For any good newsletter, the key is to quickly find and deliver useful content that your audience will love. The days of boring newsletters with regurgitated business information are over. Now, it’s all about engaging your audience in a meaningful way beyond traditional advertising.  Newsletters provide a perfect opportunity for content marketers to get their message out.  

Wait, I thought social sites were the best for content campaigns?

We’re not here to pick a fight with the socials, but it’s important to note some of the amazing advantages of email:

• Email is here to stay. Facebook’s rise has been well documented, but so has the fabulous crash into obscurity of other “sure things,” such as AOL, Friendster, and MySpace. Email has consistently been the primary form of communication for most internet users since it all started, and it’s not going anywhere. 
• Email lets you play by your own rules. Social networks are filled with distractions; newsletters give you the chance to create a unique environment where you control the conversation.

So, how do I write a great newsletter?

Every business is different and has unique content demands, but there are some basic guidelines you should follow to help ensure a successful campaign.

• It shouldn’t take too long to develop. Newsletters should take minutes, not hours, to
  create. It’s a waste of your time to spend an afternoon fiddling around trying to create a perfect newsletter — it will never happen. Choose a topic or a problem that your audience is interested in, and get going. Remember, the collective attention span of internet users is always declining, so you don’t need to prepare a novel. Get in, get out, and get on with your other work.  
• Don’t write all the content yourself. 2012 is officially the year of curation, and content marketers should be incorporating this in their efforts. We’ve reached a point where there is an excess of quality content that is available for free on pretty much any topic imaginable.  Provide value to your audience by helping them sort through the clutter and delivering best-of-breed content they will find useful. 

  Some of my favorite sources for information are Google Reader, AllTop, Google News and Digg. Save yourself some time and leverage these resources. Not only does this cut down on your workload, it will supplement your newsletter’s message and enrich the overall user experience. 

  Excerpting a few sentences and linking to the original article is considered fair use so you don’t have to worry about copyright infringement. Here is an example of how this works: 

      If you plan to re-publish an entire article, then you will need permission from the
      author/publisher. It’s also never a bad idea to let the original author/publisher know they
      are being featured in your newsletter, even if you’re only using an excerpt. 

• Don’t waste time formatting.  A common problem with newsletters is that they often don’t come out like they should. You spend a bunch of time customizing a template, choosing the perfect fonts and colors, adding pictures, and still have it look like a jumbled mess when it hits the inbox.  This usually means that your newsletter template is broken due to a coding error (a common occurrence), your email provider’s software is damaged or there could be an issue with the recipient’s email client (less likely). 

A final thought

Don’t get hung up on what to write or think that you don’t have time to do this. Try curating. You probably have more knowledge in your area of expertise than you realize. Put your knowledge into action by directing your audience to good content; it’s good for your brand and the bottom line.   

The solution: Develop a repeatable process.

The word count of your eNewsletter doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have a good template and a process you can quickly implement  eNewsletter after eNewsletter.

Here are five (pain-free) steps to publish content-rich eNewsletters:

1. Choose five main topics
2. Choose five sidebar topics
3. Interview experts on those topics
4. Write and edit your articles
5. Proofread your work

Assuming you have some basic knowledge of possible topics that your audience will be interested in, let’s walk through the process.

1) Choose five main topics

Choosing five topics is a starting point. Does it have to be five? No. It could be three or seven or however many you need to meet the goals you have for publishing your eNewsletter. If you’re somewhat familiar with what’s happening in your newsletter’s target industry, choose five topics you think readers would be interested knowing more about.

Having a few topics preselected also will  help kick-start your conversation. If you end up with five topics, dedicate about 150 words per topic. Adjust word length according to your needs.

Tip: If you’re stuck coming up with topics, try this trick:

Think: Past, present, future.

• What news in the recent past can you write about?
• What’s happening now?
• What’s coming up?

2) Choose five sidebar topics

Think of sidebar topics as “quick hits” under a general theme you can repeat in each eNewsletter. (Note that you can also feature quick hits-type content anywhere within the eNewsletter.) “Quick hits” are much shorter in length than the main topics.

Some topic ideas might include:

• Recommended reading
• Upcoming events
• Tip of the month
• Q & A interviews
• Deal of the month
• Trivia questions

You get the idea.

Quick hits are a great way to round out your newsletter. If you design a slightly different look for each sidebar topic, your eNewsletter will pop visually.  Aim for about 50 words for each quick hit, but you can adjust word length accordingly.

You now have a great framework for your content-rich eNewsletter.  If your newsletter is about 1000 words, you’d have 750 words for the main body and 250 words for the sidebar.

3) Interview experts on those topics

Interviewing people is a great way to capture valuable information. Instead of staring at a screen dreaming up information you think is important, ask key personnel some questions that your readers can relate to in their own jobs. It will make your job a heck of a lot easier.

