Staying in touch with customers has never been easier with the dawning of the Technology Era. Find out how to develop and deliver a new customer-service tool: the e-mail newsletter.
When Wally Bock receives an e-mail message with "RE: Wally Bock's Monday Memo" in the subject line, he gets a good feeling about the effort he puts into creating an e-mail newsletter. From those simple four words staring at him from the subject line, he can tell that the message was written and sent to him by one of the 3,000 subscribers to his weekly e-mail newsletter. He also knows that for a mere $10 a month for a server and a few hours of his time, he's generating new business for his company at a minimal cost.
"The 're:' message tells me that receiving the newsletter is what triggered their interest in my services," says Bock, CEO of El Cerrito, Calif.-based Bock Information Group and author of Net Income, Briefing Memo and Monday Memo.
"Monday Memo is a virtual no-cost promotional effort that goes to 3,000 people every week," says Bock, who also generates business through public speaking and a regular direct-mail program. "In terms of its effectiveness and efficiency, this newsletter is the best thing we've got."
Creating a Sense of Community
According to Bock, the number of subscribers to his newsletter has grown steadily without any major promotional efforts. "Every week, those 3,000 people are getting material that lets me show what I do - some subscribe to my other newsletter (for a fee), some become clients, and some buy my products," says Bock.
Scott Nuanes, president of Boulder, Colo.-based BusinessLink, Inc., has geared his company's Internet business around BusinessLink Marketletter, a weekly e-mail newsletter with 600,000 subscribers. He says that selling advertising for his company's weekly "e-zine" allows him to help businesses advertise their products, services or opportunities.
"It also allows us to advertise our other services such as Web hosting and e-mail list-management services," says Nuanes, whose e-mail newsletter has been in existence since August 1995. "Our e-zine is our number-one source of obtaining new business, and it makes up a large part of our monthly revenues."
"For us, newsletters really help to build a sense of community and bring customers closer to our Web site and the Borders community," says Scott Wilder, director of Internet services for Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Borders.com. "E-mail newsletters are very valuable marketing vehicles that help to bring traffic to a site."
The Importance of Content
When deciding what to include in your daily, weekly or quarterly e-mail newsletter, you'll want to share the very best, most useful information with your readers. Here are a few guidelines to follow:
When it comes to length, the shorter the better. It's the '90s, and the average individual already has too much to read, do and participate in. Your newsletter has a much better chance of being read if it's short, targeted and to-the-point. To find out what length would be most suitable for his own e-mail newsletter, Bock tested his readers by placing offers throughout the text and keeping track of which ones generated the most response.
"I create two different types of newsletters. Monday Memo has to be short, sweet and quick," says Bock. "On the other hand, my Briefing Memo newsletter is 10 pages long and is very full and rich with content."
Giving subscribers a reason to be interested in your publication also helps to keep their attention. "You really have to give people a benefit or reason to sign up for the newsletter," Wilder advises. "We're seeing more and more offers like, 'Sign up for this and get XYZ.' For instance, Bonus Mail is a company that distributes ad newsletters and gives customers points for opening up the newsletters and reading them." Wilder adds that putting a "P.S." at the bottom of the newsletter is very important for recapping information, and says that Borders.com has found success in using some traditional direct-response methods (such as the P.S.) in its e-mail newsletters.
"Providing useful content is very key," adds Nuanes. "We're geared towards the small businessperson on the Internet, and we provide news, articles and tips relating to Internet business." BusinessLink also provides links to free offers and software on the Net, and also accepts ads relating to other companies' products, services and business opportunities. "This allows us to provide our subscribers with information on products and services that they're interested in using," he adds.
Another positive associated with Internet-based publications is that compared to traditional, paper-based publications, electronic publications allow for quick, timely updates and mailings, with no postage required.
The Visual Aspect
To Nuanes, the visual aspects of a newsletter are just as important as the content. Placing a summary of the content near the top of the newsletter has proven successful since most readers want to know what the rest of the newsletter contains. "By keeping things in the same format every week, we make it easier for readers to know what to expect and where they can find certain items of interest," he says. "It's very important to have sections and headings in your newsletter to allow a subscriber to easily find what they're looking for."
Bock disagrees; he feels the visual aspect of the newsletter is currently "not so important" because many people don't have the ability to see styles or enhanced text, but he admits that technological advancements will soon make such factors important. "More and more people are acquiring the capability to see formatted text in their e-mail as they upgrade their software," he says. "Soon-to-be-released versions of software programs like Eudora will allow newsletter creators like myself to send two simultaneous messages, one with styles and one without."
