How can you make your business’ newsletters more compelling? Here’s advice from some of the experts:

Dave Robinson has been involved in marketing for 10 years. His main advice is that unless you have something relevant to shout about, don’t bother. He says: “If it’s not interesting to out customers, we’re wasting our time.”

Janine Popick also advises you share your knowledge with others in a ‘how to’ or ‘five easy steps to…’ column, keeping advice and tips short, sweet and instructive.

She adds: “Be specific regarding the frequency of your newsletters and the value you will provide. Make good on your promise.” Know how often to send a newsletter as well. Customers who sign up for a publishing company will probably only expect a newsletter each month, but those who sign up for bigger; more publicised companies may expect a newsletter each week.

Quality Over Quantity

Once a customer has signed up for your newsletters, they will get every one you send, so make sure that the content is relevant to them or they can soon become intrusive and annoying. You may decide to publish something interesting only once each month even if you think you could do so more but aren’t certain. It’s better to have one excellent quality newsletter each month than 2 mediocre newsletters a month.

Popick says: “The best way to tell our story is through real people and their anecdotes.” You should also be sure to use a healthy mix of images and text in your newsletters as many email clients will not download the images, leaving only the words for you to sell your product.

She also advises that if customers are talking about you on Facebook or Twitter or there is a YouTube video of a relevant customer story, include the link in your email, encourage them to join in.

Robinson said: “We want people to read our newsletter and look forward to them,” but if it’s all about the company and ‘give us your money like’ people are going to ignore and delete.

What Do You Think?

Do you have any other advice about marketing emails? Where have you gone wrong in the past, share your experience with others. Leave your comments here.

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