To capture responses, you can audio record the interview or type notes on your computer. There are pros and cons for each process:

a) Audio recording lets you capture the exact words your interviewee said. When you talk in person, you don’t have to worry about writing everything down; it’s captured in the recording. This also helps you maintain eye contact throughout the interview, which makes your interviewee more comfortable and his/her responses seem more conversational. The downside is you might need to get the conversation transcribed, costing you time and money.

b) If you’d rather not deal with recording and getting transcriptions, you can type each response on a notebook computer as your guest speaks. I like this method for eNewsletters because the topics are generally short — making transcriptions unnecessary. The downside is you don’t have a verbatim transcript, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying it out.

How many people should you interview? You might be lucky and interview one person who can deliver all the content for an eNewsletter. Or you might end up talking to five people: One person for each main topic you’ll be writing about. You can make this determination from the people you’ll be talking to.

4) Write and edit your articles

The hard part is over. Now it’s time to shape your material for consumption. A few components you might want to consider including are:

• Hyperlinks to sites where readers can get clear definitions for unfamiliar terms, proof-of-concept examples  or more in-depth information on the topic.
• Calls-to-action that provide clear directives you want your readers to follow.
• Contact information so readers can reach you if they have questions or want to provide feedback

If you have time, set your work aside for a day or two. Come back to it with fresh eyes and review  it.

5) Proofread

Finally, it’s time to double-check your copy. If you have a colleague or good editor who is willing to review your work, take advantage of the extra set of eyes. If not, consider hiring a professional proofreading service — they’re worth their weight in gold! If you’re on the fence about hiring a proofreader, you might want to read

5 Reasons Why EVERY Content Marketer Needs a Professional Proofreader.

What if you can’t think of enough relevant topics ahead of time?

It can happen. If you get stuck,  here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing:

• Scour the web for other articles on your target subject matter. See what your business partners, competitors, and other industry experts are conversing about and try to find a way to add to the conversation in your own voice.
• Call on a few of your contacts who know your business and ask them what topics they would want to read about.
• Use the past, present, future idea discussed above to brainstorm on possible topics. The idea here is to write something (even if it’s made up) that stimulates others into helping you discover new content.

Summary

Writing content-rich eNewsletters isn’t as hard as it appears.

• Establish a format you can consistently publish.
• Interview people. Let them do the heavy “content” lifting for you.
• Shape their words to craft the right messages.
• Edit and proof the eNewsletter.

Looking for a “cheat sheet” for all your eNewsletters? Check out CMI’s fantastic checklist for eNewsletter success.

Over to you

Have any tips you would add to make writing eNewsletters a snap?

What eNewsletter template ideas would you like to share?

What typical eNewsletter mistakes should be avoided?

Content leverage

Content leverage is using every  piece of content  in multiple ways to get the highest return on investment from each piece of content. Obviously, content is not valuable unless buyers are aware of it and are engaged with the material.  This requires marketers to deliver the content in new, interactive ways and channels. Borrowing from Newton’s first law, content in motion will tend to stay in motion and be more effective as a result.

Let’s track the life of a single blog article to bring these practices to life and show how a marketer can leverage content to its best use.

Developing content derivatives

An executive writes a compelling blog article based on new research from a survey of customers and prospects. The blog post explains how the research findings uncover an important buyer issue, validates the market need for the vendor’s solution, and highlights that solutions exist to address the issues identified in the research.

A research-focused post helps in the early stages of the buying cycle to inform  buyers that  solutions are available  to  make improvements.  In this scenario, marketers can develop content derivatives such as:

1) Research White Paper: The marketing team develops additional content based on the original blog post to create a white paper. However, keep in mind that research indicates buyers prefer shorter white papers; the recommended length is four to six pages.

2) Infographic: Research and best practices recommend converting content into an infographic to illustrate data that can be  quickly understood and enhance a call to action.  The elements of an infographic can be weaved into the white paper and other materials to make the data “come to life.”

3) PowerPoint: The presentation is an overview of the research findings on the market opportunity, a summary of the white paper and the executive’s best practice recommendations, which can be uploaded on Slideshare.

4) Live and On-Demand Webinar: The executive leverages the PowerPoint to present a live webinar, which is also recorded for on-demand playback.

5) Video and Podcast: The executive is interviewed in Q&A form to create a series of short and compelling videos and podcasts. Creating transcripts of each interview can provide additional content leverage.

To improve the connection and engagement of today’s busy buyers, more marketers are moving beyond traditional options to leverage interactive media such as:

1) Microsites: The marketing team develops and publishes a collection of related research and advice to a best practices microsite, providing buyers with a single resource to facilitate each step through the buyer’s journey.

2) eBook: The team  converts the key white paper content and PowerPoint into a visually compelling eBook, an interactive overview of the research, and key points  that an executive can quickly read  to understand main concepts and recommendations.

