Creating The Perfect Newsletter
by Mitchell Harper
In this article I'm going to tell you the secrets to creating a
great newsletter that will have your visitors come back to your
site in a shot! We'll discuss what type of content you should
publish in your newsletter, how often you should send your
newsletter out, and most importantly, how to "speak" to your
visitors through your newsletter in order to have maximum impact,
and drive them back to your site in droves.
[ What do I publish? ]
A newsletter is one of the most cost effective and fast ways to
communicate with your site's visitor base. However, if you send
your visitors newsletters that contain old, stale content,
spelling errors, dead links or too much advertising, then what's
the likelihood that they'll return to your site? The chances are
low. The number one purpose of a newsletter is to try to
encourage each and every subscriber to come back to your site.
"How do I do that then?" you ask. Through interesting,
informative content, that's how.
Here are a couple of ideas for content that you can put into
your newsletter:
[ 1. What's Happening? ]
A What's Happening or News section informs visitors of any new
additions to your site since the last newsletter was sent out.
In this section you can alert visitors to any new articles or
interesting inclusions you've made to the site. Here's an
example of what you might say:
-- What's Happening @ MySite.com? ------------------
Hello Everyone,
Welcome to the mid-January 2002 issue of MySiteNews. It's been
another extremely busy yet productive month at MySite.com, so
let's take a look at some new features that both myself and
my entire team has helped add to the site:
...
[ 2. Poll Results ]
What's that? You don't have a poll on your site? Head on over to
www.expresswebtools.com and get your free poll up and running in
5 minutes. Whenever you send out a newsletter, change the poll
and include the results of the last poll in your newsletter.
Use something like this:
The last poll question was "What type of content would you
like to see more of?". There were a total of 149 votes.
The results are shown below:
· Articles: 58 votes or 39%
· Book Reviews: 11 votes or 7%
· Product Reviews: 13 votes or 9%
· Interviews: 14 votes or 9%
· Case Studies: 33 votes or 22%
· Sample Book Chapters: 20 votes or 13%
The poll for the first half of February 2002 is sure to start
some raving and ranting, and is entitled "In the Netscape vs
Microsoft case, who are you rallying for?" Vote right now at
MySite.com
Notice how I've mentioned the details of the current poll, and
I've given the user a reason to re-visit the site and vote
again? Do this in different ways throughout your entire
newsletter.
[ 3. Personality ]
Add your personality to the newsletter -- address your readers
and let them know that you're there if they ever need anything.
In my newsletter, I write the first half, and my newsletter
manager Todd writes the rest. At the end of my editorial, I make
sure that my farewell's on a personal, rather than professional
note. Here's the kind of thing you might write to finish off
your editorial:
Well guys, that's my two cents' worth for these past two weeks
at MySite.com. If you've got any questions or suggestions,
please email myname@mysite.com or post them in our forums.
I know it doesn't seem like much, but think what would happen if
you left this kind of message out. In my experience, visitors
like to know that there's a real person writing the newsletter
and that it's not compiled by some super computer on the other
side of the world.
[ 4. Unique Content ]
Include unique content that your users can't find anywhere else.
In my newsletter I always include a "hot tips" section, which
lists five hot tips that users can benefit from immediately.
Depending on your target audience, you could include simple
tips as well. For instance, if you ran a programming-related
site, you might include a tip like this:
In C# you can place code within a checked block to have the C#
compiler throw an exception if any overflow occurs when casting
one data type to another.
Or, you might want to include a few more advanced tips:
In ASP you can use the DateDiff function to work out the
difference between dates in terms of either days, weeks,
months, years, etc. To get the number of days between Jan 1st
2001 and Dec 31st 2002, use it like this:
Dim oldDate
Dim newDate
oldDate = "01/01/2001"
newDate = "31/12/2002"
Response.Write DateDiff("D", oldDate, newDate)
Make sure the tips you include are unique to your newsletter,
and be sure to allow yourself time to plan them. Sure, each tip
is only a couple of lines long, but when a visitor finds a tip
that helps them out, you're guaranteed that they'll be on your
site quicker that you can say "pageviews".
Another great (although time consuming) method to add value to
your newsletter is to include a "newsletter-only" article with
every issue. Take 2-3 hours a week and write a 1,000-2,000 word
article that you include exclusively with your newsletter.
Mention this on your newsletter signup form and watch your
subscriptions soar.
What kind of content should you include in a newsletter-only
article? Well, try content that relates to some of the more
popular articles listed on your site -- the ones that visitors
have emailed you about to tell you how the article's helped them
accomplish a certain task, etc. Your visitors will love this type
of article because it's an additional bonus that no one but them
will receive.