Getting the Word Out and Keeping It There
Finding subscribers is half the fun of having an e-mail newsletter, and discovering where all of those new readers are coming from can provide valuable insights into future developments and promotions for your publication.
For Bock, who went from zero subscribers to 3,000 in a short period of time, the majority of his subscribers come from his Web site. He's also able to track his Web log and see that the newsletter is also frequently perused by non-subscribers reading it online. To increase his subscriber base, he takes advantage of the opportunity presented him at his speaking engagements by passing around a tablet that picks up an average of 15 or 20 new readers. And last year Bock learned of a subscriber who worked for Ford Motor Company who began circulating his copy of Monday Memo in-house. "Within a month, I had 15 or 20 more subscribers from Ford who wanted their own copies," Bock says.
As an Internet publisher who also offers e-mail list-management services, Nuanes' company has a varied client base that includes small businesses to Fortune 1000 companies. "Creating and managing an e-mail list is not a trivial task," he warns. "If it's not properly handled, it can be a nightmare for a business." He says proper handling of "subscribes" and "unsubscribes" is of utmost importance: If mishandled, the newsletter publisher may be accused of spamming, or sending unsolicited e-mail messages.
According to Robert Arue, president and founder of E-mail Solutions, a developer of enterprise outbound e-mailing software, fear of managing a recipient list comes into play when the lists get large and unmanageable.
"In managing a large list, there are always significant problems," he says. "For example, some people trying to unsubscribe will misunderstand the instructions and end up getting the newsletter anyway. There can be significant ill will created when this happens, and the inevitable 'bouncing' e-mail from a large mailing results in a significant challenge."
Arue says one of his clients, a developer of Internet games, has amassed a subscriber list of more than 1 million users, but is wary about using it to increase awareness and stimulate sales for the very reasons outlined above. "That particular customer stated that mailing out to their 1 million subscribers is only 5 percent of the effort," Arue adds, "the other 95 percent is cleaning up the resulting havoc."
"You really have to test how your e-mail software works," agrees Bock. "Last week I ran into a problem when I upgraded to Eudora and changed the way I produce my newsletters. All of a sudden, I got e-mails from people telling me that the text wasn't wrapping the way it was supposed to, and that the formatting symbols were included in the newsletter."
The problem was resolved when Bock realized that he never checked the appearance of his final version before sending it out. "I tell people to do it, and I'm supposed to do it, but this time I didn't," he laments. To prevent this from happening to your own publication, Bock suggests having a few e-mail addresses that you can send test copies to, whose owners will respond with feedback on how it looks. "Both of our newsletters look the way they do because of this type of feedback," says Bock.
To create his newsletter, Bock uses Eudora Pro 4.0 software, then sends it out with mailing list software. He also uses a service that manages the listserv software for him. "It costs me about $10 per month and saves me a lot of hassle," he says. BusinessLink, as well as many other Net-based companies, offers a similar service.
"Our service provides an easy-to-use Web-based interface that allows any e-mail list owner to send to their list anytime they wish," says Nuanes. "It allows for personal handling and takes care of all unsubscribe and undeliverable messages."
Closing Advice From the Pros
Before embarking on your own venture into Internet newsletter publishing, Bock advises all business owners to know exactly why they're doing it. You can do it for publicity or brand-building, he says, but be sure to have a specific goal in mind, and think about what you want to achieve by creating an Internet newsletter. "Don't Spam anyone - make it an opt-in list where subscribers choose to be on the list," he adds. "If you do add anyone to the list, let them know via an e-mail message and offer to take them off if they don't want to receive it."
Bock also suggests having a privacy policy for the recipients of your list. An excerpt from his site says, "We do not resell, exchange or trade our list for any purpose at any time." "It's not important to everyone," he says of the disclaimer, "but it's important to enough people, and I think it's just good business."
Overall, e-mail newsletter users agree that Web-based publications are extremely effective, but only when handled properly. The possibility of alienating people is high when all it takes is a few clicks to send out the wrong information to millions of current and potential customers. Caution must be used, but the end result is very cost-effective and satisfying when the process is done right.
"Our e-mail newsletters are constantly bringing us new business every week," Nuanes concludes. "As a business owner, if you can provide an effective, useful newsletter you'll be able to keep in easy contact with your customers and subscribers week after week."
Copyright © 2000 by Virtual Advisor, Inc. All rights reserved.