May 2004
Email Newsletters
Keep Them Informative, Convenient, and Timely
Email newsletters continue to be one of the most important ways to communicate with customers on the Internet. E-newsletters that are informative, convenient, and timely are often preferred over other media. But only 11% of newsletters are read thoroughly, so layout and content scan ability are paramount.
E-newsletters help build relationships with users, are easy to forward to friends, can effectively promote your business, are inexpensive to deliver, and can keep your name in front of your users. The danger is that if e-newsletters are not done correctly they can be easily deleted and ignored by their recipients.
Any consideration of e-newsletters requires a look at the issue of spam. Fortunately, because of heightened awareness, users have developed a better understanding of what is and what isn’t spam. This is good for e-newsletters, but bad in general because users have become impatient and have less tolerance for e-newsletters that waste their time.
Additionally, it has been found that rather than unsubscribe to an e-newsletter, many users will simply use their spam filters to delete the e-newsletter. The result is that you may be unsuspectingly blacklisted and may no longer be able to deliver your e-newsletter to other users. The best way to avoid this issue is to make the “unsubscribe” process within your e-newsletter obvious and simple.
Keys to managing your e-newsletter:
- Keep it brief – we are all on information overload
- Don’t send it too often – the most frequent complaint about e-newsletters is that they arrive too often.
- Provide valuable content – try to avoid making the e-newsletter a glorified ad for your latest product. Work-related news, activities, prices & sales, personal interest, and important dates are of top importance to users.
- Design your newsletter to facilitate scanning – only 11% of users read e-newsletters thoroughly. Layout your e-newsletter so users can zero in on specifics.
- Be sure to use the right tool to send out the newsletter and never reveal list member’s email addresses by using the CC field in an email.
Bottom line – you want to use your newsletter to enhance the users experience with your business. Done right an e-newsletter can be a tremendous marketing tool.
Adapted from Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, February 17, 2004 (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040217.html)
-Doug DeVries
Equine-Design.com
doug@equine-design.com
