 |
Call us on 01733 891 860 (UK) or use this contact form |
 |
|
|
|||
|
 |
Moving communication campaigns into action |
|
|||
|
|
|
Starting an email newsletter (e-zine) Here is a back issue of Marketing Booster, the email newsletter that Richard Groom writes and sends free every fortnight to subscribers. You can subscribe here or read over 60 back issues using the back issues index page. Marketing Booster is one of the most powerful marketing methods I use. It has helped to bring me several new clients, yet costs me very little financially and doesn't demand much of my time. So if you are thinking about launching an e-zine of your own, where should you start? What are the basic things you must get right? I don't have room in Marketing Booster to write a definitive guide to e-zines, but I can share a few essential tips that you will need to know before you start. (See the note at the foot of this article for an offer of more help.) Seven e-zine essentials . . . 1. Become a subscriber. Good marketers rarely throw away any junk mail, because it can be a great source of ideas and inspiration. The same is true of e-zines: subscribe to a dozen or so e-zines and pretty soon you'll have lots of ideas about what might work for you. 2. Be aware of the legislation. In the UK, that means knowing about the European Directive that came into force in December 2003. The basic demands it places on you are: * Your business cannot send unsolicited e-mails to private individuals unless they give their consent. (You don't need to get consent if you obtained the contact details during a previous transaction or negotiation - as long as the e-mail you send relates to similar products and services. But even so, I suggest you do get consent from each subscriber.) * You do not need consent to send e-mails to businesses. (But once again, I strongly recommend that you do get consent by making your e-zine available only to people who subscribe.) * Whether you e-mail a business or an individual, your e-mail should clearly identify who is sending it, and include simple instructions about how recipients can opt out of future e-mails. NOTE: the above points apply only to UK law as I understand it at the time of writing. I am not a lawyer - so please seek professional legal advice if you are unsure about any of the regulations or their implications for you. And if you are an overseas subscriber, you will need to find out what legislation affects you. 3. Use the correct e-mail formatting methods. You can send your e-zine as a text-only e-mail (like this one) or as an HTML message. Text-only is by far the simplest method to publish. It also has the advantage that it is universally accepted on recipients' systems, whether they use PCs or Macs and regardless of what software they use. But it's not quite as simple as just writing an e-mail and sending it. There are some things you need to do so that the text looks right on your recipients' screens. Make sure you find out the right technique and apply it. HTML e-zines can look great as they let you use various graphic devices such as colour and pictures. Obviously they need specialist skills to produce, so you'd need to find someone who's an HTML expert to set things up. Some people love HTML e-zines, some hate them. I tend to prefer text e-zines (as you can probably tell). One excellent e-zine I receive switched from text to HTML recently, only to switch back after a few issues. The sender found that four times as many e-mails were undelivered with HTML than text. Another problem is that HTML e-mails can take a while to download onto PCs. So look into the different formatting options and choose one that suits you and your subscribers. 4. Use a subscription service provider. Unless you have in-house IT experts who really know what they are doing, set up your list subscription system with one of the many companies who provide such a service. It can get very messy if you try to run the list from your own PCs or servers. You'll have to maintain the subscriber list and deal with undelivered e-mails. But if you use a service provider, people subscribe direct with them, often without realising it. This means that the service provider's specialist software is used. All you have to do is send one e-mail per issue to your service provider, who then automatically sends it to everyone on the list. 5. Don't overdo the sales content. Most people who have built large lists of subscribers agree that the secret is to focus on non-sales content. Give your readers genuinely useful information that they benefit from even if they don't become a customer. In doing so, you will demonstrate your company's expertise; one of the great things that e-zines let you do. Perhaps a good balance is that no more than 30 percent of each issue's content is sales material, with the rest being useful information. 6. Consider the frequency. Some people want to start a quarterly e-zine as they doubt whether they will be able to write content more often than that. But quite honestly, a quarterly e-zine is not an e-zine at all: it's just an occasional e-mail. If you want to give real value to readers, and increase your visibility, then I doubt whether quarterly will do the job. Bear in mind that you only need to write one 250-500 word article per issue. Articles can be sourced from outside contributors or experts within your organisation. I doubt whether any organisation would really find it difficult to produce a useful and interesting article every one, two or four weeks. So take the plunge and commit to a frequency that will really start to establish your organisation as trusted experts within the minds of your readers. You could start monthly for a few issues and then switch to fortnightly or weekly as you get used to the process. What you don't want to do is start weekly and then have to go monthly - it would look a bit lame. 7. Don't rush into it. If you start an e-zine and get it wrong, you can annoy a lot of people. So take your time to research all the issues mentioned above, and more. Work out what you want to do, set up the technology side and run some test issues before you launch your e-zine. Need more help? As I said in the introduction to this article, this is just a quick starter guide to e-zines. If you need more help, please drop me an e-mail and I'll do my best to answer your questions, or I'll point you in the direction of the information you need. Copyright 2004 Richard Groom |