Despite the fact that a huge number of businesses have realised the benifits of having a Newsletter, there are still a great many that have not.

If you are one of those who is not using a newsletter within your marketing efforts then you are potentially missing out on existing customers who would become long term contacts and valuable long-term buyers.

What do Newsletters do? Well, Newsletters if written well, provide an effective tool for collecting interested visitors’ email addresses and converting them into buyers. Believe it or not they are the greatest way to keep in touch with your most valued contacts, which are your previous customers. How?

NEWSLETTERS KEEP CUSTOMERS

When you have a customer buy from you, but no newsletter to follow up, than you are virtually handing him or her back to your competitors. Of course, if the service was good and the product memorable they may come back, but what if you have a new product that your existing customer may wish to buy and they do not know about it? What if they lose your website address? What if they just forget about you? A newsletter will prevent these things from happening.

HOW FREQUENTLY?

That depends on various factors. Some Newsletter publishers contact their subscribers as often as every day, others as infrequently as several times per year. What works for you depends a lot on what you are selling, what information you can give them, how often your subscribers will want to hear from you, etc.

A good rule of thumb for many businesses is once per week. Twice a month if you really feel that is the most you can do. More often and the customer may unsubscribe or routinely delete your messages. Less often and you’re allowing your competition the chance to win over your potential customer.

WHAT DO I WRITE ABOUT?

Are you very informed on the product or service? Do you have a lot of contacts? Can you point out related products or services they might be interested in?

You do not need a long newsletter. A sale alert or announcement of a new service or product can do just as well for some businesses, while others find a tips format more suitable. Industry news or ‘How to…’ and ‘Top 5…’ topics are a good idea and always try to make a connection between the newsletter and your product or service. Subscribe to several competitors’ newsletters (they will surely be subscribing to yours). Use a free email account to subscribe and see what they are providing their customers.

DO IT CONSISTENTLY

The number of newsletters that are available online is huge, and each subscriber may have a number of them already posting to him/her. Because of this subscribers can forget which ones are legitimate and which are spam.

Keep your format consistent so your newsletter becomes visibly familiar. Also indicate that the subscriber requested the information and provide an unsubscribe link on EVERY issue. You must do this if you want to limit complaints or spam reports. They will be much more likely to thinks that yours are spamm if they are inconsitent.

Finally, your newsletter creation must be given adequate time and attention – it is your voice, and that of your company and will help you to build virtual one-to-one relationships with your customers (and potential customers) in a way that no other tool can. 
 
Steve Evans recommends the Spider Marketing System and Friends-Networking-Sharing to promote online and home businesses.

Tip! Use ‘Viral Marketing’ strategies to turn one subscriber into five. This is simple, give the subscriber something for free or a further discount on a product or service if they refer four of there friends who may be interested in the newsletter as well.

In order to be successful with a newsletter, specialize in a subject not adequately covered in existing newsletters. A subject which you can give more, or better information on.

To determine what to write about, first look at your ability, experience and interests. Then sit down at the library with the latest edition of the “Directory of Newsletters” and make a note of the publishers of subjects comparable to what you would like to write about. Send for a free sample of each of these to review. Find out how they are put together and whether you can do as good or better with one of your own. Make an analysis of the good and weak points of the various newsletters to build ideas for your own.

Tip! Make reading your newsletter pay-off for your customer every time. Always offer discount links or other value-add information that separates your content from all the ‘value-free’ content on the web today.

Plan in advance how your layout will be set up, what kind of photos or drawings you might use, printing and distribution costs, and all the other business details necessary to launch and maintain a continuing weekly or monthly newsletter. Be sure you have time to handle all the details required to get the newsletter out on time every time! You will need to build as much of the basic information as possible well in advance, perhaps 15 to 20 issues ahead, then feed in the current information between each issue.

You cannot hope to survive against the competition of the large firms who have many different contributing authors, and access to instant worldwide information through computer data centers, etc. So stay away from subjects put out by them unless you can develop a very unique theme to wrap around their information. Most of these firms put out a newsletter without any revenue from advertisements or inserts. Generally the little publishers must develop their newsletters in such a way as to include income from advertisers in order to return a reasonable profit and stay in business.

Tip! When you’re composing your newsletter in your email browser, put everyone’s email address in the ‘To’ field so that when someone receives your mailing they can see everyone else’s address.

Research the market to determine what your “category” of subscribers want to hear in your newsletter. Give it a “stand out” title, price it fairly for both the subscriber and yourself, keep the graphics and printing clean and neat. Develop your own individual style in your writings to give your newsletter its own distinctive “personality”.

How would you present your information to an individual in a personal face to face conversation? Use the same presentation in writing. It will take time to develop an individual writing style, but as the saying goes, “practice makes perfect”! So don’t be discouraged if your first few attempts appear ridiculous to you. A you practice you gain experience and before you know it, you can put out information your subscribers can enjoy and benefit from.

Tip! Get an independent evaluation of your current newsletter strategy from a marketer you trust. Make sure to develop tangible success measurements.

With Internet’s help, you can publish ezines – newsletters sent through Internet. It is low cost and there is postage required for you to reach thousands of readers.