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Article 7: Publish E-Newsletters
Publishing an electronic newsletter (or e-newsletter) is one of the best ways to position yourself and your business as an industry expert and gain a critical competitive advantage.
“The basic premise behind publishing an e-newsletter is to give away valuable information in your area of expertise in order to build relationships with customers and prospects,” says Michael Katz, the founder of Blue Penguin Development, a consulting firm that specializes in the development of electronic newsletters.
Publishing a print newsletter can accomplish the same objectives, “but about the only thing print and e-newsletters have in common is the term ‘newsletter,’” says Katz. “I’m a believer in print newsletters, and some of my clients publish both print and e-newsletters, but e-newsletters let you do things that you simply can’t do in print.”
E-newsletters are interactive, viral (which means people can easily pass them on to others) and easily trackable, and you can build archives of your e-newsletters, “so they become a body of work in and of themselves,” notes Katz.
Perhaps best of all, publishing an e-newsletter (unlike a print newsletter) can be inexpensive. About the only costs are your computer, some basic e-publishing software and your time.
But just because it’s inexpensive and relatively easy to do doesn’t guarantee success in e-publishing — far from it. As e-mail has evolved from a novelty to a part of everyday life, managing the volume of e-mail is one of most peoples’ biggest challenges.
“Research has found that the average person has between 12 and 14 ongoing electronic relationships — everything from Amazon.com to e-newsletters — and they’re not looking for any more than that,” says Katz. “So e-publishing has become a zero sum game — to get new readers, you’ve got to displace one of their existing relationships.”
The best way to build an audience for your e-newsletter is to focus on as narrow an audience as possible, recommends Katz. “For example, you’ll probably have a hard time building an audience publishing an e-newsletter on a broad topic like financial planning, but you’ve got a better shot if you focus more narrowly on ‘financial planning for women business owners in Boston.’”
Katz also recommends sending your e-newsletter primarily to people you already know and have relationships with (or your house list), rather than sending it out en masse.
“Over 90 percent of e-mails from strangers are unopened and deleted,” he says. “If e-mail used to work as a prospecting tool, it doesn’t anymore.”
Most small businesses can look to the names they have in Outlook or Act to build a recipient list.
“Sometimes clients tell me they don’t have many names in their database,” notes Katz. “But the average small-business owner or self-employed individual should have between 300 and 600 names he or she can send an e-newsletter to. I’ve launched e-newsletters with as few as 150 names.
“If your content is good, your list will grow virally as people send it to their friends and they sign up.”
As for writing the e-newsletter, you can hire a copywriter or a consultant like Katz to do the writing, but he recommends that you write it yourself.
“Your e-newsletter should sound like you do — it should reflect your style and personality,” he says. “In general, it should be relatively informal and conversational. Use the kind of tone you would if you were having a casual lunch with the people you’re writing to.”
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