Targeted information always attracts
In today’s knowledge era, information is among the popular ‘glues’ binding communities across different regions, professions and interests. Information sharing is one of the best ways to not only build relationships but also position your business as an expert to a carefully selected target audience.

As people generally like receiving quality advice on their topics of interest and also to want to be constantly updated, sending informative and well written e-newsletters is a great brand building technique. As your e-newsletters gain popularity riding on your content quality and well researched topics you can even earn money from them. e-Newsletters are great vehicles for targeted banner advertisements and can also carry messages / links of your affiliate partners. While the former can be sold as per the size of your mailing list, the latter can earn you a recurring/residual income from all the click-throughs (or commissions from the e-commerce transactions done by web visitors that come from your newsletter). As the e-newsletter is free to send and free to receive, it is among the most cost effective online marketing tools, one that can evolve into a great revenue generator too.

Building great e-newsletters
Producing great newsletters that will consistently build reader loyalty and help you grow your mailing list require a great topic, friendly design, interesting content and related affiliates. Here are some time tested best practices:

Topics- To grab fresh new topic ideas, subscribe to Google and Yahoo keyword/phrase alerts that notify you about fresh content published by competitors/ related portals. You could also search for popular keywords/phrases by using a proven software tool. Lastly you could either build an expert blog to gather comments or visit related discussion forums/blogs to pick up hot topic ideas.

Design- Even though it is an online newsletter, you should use some tips from successful offline magazines to give it a refreshing design template with colourful borders and place for horizontal/vertical strip advertisements. Always remember to have an easy to read preview pane on the top without images (as some browsers block images – so you will be left with an embarrassing empty block at the top). This preview pane should have clickable lead-points of your main content and also important links of your affiliate partners.

Interesting Content- Content should be well researched and written with a 30% keyword density (popular keyword found from top search engines) and a simple easy to understand language style. Crisp articles with a common sense of appeal and refreshingly innovative advice also do well. If you have an affiliate, weave his brand appeal into an article so that it does not look like a forced addition.

Outsourcing production / e-mailing
As e-newsletters can easily be switched off by spam filters, it is critical to sustain reader interest. In order to ensure that you adhere to the latest search engine optimisation techniques and also keep your content well researched, it makes sense to outsource production as well the mailing process to proven experts.

Boosting e-newsletter popularity
In order to sustain reader interest and also boost your e-newsletter’s brand popularity, you need to engage the readers periodically. Regular two way communication keeps your mailing list alive. Here’s what experts are doing to build their newsletters’ popularity:

Talk to readers: Give your e-newsletters an easy way to ask you questions from which you can reply to the important ones. This also makes your newsletter very friendly with great interactivity.

Survey readers: Every six months you should e-mail a simple feedback survey form asking for tips for improvement and topics that they would like covered.

Win with a Contest: Readers enjoy receiving free gifts especially if it is after doing well in their free online contests. It is a smart idea to give away your own expertise for free for at least 5 days. Remember to keep the survey forms simple and short.

Accept Comments: Encourage your members to add comments to your new ezine article posts, your blog entries or participate in your forums.

Be on Time: Always adhere to the regular day(s) in the month that you have decided for mailing the newsletter. Missing newsletter mailing deadlines projects a casual approach hence it pays to always be on time.

Since sending e-newsletters is a permission-based opt-in email, always have a dedicated space on each website page for the prospective subscriber to add their e-mail ID.

Contact ROI to see how we can help you with your search engine requirements.