eNewsletters can be a great way to drive traffic to your website and keep your brand in your customers’ minds. Once you have an enewsletter vendor and an audience of people who have given you permission to send them information, you need to put together content for your enewsletter. In order to be most effective, you’ll need to send out an enewsletter at least monthly, preferably more often. What types of content are valuable to your customers (and potential customers)?
Announcements
Information about upcoming product or service releases, company information, and events are easy to write about. They are good information to keep your readers informed, but keep these short and sweet as most people are not as interested in your press releases as you are. If you have longer releases, post them on your website and link to them (this is the driving traffic to your website part).
Tips
Information about how to use your products or information your readers can use to improve their own work can be extremely valuable. Again, keep this information short and link back to longer articles on your website.
Case Studies
Put together a case study (or two) which shows how your products have been used. This is a great way for current customers to get ideas on how else to use your products and excellent advertising for potential customers. If you prepare a case study for each enewsletter you put out, keep an archive of these on your website and add an archive link on your enewsletter. Longer case studies should always be put on your website, with just a short summary in your enewsletter.
Surveys
eNewsletters are a great way to reach your customers and gather information that is valuable to your business and improving your products by adding short surveys (1 question is best!). Surveys are also a great way to make your readers feel involved with your business and create a sense of community. Share your findings with your customers by posting them in your enewsletters and keeping archives on your website.
Feedback
Encourage feedback and communication with your customers by adding your contact information (email and phone) and just plain out asking for it in every enewsletter.
Summary
While you should take the time to spell check and properly format your content, keep your voice friendly and relatively informal to make it easier to read. Provide your readers with valuable and timely content in short segments which link back to longer information on your website. eNewsletters can take a little bit of effort to create and write, but are a great way to connect with your customers and drive traffic to your website.
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