsletters are "mature," but that doesn't mean they are dead.

    If you understand your target audience very well and offer them content they really want, need and appreciate, e-newsletters can still be a very effective way to stay front-and-center in their minds.

    What you have to watch is the temptation to become overly commercial and turn your newsletter into an unwelcome advertisement. Where that line is depends on a lot of factors, but as a general rule you want at least 90% non-commercial content, with less than 10% self-serving content. (Can be higher or lower depending on the industry, the audience, etc.)
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 6/6/2010 at 7:28 PM Accepted
    Dear trip,

    Couple of weeks ago a well known Internet marketer who I won't name was trumpeting the death of the sales letter. Now, he's advertising for ... a copywriter.

    Here's the thing about e-newsletters: make them interesting, relevant, and significant FOR YOUR AUDIENCE. The general public? They are not your customer. Prospects? They might become your customer but the material you offer MUST be sticky enough for them to want to read it. And your customers? Give them more of the same kinds of things they signed up for to begin with because that's what will cement the relationship.

    Any talk anywhere about the death of this medium or the death of that medium is, frankly, crap. Mediums DO NOT DIE, they simply fall out of fashion in favour of the newest shiny object and this is mostly on the parts of marketers who do not get the fact that it's not the way the message is delivered that counts, it's its relevance for the customer.

    Your message could be written in crayon on damp napkins but if it's RELEVANT to its audience, they'll still listen. Why? Because the message has significance for the people IN that niche, WITH that problem, or SUFFERING from that pain.

    I hope this helps.

    Gary Bloomer
    The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
    Wilmington, DE, USA
  • Posted on 6/6/2010 at 10:52 PM Accepted
    Gary is dead on. Give them what they want and make it valuable to the recipient, not just to you.

    Ask them want they want from time-to-time so you can react to changing trends.

    Cheers, Chris
  • Posted on 6/7/2010 at 7:56 AM Author
    Thanks for the good advice.

    My own weekly newsletter/blog has been getting good response (up to 47% opens, average 24% or so) for six months or so, but I wanted to get input from some pros like you all to see how I might improve it.

    Relevance is, as Gary said, the most important: without that, nothing else will keep a reader's interest. I also make sure each piece is rich with proof and real or perceived value. To make it more memorable and fun, I try to show how two unlikely topics can be related (last week discussed the overlapping techniques of Rembrandt and David Ogilvy, for example).

    Even if I don't hear back from my readers, each issue is forwarded to other people by at least a couple of readers, which I really appreciate.

    Anyway, glad to hear the e-Newsletter format isn't dead yet. That's just the kind of stuff I like to write the most.

    Thanks again and have a great week!
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