[ 5. Recent Articles and Posts ]
Listing recent article and forum posts in your newsletter is a
tried and trusted method to pull visitors back to your site --
and it's easy. Simply list the ten most recent articles and forum
posts that have been added to your site. If you don't have a
forum on your site, then check out Wayne Luke's article entitled
"Forum Script Round-Up" (http://webmasterbase.com/article/469).
In your newsletter, you might show visitors the ten most recent
article posts in a list, like this:
-- Latest Articles @ MySite.com -----------------
There have been a total of 13 new articles posted in the last
two weeks. They are shown below:
- Working With PHP Data Types
http://www.mysite.com/article/1/55
...
[ 6. Advertising ]
If you have more than 1,000 newsletter subscribers, you should
include sponsor ads with each issue you mail. I usually include
two or three five-line ads (of 65 characters per line) in mine.
The key to effectively marketing a brand or product in your
newsletter is to choose those that interest your visitor. For
example, if you run a shoe store, include a promo by a shoe
company that links the visitor to their site to download a
discount coupon.
One last thing I always include in my newsletter is an option
for visitors to unsubscribe. Make it clear at both the top and
bottom of your newsletter that your users can unsubscribe at any
time, like this:
This is the bi-monthly newsletter from www.mysite.com. If you
would like to un-subscribe at any time, please send an email
to mailto:newsletter@mysite.com with "unsubscribe" in the
subject field.
[ 7. Frequency ]
It all depends on the amount of new content published on your
site and how many visitors your site has. Let's say that Fred
Black runs a site about tennis and receives 4,000 unique
visitors per day. Fred also receives an average of fifty new
newsletter subscribers each day. His site has been running for
six months, so he has around nine thousand newsletter subscribers
in his database.
Let's also say that Fred is a busy man who coaches tennis too.
He coaches five people every day, so he doesn't really have that
much time to add new content to his site, which he updates once
every 4-5 days.
In this scenario, Fred should send out a monthly newsletter that
summarizes the new content posted on his site, any new messages
in his forum, as well as a couple of paragraphs about the latest
tennis news, such as the winner of the recent Australian Open.
But how frequently should you send your newsletter? Well, as a
good rule of thumb, the smaller your site, the less frequently
you should mail your newsletter. If you add new articles to your
site every day and have a nicely populated subscriber list, then
a daily newsletter is not uncommon. On the other hand, if you
only receive a couple of hundred hits per day, then perhaps send
your newsletter monthly, and spend more time on promoting your
site.
[ 8. Tone ]
When you send your newsletter, most of your visitors will assume
that it's been compiled by a couple of guys that help run the
site and that it's just a ploy to get users to return to your
site, or click on the ads included in your newsletter.
You have to change the recipients' mindset so that they're more
receptive to your newsletter and its contents. In terms of how
you write your newsletter, try to talk to your visitors like
they're your friends, and you're simply emailing them to catch
up. As I mentioned earlier, Todd is our newsletter manager.
When Todd takes over the second half the newsletter, here's
what he says:
Hi guys, Todd here... how's everyone doing?
See how he introduces himself and makes you feel like there's
actually a person composing the newsletter? Too many newsletters
are just marketing junk. If you want to create a healthy
subscriber base, make sure you address your visitors like Todd
does -- and maybe even spare a paragraph or two to tell them
about what's been going on in your life.
However you do it, the more comfortable your visitors feel when
you "speak" to them through your newsletter, the more likely they
are to trust you, re-visit your site, and click on your sponsor ads.
[Conclusion]
Well, there you have it... the list I use whenever I send out my
newsletter. If you don't send out a newsletter because you don't
have the faintest clue what to include in it, then hopefully this
article has given you some creative inspiration to start one.
If you already send out a newsletter, does it include everything
I've mentioned in this article? If not, maybe you'd like to take
some tips from this article and use them to better equip your
current newsletter.
A newsletter provides your users with useful, informative, free
content that is sent to them on a regular basis -- and as such,
it's the best way to communicate with your visitors, and invite
them back to your site.
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Mitchell Harper is the author of many eBooks and he also owns
SiteTell. SiteTell is a unique viral marketing tool that lets your
visitors tell their friends about your site using either email
or ICQ in just seconds. SiteTell harnesses the power of viral
marketing, making it extremely easy for your anyone to let their
friends, family, colleagues and others know about your site!
Learn more at http://www.sitetell.com
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