SMEs must make use of newsletters as a marketing tool

The purpose of using e-mail newsletters is to establish credibility.

Marketing in the virtual world used to be an altogether different game even though the principles of marketing remained the same. The activities in this world are ever-changing. We are not talking about Internet marketing here, but how normal marketing can be made cost-effective for SMEs with newsletters – online and offline.

We all send e-mail newsletters to a large number of prospects – in many cases without their opt-ins. There are service providers in India who offer several such services. They charge you by the number of e-mails they use to send your newsletter, just like a direct mailing service provider. There are a few service providers in the US who will charge you a percentage of the business you generate through the e-mail contacts they provide. Getting your email newsletter into your prospects’ inboxes is not the real task, however. Making them read these newsletters is the real task. Prospects are getting more sophisticated in e-mail management. They are getting inundated with spam, and many know how to filter out what they don't want to receive.

Therefore, it is up to you to e-mail the prospects something that they want to read. Here are a few pointers on how to accomplish that.

-Keep your newsletter informative. The main purpose of the newsletter is to build awareness and credibility. If it generates sales, that will be even better, but that is a secondary objective. If your focus is on providing information that is of interest and value to your prospects, something that would help their businesses, then you better your chances to make it to their inbox. Well, if you have been able to do that, half the task is done. Since most seasoned Internet users know how to avoid spamming and junk mail, avoid using phrases like “how to become a millionaire overnight”, “work from home and make Rs 75,000 per month” or “Reply immediately” etc since these are known ways of spammers in the subject line and a simple algorithm will classify them easily as such and divert these mails to Junk Box.

-Keep your content brief. Confine the message copy to one topic at a time and ensure that it uses simple easy language, and not the Shashi Tharoor variety. The easier it is to read, the more it will be read. Have a very relevant subject line on the email heading so that only the most relevant prospects will be interested in it. Why do you need prospects that are not interested in your offerings?

-Keep consistency in your topics. The purpose of using e-mail newsletters is to establish credibility. You must therefore concentrate on topics that only have to do with your business and add value to your customers’ business. This is very important; yet so few SMEs practise this.

-Keep “one voice” for your newsletters. A good approach is to use one writer (either you, one member of your staff or a freelancer) for all your e-mail newsletters. When you use multiple writers, you will project at the very least, slightly different points of view and readers need time to get adjusted to the style. Ever ask why people stick to one regular newspaper?

-Keep your newsletters timely. Plan your topics in a logical order that makes sense to your prospects. For example, if you are providing ideas to deal with a holiday sales slump, send it in late March or early October before Diwali. And if your topic is about trade shows, you may want to release it in October-November when trade shows start blooming till the winter is over.

For newsletter marketing to succeed, you must plan content for six months, and publish your newsletter at least every fortnight. The frequency will create awareness for the brand and corporate offerings. Proper planning will enable you to publish regularly and achieve the credibility you want to establish amongst your audience.

How to get your prospects to subscribe to your newsletters? There are a few basic ways to get this accomplished:

-Post your newsletter on the company website and include an easy-to-fill-out subscription notice across all the web pages.

-If you want customers to subscribe from your website, you need them to visit it. So, include your website address on all your correspondence as part of the signature. The more people you get to visit you online, the more subscribers you can acquire. In any case, it is free.

-Find applicable websites that host or post e-mail newsletters and get your information included on those sites.

When you actually send out your newsletter, don't forget to include an “unsubscribe” link. Be attentive to their changing needs and ask why they do not want to receive the newsletters anymore. Their job roles may have changed, and they may no longer want to read your irrelevant content. Who knows, this little courtesy could make them more willing to refer your company to others or successors.