Writing Newsletters Online: How to Get it Right


A strange thing has been happening to newsletters online.

They have been turning into either a) promotional emails or b) web pages delivered by email.

I'm sure you know what I mean. Go back a couple of years and you could look forward to receiving your favorite newsletter in the knowledge that the newsletter itself would contain some great content...something you could read and enjoy, or learn from.

You could open the newsletter in your email and read it, from beginning to end. There were articles, reviews or just personal rant...well written and interesting.

In short, there was real value, right there in the newsletter.

These newsletters, where significant value lies in the body of the newsletter itself, are becoming harder and harder to find.

Instead, more and more companies and organizations are using their 'newsletters' as a promotional ploy to drive you to pages on their sites.

In one way, it's understandable. As anyone with a newsletter knows, if you have one or two links to your site in the newsletter, your site traffic really spikes on the days you send out the newsletter.

When you see that, it's tempting to optimize the entire newsletter - its format and content - as a means to drive additional traffic and generate more sales.

As a result, you now see numerous newsletters where an article is not included in its entirety. You simply get a teaser and a link to a page on their site. Or else you get a 'newsletter' that looks just like the site interface, with all the various navigation links and promotional messages included.

This may be great if you want to maximize the traffic to your site each time you send out a newsletter. But there is a catch.

The catch is, if there is less value in your newsletter itself, your subscribers will quickly begin to become bored with it. After all, with a zillion other promotional emails cluttering our inboxes - why pay special attention to a 'newsletter' that is simply another sales pitch?

The real value of a newsletter that contains valuable content is long-term. You'll get more word-of-mouth, you'll get higher open-rates, and you'll get long-term readers who look forward to your newsletter, for years ahead.

Is there a compromise? Sure there is. A valuable newsletter doesn't need to be text-only without a single link, or devoid of any promotional elements.

Just make sure that every newsletter contains some valuable content, in its entirety. Give people a real reason to look forward to receiving it, opening it and reading it.

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocate of good writing.


More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Email Marketing Information:

Related Articles

How Opt-in Email Marketing Helps You In Your Online Business
The consumer of today is increasingly bombarded by marketing messages from various media channels. For those that tire of the constant onslaught of ads, they have the option to "opt-out".
How To Create Gold With Email Promotions - Part 1
First make sure that the people you are sending your offer to are actually interested in what you are offering.Often people contact me and ask me to promote their product to my list.
Whats on YOUR Subscriber Thank-You Page?
When I coach my clients on how to get more business from their e-zines, I'm delighted to see that they spend time on creating content that builds a relationship with their readers. But I see many of these publishers overlooking the very beginning of their valuable relationship with their subscribers.
Lesson #1: Autoresponders 101
What the heck is an autoresponder?An autoresponder is much like a fax-on-demand system, where you call a number - or, in this case, email a specific email address, fill out a form on a website or do something, like buying something online - and get an instant reply.Internet marketing and online business people agree that email autoresponders are the greatest marketing tool ever invented.
An Introduction to Auditing Your Email Audiences
Organisations such as the BPA have been providing auditing services for magazines and event audiences for many years. Providing advertisers with independent evidence that your audience are who you claim them to be is an effective point of differentiation and extremely helpful when selling your proposition to would-be advertisers.
Power at your Fingertips
It is just amazing. Power right at your fingertips.
People Accusing You of Sending sp*am? Five Email Marketer Must Know Tips
People tend to forget their subscriptions. Sometimes they don't even know why they subscribed to your newsletter.
Improve Newsletter Delivery with an Autoresponder Service
Another powerful reason for making the switch from using the unlimited autoresponders that come free with your web hosting account to paying a monthly fee for an autoresponder service is improved deliverability of newsletters and other e-mails.Are your subscribers even getting your newsletter? You might be shocked to find out how few of your subscribers are actually receiving your e-mail.
Free Email Accounts - Pros and Cons
Free email accounts are great if you want to hide your identity. They are great to sign up for free stuff.
Email Builds Brands
Email - today's preferred business communication tool - provides you a simple, powerful, affordable way to develop, manage and maintain relationships as well as sell products and services. Let's briefly examine how permission-based email marketing positively affects:* Brand Awareness* Market Intelligence* Web Traffic* Prospect Leads* LoyaltyBuild Brand Awareness.
E-mail Whitelist Etiquette
A big-time dilemma is brewing online. In an understandable attempt to bypass all that annoying spam, e-mails that onliners want to receive are getting lost in the shuffle.
How's Your E-mail Etiquette
In a fast moving global economy, e-mail offers you the convenience of being able to quickly get your message across to your colleagues or clients at any hour of the day or night. The Internet revolution has had the unintended effect of decreasing the use of oral communication and increasing the importance of text - particularly e-mails - as the primary means of business communication.
Internet Advertising: 20 Magical Ways To Convert Website Visitors to Subscribers
Do you publish an e-zine or newsletter?If you answer yes, you may already know how difficultit is to build your subscribers' list.Most people use fake or throw away e-mail addresses.
How to Start Your Own Mailing List
I remember reading time and time again when I first begun my Internet Marketing adventure that a mailing list was one of "the" best ways to generate larger amounts of money online. So I wasted no time in implementing a mailing list for my businesses.
Sequential Autoresponders Build Customer Relatonships
A powerful reason for making the switch from using theunlimited autoresponders that come free with your web hosting account to paying a monthly fee for an autoresponder service is the building of customer relationships through sequential autoresponders.Although many web hosts offer unlimited autoresponders, each autoresponder is only capable of sending one response.
Learn The Five Key Steps To Getting Free Publicity For Your Internet Site and Products
1) Website FocusMake sure your site is focused on a specific category of products. I cannot stress this enough.
22 Simple But Highly Effective Methods To Ban E-mail Opt-In List
Here are 22 simple but highly effective methods to build anemail opt-in list easily?List RentingOne of the quickest ways to build an opt-in list is to rent a list from a company.These lists are normally targeted and you can request what demographics you are looking for.
How To Improve Your Open Rates And Click-Thru Rates In Your Email Campaigns
In this article I will give you several tips that can help you in improving your open and click-thru rates.1) Open rateIn order to your email campaign be successful the first necessary thing is that people open and read your email newsletter.
Its In The List! Thats Where It Is!
Have you noticed the marketing frenzy? Have you felt thegrowing pains? Everyone who has an online business seems tobe getting in the marketing fray, making it a busy and verycompetitive field. If you're one of them, you're probablyon a whirlwind ride.
Successful Advertising
Most folks starting out on the Internet have tried freeclassified ads sites and they usually get hit by peopletrying to sell you stuff. Or, they get into the top twentyresults in the Search Engines, and a week later drop tonumber 164.