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Staying in Touch: Starting an E-Newsletter Program

Posted June 1, 2006 By Nick Weynand |

“One solution is an e-newsletter program. Everybody’s doing it and you should be too. Why? It’s cost effective, easy to set up and it gets results.”

Every business wants to stay in front of clients and prospects.  It’s a simple rule of marketing – the more you stay in front of people who can do business with you, the more opportunities you have to earn their business.  The problem is you don’t have the advertising budget of Nike or the community loyalty of Starbucks.  What you do have is knowledge. You’re an expert in your industry and you want to let your clients and prospects know about it.

A simple solution is an e-newsletter program.  Everybody’s doing it and you should be too.  Why?  It’s cost effective, easy to set up and it gets results.  Not interested in cheap and easy results? Then stop reading and go back to sending your brochures by snail mail.  If you are interested, read on for a candid discussion about why and how to get started.

Why should I spend my time on this?

I know you’re really busy, but an e-newsletter program is something you should spend some time developing.  Here’s why:

It’s Cheap

Compared to most other forms of marketing sending email is very, very cheap.  With traditional newsletters it’s not just the stamps that cost money.  You have to consider other costs: paper, printing (whether you do it yourself or have a printer do it), envelopes and labels.

“It’s enough to make you want to go postal…or not.”

And then there’s time: folding the paper takes time, going to the post office takes time and so does dealing with all the returned mail.  It’s enough to make you want to go postal…or not.  Email on the other hand can cost some bucks to set up initially but then most of the cost is out of the way.  Sending email newsletters through a provider is very cheap – usually less than $0.01 per recipient.  Now I’m no accountant, but if saving money sounds like a good idea then consider phasing out your traditional newsletter and switching to an e-newsletter.

It’s Easy

Once it’s set up, sending an e-newsletter is about as easy as writing some content and hitting send.  Well…not that easy, but almost. Compared to a traditional direct mail piece, sending email is very easy.  With traditional mail you have to print labels or hand-write addresses, stuff envelopes, take them to the post office, etc.  Of course you could pay a mail-house to do this for you, but that costs money (see above).  With an e-newsletter program you have to draft your content (which you have to do anyway), import your subscriber list and send it out.  There are programs that do the importing and sending out part for you.  We’ll take a look at those later.  If you’re considering a traditional newsletter or an e-newsletter, there’s really no comparison.  E-newsletters are just plain easier.

It’s Effective

Cheap and easy are one thing, but effective is really why you do anything, right?  E-newsletters are effective.  In fact, research has shown that people are more willing to at least glance at an email newsletter than they are to open a piece of traditional mail.  You can also track results better. Most programs enable you to see how many of your emails were opened, who opened them and who clicked on the links within them.  These are all things you can’t do with traditional mail.  Good messaging is important, but being able to track that messaging and make adjustments adds a whole new level of effectiveness.

It’s Cool

You want to be cool don’t you?  E-newsletters are cool.  You can provide links and drive traffic to your Web site, and interact with your users through polls, questionnaires, and surveys.  E-newsletters show your prospects and clients that you’re up to speed with technology and can do things that your competitors can’t.  That’s cool isn’t it?

How to get started

Now that you’re thoroughly convinced that you should start an e-newsletter program let’s take a look at how to get started.

Build Your List

“If you’re not already collecting the email addresses of all your customers and prospects, start today.”

If you’re not already collecting the email addresses of all your customers and prospects, start today.  Even if you’re not in a hurry to start any kind of email campaign, you at least want to start building your list.  And the list itself is very important.  An e-newsletter campaign is only as effective as the people you send it to.  Make sure your list contains clients and prospects that are interested in your services or could become interested.  There are companies that will sell you a list of email addresses, but I’ve never tried it and wouldn’t recommend it.  Instead, grow your list organically yourself and consider adding an opt-in newsletter subscription form on your Web site.  Building a legitimate list may take a bit longer but the people you reach will be of higher quality to your business and will be more willing to listen to what you have to say.

Design Your Template

Every e-newsletter campaign needs a template.  The template is the shell that you plug your content into.  It contains things like your logo, your contact information, etc.  A template will let you send e-newsletters that all have the same look and feel.  There are a couple ways you can get a template created.  Many e-newsletter sending programs (discussed in the next section) offer free HTML templates to choose from.  Most of these can be customized with your logo, color scheme etc.  If you are interested in saving money, this is the way to go.  If quality is more important than money, then have a professional designer set up the template for you.  A professional designer can build the template and consult with you on how to plug in content and send out your newsletter.  The benefit is that you’ll have someone with experience helping you the entire way.  The drawback is that professionals usually want to get paid.  Whether you do it yourself or hire a pro, the template you use is very important – it should look great, represent your company well and present content in a user-friendly way.

A Note About Spam
Due to the CAN-SPAM legislation, your email template needs to contain your physical address and a valid unsubscribe link.  Most e-newsletter providers will handle the unsubscribe part for you.  Also, when you’re sending your e-newsletter the subject line cannot be misleading in any way.  For more information on the CAN-SPAM law, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM.

Sending Your E-Newsletter

So you’ve built up your list, you’ve set up your template and you’ve written all of your content.  By now you’re itching to send this thing out.  Before you go pasting all your addresses into the BCC field of Outlook, you need to consider an e-newsletter provider. Many people don’t realize that most Internet Service Providers don’t let you blast an email out to several thousand people on your own.  This is one of the reasons you need an e-newsletter provider to send your campaigns.  The e-newsletter provider will let you import and manage your subscriber lists, schedule your campaign, handle unsubscribers and provide detailed reports after your campaign in sent.

You can find an e-newsletter provider on your own, but here are some that we’ve found:

1. Campaign Monitor
   This is the program we recommend.  They don’t offer templates, so you have to design one on your own or hire a professional, but the sending process is intuitive and the reports are great.  Also, they are cheap.  They don’t charge by the month, they only charge when you send out a campaign.
2. Constant Contact
   This is one of the more popular programs.  They offer templates that you can choose from and you can pretty much launch your whole e-newsletter program on your own from their Web site.  They charge monthly depending on how big your list is. Drawbacks include the fact that the templates don’t look that great and the interface is a little clunky.
3. MailChimp
   I haven’t used this one, but our Producer Caroling Lee suggested it.  The interface looks pretty nice and you pay for your campaigns up front by buying credits.  They also offer free HTML templates.

If you’re not happy with the three providers listed above, you should be able to find a provider that meets your needs with a little research.  Just do a search for “email marketing software” and you’re sure to find some good results.

An example report from Campaign Monitor.

Viewing The Results

After you send your e-newsletter, you’ll definitely want to take a look at the results.  Most e-newsletter providers will show how many people opened your e-newsletter, how many people clicked to your Web site, who clicked through, etc.  Keep an eye on these reports over time to make sure your numbers are increasing.  Also, pay attention to what content people are reading and what links are being clicked.  Armed with this knowledge, you’ll be able to deliver content that is relevant and interesting to your users.

It’s time to start an effective e-newsletter program.  Once it gets going, you’ll distinguish yourself as an expert and you’ll routinely hear clients and prospects comment on how they love hearing from you.  And guess what?  Next time they’re ready to make a purchase, you’ll be on their mind.

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