Hello all, Do you consider sending newsleters as a marketing? what should be the good newsletter format?
Yes, it is definitely a form of marketing and one of my favorite. It encourages visitors to come back to your website. In my newsletter that I am going to implement into my site I will include links to the months new articles plus exclusive content and the opportunity to win free merchandise from my site such as hats, t shirts etc. edit: As for formating it doesn't have to be anything special. Mine will just be a simple table with my logo up the top and will consist of mainly text. People are not interested in fancy text, just the information when it comes to newsletters.
firstly you will need a newsletter program. Most allow you to use HTML so just create a table with a logo above it and start typing.
Newsletters are very important. Send good info along with your offers to provide value. You stay in touch with your customers, and can sell them additional products. I like to create an email in text mode rather than html because more get by the spam filters. Then, I write a short teaser that sends them to a web page to get the full story. Keep the lines short so they won't be broken up by the customer's email software.
They do work. Especially when you have a list of 'would be' customers, which is exactly who I send our newsletter to. Any customer who goes as far through the checkout as to submitting their personal details and agreeing that their details may be used to receive a newsletter, receive our newsletter. Hint: If you want to buy anything from a spa to garden furniture to a high quality aquarium, go through the first 3 steps of our checkout, drop out...and something magic may happen to you in the future. Discounts, discounts, discounts!
Consider using an email marketing application to manage your sign-ups, members, and to track your stats. They are quite reasonable (25 bucks a month or less) and have many other benefits as well. For instance, they can deliver both html and text versions of your email, and they also have their servers "whitelisted" to ensure deliverability. I've used and recommend Campaign Monitor, MailChimp, iContact, and Vertical Response.
Of course newsletters are marketing tools. They are great for your business when all subscribers have voluntarily opted in. They will destroy your reputation and your business if you've just entered email addresses in a list without their owners' permission.
I have been using Aweber for years, and it works great. I send my list an email in plain text and tell them a few words of the content of the newsletter and a link to my newsletter, the newsletter is in html format. At the top I have my picture and the name of the newsletter (Internet Marketing Tips). I track everything, and I think that's really important. This way I understand what headlines that works, and what sort of newsletters people on my list are not interested in and so on. Jens
Every time you sell a product you should get the customer's email address. That way you create a list of buyers vs. a list of tire kickers.