There is a huge amount of money being spent in the online marketing arena. In South Africa we are beginning to see that companies have realised the necessity of being found in search engines. That’s great. But does the communication need to end there?

Image via Flickr, by Zeno (under CC)

Large businesses are finally opening up to the idea of spending significant amounts of money on tactics such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), which is fantastic, but often these very same businesses are not taking advantage of the fact that they have qualified visitors by continuing the conversation once the visitor has left the site.

Enter email newsletters. This is one of the oldest tools in the online marketing repertoire and for this reason is sometimes overlooked. It is also one of the most powerful tools available to the online marketer. This is particularly true for businesses, where the user may be on the site once only when looking for a specific service. The newsletter offers the business the opportunity to maintain a presence in the minds of consumers.

For this reason, I will mention a few key learnings to keep in mind when embarking on a newsletter campaign for corporates.

1. Use descriptive subject lines
Your newsletter may contain brilliant articles and information that the reader may find extremely useful. However, if you do not use a subject line that conveys this and gives the reader an indication of what to expect they may never get that far and send your newsletter straight to the trash folder.

2. Provide valuable content
If you are not able to provide content that offers value to the reader then you should either reconsider the type of content that you are looking to include or the frequency of the newsletter. It is better to offer a quarterly newsletter that offers value than a weekly newsletter that does not. By taking a little time and putting in a few simple processes (covered later) this shouldn’t be a problem.

3. Start strong and finish strong
The first few lines of content play a significant role in whether the reader is going to read any further than the first paragraph. It is also worth taking the time to offer a regular feature that provides real value and/or enjoyment to the reader, which they can become familiar with. Readers may get to the point where they open the newsletter for this feature only, but they will need to work their way through the other content to get there.

4. Use sensible layout and design
Make the newsletter user-friendly and as easy read and navigate as possible. It’s difficult enough getting users to open your newsletters, don’t make it any more difficult than it needs to be to find the content they want to read. If it is, they’ll just stop trying.
It is also worth selecting a certain style and font that is maintained throughout each newsletter. This style should be one that matches the corporate image and one that readers can become familiar with.

5. Use images, but keep the size down.
People like to look at pictures. If used sensibly with relevance, images will almost always add value to your newsletter. Having said this, one must remember that images can add significantly to the size of the mail, and you do not want a newsletter that takes ages to download.

6. Make subscribing and unsubscribing easy.
One of the most important things to remember that it is not only the law that readers be able to unsubscribe from mailers, but also that they should be able to do this with as little fuss as possible. Making this process difficult for the user will not do your company’s image any favours.
It should also be easy for users to send the newsletter on to a friend as well as subscribe.

7. Optimise newsletters
Many of the tools that are applied to websites for improving search results can and should be applied to your newsletter as well. Post and archive your newsletters online while also ensuring that you make use of relevant keywords. This will not only help your newsletter rank in the search engines, but improve the rankings of your main website.

8. Publish regularly
And finally, the point that inspired the title – keeping regular. You don’t want to bog your readers down with a constant flood of emails, but you also want to send regularly enough for your readers to become comfortable with the correspondence and learn to expect your newsletters and what they contain.

This sounds good in theory, but is not always that easy in practice. There are a few processes that can be put in place to facilitate this courtesy of the Campaign Monitor blog:

•   Create a publishing calendar

Decide on the frequency of the sendings and draw up a calendar that incorporates all the special dates and holidays. This way there will be no surprises down the line and those individuals involved can fall into a routine.

• Appoint an owner for the newsletter

Although there may be a number of people involved in the production of the newsletters, there should be one individual overseeing the project as a whole to ensure that each person knows what their responsibilities are and that their deadlines are met.

• Keep an ideas file

It is not always the easiest thing to come up with the content for each edition of the newsletter. By creating a shared location where all parties involved that could potentially provide ideas and information can do this and are encouraged to do so, much of the stress could be avoided.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but does cover a couple of the key points as discovered by an individual finding their feet in this realm of eMarketing.