If you use email on a regular basis, you're probably already receiving E-Newsletters from some of the companies you do business with. And while there's a tremendous amount of variation out there regarding what constitutes an E-Newsletter (or "electronic newsletter" or "E-zine" or "email newsletter;" they're all the same thing), they do have certain elements in common.
First and foremost, E-Newsletters arrive in your inbox as email messages. The sending company writes the newsletter, drops it into a predetermined email format, and sends it to a list of people who receive it on the other end. There's a fair amount of technology that runs in the background to do this efficiently and effectively, but when you boil it all down, it's just an email sent to many people at once.
To dig a bit deeper, think of an E-Newsletter like an electronic magazine, with three principal pieces:
1. Content. The words themselves - what you write and how you write it.
2. Formatting and Layout. Like a magazine, an E-Newsletter has a consistent look from month to month for organizing and laying out the content. Fonts, graphics, sections, headings, links, etc., all come together to create the design and layout.
3. Delivery and List Management. Once the newsletter is assembled (content + layout), there needs to be a "machine" for sending it out to a predetermined list of people (your subscribers). The machine takes care of the logistics behind delivery. In addition to sending the newsletter out, that includes things like adding/removing names; managing bounced emails; sending automated messages to readers as they come on the list or make changes to their personal information; and collecting and reporting on data regarding reader behavior and preferences.
Taken together, these three elements make up an E-Newsletter.
Why publish an E-Newsletter?"The cost of acquiring a new customer can be as much as 5 times the cost of keeping an old one." (source: Peppers and Rogers).
"A 5% increase in retention yields profit increases of 25 to 100 percent" (source: Bain and Co.)
"Permission e-mail campaigns are ten times more effective than direct mail campaigns." (source: IMT Strategies)
The results of this research and dozens of other studies add up to a simple conclusion: It's a lot more cost effective and profitable to grow your business by increasing revenue and referrals from existing customers, than it is to keep chasing strangers. If you've got a "house list" of business relationships, you've got an extremely valuable asset. An asset that a quality E-Newsletter is perfectly suited to take advantage of.
Specifically...
An E-Newsletter Increases Lead Generation And Cross Selling. As your newsletter arrives month after month, it keeps you top of mind with customers, prospects, partners and others, and provides an ongoing, low-key mechanism for highlighting your full range of products and services.
An E-Newsletter Increases Customer Lifetime Value. Competitors can buy their way into your market by matching your pricing, matching your products and even matching the look and feel of your company. What they can't buy are your relationships. Every newsletter that you send serves to solidify the connection between your company and your customers.
An E-Newsletter Provides A Low Cost, Instantaneous Channel For Sending Messages. Your database of email addresses gives you instant access to your customers and prospects. Once the machine is set up, in addition to sending an E-Newsletter, you can send alerts, advisories and messages as frequently as you wish.
An E-Newsletter Opens Up A Two-Way Dialogue With Customers And Prospects. E-Newsletters allow recipients to easily and immediately interact with you. Comments are made, information is requested, an exchange of ideas between you and your customers flows easily in both directions.
An E-Newsletter Hypercharges Your Existing Marketing Efforts. Your E-Newsletter doesn't compete with your web site, print newsletter or existing marketing materials. It leverages them. It creates a steady pulse and focus that ties your other marketing efforts together.
An E-Newsletter Provides Instant, Measurable Results. Advertising, sponsorships, and many other traditional marketing tactics offer few options for measuring the return on your investment. E-based tactics on the other hand, are instantly trackable. With each E-Newsletter you send, you'll know how many people opened it; how many links were clicked on; who clicked on which links; and more. Fact-based, real time metrics.
If you already send printed materials out to your contact list - whether as a print newsletter or in some other fashion - the most immediate and measurable benefit of switching to an electronic format is a savings in time, printing and mailing costs. With a variable cost per newsletter of nearly zero, you will never again have to weigh the benefits of printing more materials or agonize over whether or not person X is "worthy" of the cost of sending information.
What About SPAM and Privacy Concerns?
The hottest topic in email marketing today is SPAM. As corporations and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) work to control the amount of unsolicited email entering their systems, they may inadvertently filter out legitimate emails, including some E-Newsletters. In industry lingo, this type of error is known as a "false positive," and the result is that some emails sent to people who have requested them don't ever reach their destination.
But, let's put that into perspective. Even with SPAM's impact, a good E-Newsletter sent to your house list will still be opened by over 40% of the people it's sent to. Given typical response rates to traditional marketing tactics, that's as much as 40 times better than the percentage of people who read your newspaper ads; respond to your direct mail; or return your unsolicited phone calls.
The fact is, for the small business owner, an E-Newsletter represents the first time in history that we've ever been able to cost effectively communicate with our entire customer and prospect base over and over and over again. Not only that, but thanks to the inherently democratic nature of email (i.e. the big boys don't get any more space in the email inbox than the rest of us), an E-Newsletter gives us the opportunity to not just compete with, but outperform our much larger competitors for the attention of readers.
And so, while SPAM has certainly reduced some of the effectiveness of E-Newsletters in recent months, this remarkable tool is by no means past its prime.
How Much Time And Money Does It Require?
I hope that by now you're convinced of the value of an E-Newsletter for your business. The next logical question, of course, is how much does it cost in time and dollars?
The answer depends on a few things.
1. First of all, there's the content. The more you write by yourself from scratch - as opposed to compiling from other sources, or farming out to other writers - the more time it will take. Although it's less expensive to write original content, you'll want to assess whether you've got the resources in-house to put it all together each month.
2. Next, you'll want to consider design. For maximum effectiveness, your E-Newsletter should reflect your unique brand and style. While you can customize a standard template, your best results will be obtained by creating a look and feel that's just for you (i.e. using a professional designer).
3. Finally, there's monthly production: formatting the content and getting it out the door on a regular basis. Here too, you'll want to weigh the benefits of doing it yourself (less expensive) vs. hiring a firm such as mine to manage the details for you (less worry and error).
As a rule of thumb, if you do the work yourself, you should figure on two full days of work per newsletter - one day to develop the content; one day to manage the layout and delivery logistics. You should also count on the first newsletter taking an additional two or three days to develop the format and style.
Conclusion
Pound for pound, an E-Newsletter offers the small business owner an opportunity to reach out to customers and prospects in ways that were simply not possible just a few short years ago. Whether you do it yourself, farm out the entire process, or strike a balance in-between, this new tool is well worth adding to your repertoire.
Please check out Constant Contact to see how it can help you get started with an E-Newsletter. I have been using it and recommending it to anyone and everyone with an email marketing campaign.
Printwear Magazine, December 2011.
