Newsletters are nothing new.  Forward thinking business owners have been using newsletters for generations to keep their business name in front of their best customers.  Email enables you to do this without paying postage and printing fees.  However, emailing your newsletter is not without cost.

In order to effectively deliver an email newsletter list, you’ll need to do more than simply CC a hundred or so email addresses using Outlook Express.   You’ll need specialized service which allows you to implement what is known as a “double opt in” subscription to your email newsletter list.

A double opt in email newsletter is considered the “gold standard” and should be implemented by every email newsletter list owner.  Double opt in means that in order for a web visitors to join your newsletter – they must first give their email address.  Then, the subscriber will get a confirmation message in that email account.  To complete the subscription – the subscriber must reply to the email.   That reply completes the double opt in process.

Double opt in email newsletter lists are much more valuable than single opt in lists because the subscribers have demonstrated that they REALLY want to subscribe to the newsletter.

Once visitors have gone through the double opt in process, then it’s time to get down to business creating and emailing your  newsletters to your subscribers.

Believe it or not – creating a content strategy for your email newsletter is usually a real “sticking point’ for many business owners.   Many don’t know what to say other than “Buy – Buy – Buy from me!”

Of course you want your email newsletter subscribers to BUY from you – but if you want them to keep opening the newsletters you’re sending them via email – then you’d better be sure to make your newsletter a real RESOURCE for your list subscribers.

Some of your email newsletter subscribers will never buy from you – but they may pass a helpful article along to a friend who does end up buying from you.  That’s the way email newsletters work – they do double – even triple duty in creating sales for your business.

Kathy over at Virtual Impax has a great ebook on this topic.  “Quick and easy email marketing newsletters” shows you how to build a newsletter email list that you can literally “set and forget”.    I encourage my clients to pick up a copy of this valuable resource so they can use me to implement this strategy setting up the email newsletter for them. Then – once the newsletter is on “auto-pilot” my clients can put me to work on other  projects.

However, as the months passed – you probably began wondering why more people weren’t contacting you.

Sometimes – people aren’t contacting you because they aren’t finding your website.

However, if you take a look at your log files and see that people ARE finding your web site – then the problem may be that you need to earn their TRUST before they take the leap and do business with you.

In order for people to trust you – they first have to get to know you.  There are two GREAT ways to allow people to “get to know you” online…. an email newsletter and a blog.

I’ll be covering email newsletters here.  Email newsletters can take two forms: autoresponders and newsletters.

An autoresponder is just what it’s name says it is – it’s an automatic response.  When an email comes in – it “triggers” the autoresponder to begin sending either a single message – or a series of messages.

A newsletter, on the other hand is an email that you send to a LIST of people who have signed up and ASKED for this kind of communication.

Remember when I said that the purpose is to build TRUST with you.  Well, the worst thing in the WORLD you can do is to try to build an email newsletter without using a double opt in email subscription process.   While I can install such software on your server for you – over the long run – it’s usually more cost efficient to just sign up for a service like Marketer’s Choice.

You won’t build trust by sending emails from your desktop using Outlook Express to a bunch of contacts you’ve collected!

While you can set up an autoresponder on almost any email account – Marketer’s Choice offers the ability to set up the autoresponder to deliver a SERIES of messages delivered at scheduled intervals.

For example, if you offer a free ebook as your “legal bribe” to get people to sign up for your newsletter – you can set up an autoresponder of six follow up emails which are delievered once a week for the first six weeks after someone signs up for your newsletter.

What this does is to help “pre-qualify” your web visitors.  If 100 people come to your web site and 10 sign up for your newsletter to get a copy of your ebook – then you know your web site message is on track and you’ve got a steady stream of prospective customers.

By setting up your email newsletter in this manner – it can truly become a “set it and forget it” business building tool.

The other option for email newsletters is to – again – offer a legal bribe to entice people to sign up for your newsletter, and then every two weeks – or every month – you send your list an informative newsletter.  Your readers get to know you – and eventually some will trust you enough to do business with you.

Email newsletters are one of the most powerful business building tools on the web.  If you need a virtual web assistant to help you set up or maintain your email newsletter – contact me.

An email newsletter is a great way to communicate with prospective customers.  Instead of “spraying and praying” with your marketing message, you can send your marketing message to a list of people who have ASKED for more information from you.

Done correctly, an email newsletter is a great way to market your business.

So what’s not to love about email newsletters?

Done INCORRECTLY they can do more harm than good for your business.

It’s important to remember to respect the people who have signed up for your email newsletter.    One of the WORST things you can do is to disrespect your email list subscribers.  An example of such blatant disrespect is illustrated by an email I received this morning.

The email newsletter subject line that caught my attention in a negative way reads  like this:

#%name%#, we have a special offer for you….

The following is an attempt to explain what went wrong to non-technical people.  This is a “Geek into English” translation.

When people sign up for your email newsletter – they fill out an online form.  Think of  each field (box where you type in your name or email address) as a mail slot.

When someone fills out the form to sign up for your email newsletter – they fill out a slip of paper which gets put into this slot. You can then “pull” information from these slots to send emails to the people on your email newsletter list.

You’ve heard the saying, “the money is in the list.” Well, I’m here to help you NOT to kill the goose that has the potential of laying golden eggs for your business.

The way it’s SUPPOSED to work is that when you enter the right coding, the email program will pull whatever is on the slip of paper located  in the “name”  slot of the database and plug whatever is there into that spot in the email subject line.  However, if your database doesn’t HAVE a slot called “name” – you’ll see the mess in the subject line I received above.

The REASON for using  your name, called by the coding  #% name %# , in the email subject is it helps to personalize the email.  When an email is addressed to you personally by name – instead of a general “hey you” – you’re more likely to open the email.

However, by NOT using this correctly – you do more harm than good.  Those email newsletter subscribers you worked so hard to sign up – well, you are capturing their attention – but not in a good way.

If you need help in choosing an email newsletter delivery service or setting up an email newsletter that helps to build your business without wearing you out – contact VVAWebHelp today!