ENewsletters Dos and Don'ts

Okay, life caught up with me this past week, and I have not been able to get my daily posts completed.  I guess that's what happens when starting a business.

I had an interesting discussion with a client last week about an enewsletter we were talking about doing together. 

She wants to email her prospect list a page of her website.  Wow.  Yes you did hear that right.  Her rationale?  It's good advertising. 

Unfortunately, when her customers receive this little gift, several things will happen:

1. They won't know what they are getting or why they are getting it -- there is no context just emailing a webpage
2. They won't know what they are expected to do with this web page -- and it is critical that the recipient know what is expected of them when they get an email
3. They may have serious techno trauma, as emailing a large web page can really overload an inbox
4. The content is all about the company, not about the user, and newsletters are suppose to be about useful news, not self promotion. 
5. Customers will not likely open, or click through to the website because of the above issues, which makes the effort a bit of a waste of time. 

So, here is a collection of dos and don'ts for email marketing, sourced from Marketing Profs, Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development, CRM Guru and a half a dozen other sources on the web:

• Make sure the content is useful and relevant to the reader
• Get their permission to receive the email
• Focus on the reader's needs, not what you have to sell
• Make sure that the context of the newsletter is clear
• Ensure that the reader knows what you expect him/her to do
• Tell stories that the prospect can relate to, that shows that you understand their problem
• Be brief - 800 words maximum
• Make sure there are links to your site that the reader can follow for more information
• Share any good news you have about your clients, your company or your industry
• Make it a clean, simple design
• Make sure the copy is easily scanned and not long blocks of text
• Don't use Outlook to send emails -- you can't measure or manage your campaign effectively
• Use an email service that allows you to manage permissions, bounces and measure the effectiveness of your campaign
• Use compelling headlines to communicate the benefits of your article or offer - the more specific the benefit the better

Okay, so there is probably another 30 or so bullet points, but I'll save that for another time.  But please, please, don't just email a web page to your prospects. 

Lesson Learned: Email marketing requires an investment of time and planning, but can be very effective.  But if you do it wrong, you can damage your relationship with your prospects badly.