3) Mobile Content / Applications: The team converts the research into content optimized for mobile devices and creates a “Solution Finder” application to help users find the right solution  based on which piece of the research matches customers’  specific priorities / pain points.

4) Multi-media White Papers: The team enhances the white paper presentation with embedded video and podcast recordings, helping buyers feel more connected to the executive.

5) Interactive White Papers: Today’s buyers demand content be more relevant and concise. To deliver a personalized white paper, the marketing team should consider assembling and customizing the content for each buyer. This content customization can be developed on pivot points, which matches content to the buyer’s industry, location, size, role in buying cycles and pain points. The content is put into an interactive software application to survey the buyer on his profile. From there, a customized white paper is delivered with content precisely matching the buyer’s profile.

6) Interactive Diagnostic Assessments: Most buyers struggle to understand whether research issues are  relevant or applicable to them and whether addressing the issues should be priority.  The marketing team may consider a diagnostic assessment to gather and benchmark the prospect’s opportunities against industry peers and leaders. This can illustrate to buyers the competitive costs of maintaining the status quo versus the competitive advantages of adopting new solutions that can address priority issues.

7) Benefit Calculator: Without a business case, today’s economic-focused buyers are hard pressed to allocate budget and pull the trigger on an investment. The marketing team can tap the research to create a customized, interactive benefits calculator that will quantify potential benefits for prospects.

Putting the content in motion

The traditional ways to connect and engage buyers with valuable decision-support content is evolving to incorporate more channels and social sharing.

Traditional channels use promotions, excerpts, and links to the content in order to increase awareness and engage buyers.

Some of the traditional channels that the marketing team leverages to promote content include:

1) Website(s): Promote and link to the content from the main company website and microsites, not forgetting to promote the content via portals in support of sales / channel enablement.

2) eNewsletters: Include excerpts and links in regular newsletters as value-added content.

3) Banner Advertising: Use banners to promote the content as a call to action for users.

4) Paid Search: Use targeted keywords and content as a call to action.

5) Traditional Advertising: Place promotions and links from traditional advertising to the online content.

The one issue with these traditional channels is that they are paid advertisements and have a low trust rating.  However, social content placement is often earned and is trusted more than traditional advertising  by today’s skeptical buyers.

Using social media-focused channels, marketers connect and engage with influencers and the buyers’ communities via:

1) Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn Posts and Links – Beyond just links to promote the content, marketers post key excerpts of compelling findings and advice. These posts are liked and forwarded by other members.

2) YouTube & Slideshare Posts: Based on the type of content, the marketing team leverages specific social channels for sharing content such as YouTube for videos and Slideshare for PPTs and PDFs.

3) LinkedIn Discussion Groups and Quora: Marketers determine what key questions would be compelling to discussion groups  to attract group members’ comments on the research and findings as well as to  collaborate on additional opportunities, best practices and solutions..

4) Influencer Links: Marketers make influencers aware of the content and findings / advice, prompting several influencers to write about the content and pass along excerpts / links.

5) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Search engines prioritize links to content that are seen as  timely, relevant and valuable to the community. To optimize SEO, marketers still need to be sure that content is tagged properly and contains important keywords. Additionally, marketers must ensure that content is back-linked,  liked, promoted and linked to/from other independent and influential sites.

6) Article Syndication: Marketers convert the blog post and other content into article form, and get digital and print publishers to feature / promote the article because they feel it will help their readers.

The bottom line

When an author develops a blog article or other  piece of marketing content, it’s key that the marketing team leverage the content in multiple ways by creating derivatives to put the content in motion. This strategy should include creating multiple traditional and new interactive media derivatives that engage buyers with content through traditional and social channels.

This graphic illustration of  a single piece of content from a research oriented blog post can be used to derive multiple pieces of content to connect and engage buyers via multiple channels  and facilitate the buyer’s journey that can help drive content marketing effectiveness.

Have you tried this approach? Anything you would add to the graphic above?

Planning

I’ve seen many email newsletters in my inbox, and some make me wonder if they actually went through any planning before they pushed the publish button. You don’t have to put together a business plan, but you do need to plan your email newsletter content to match your overall content marketing strategy. Did you set goals for your newsletter? If you didn’t, you really should.  For instance, if your goal is to educate your readers and establish yourself as a thought leader, consider including more informational content in your newsletter.

Make sure you develop the newsletter around the goals and ensure they’re measurable. Think about it; how will you know if the newsletter was successful? Speaking of planning, do you have an editorial calendar for your newsletters? Setting one up, just as you do for the rest of your content marketing activities, will help you plan things like:

• The schedule of your email newsletter: Do you have a consistent schedule?
• Special dates: Does your schedule take into account for special dates or events?
• Opportunities for reuse: Do you have a plan to repurpose some content in your blog, upcoming event or informational products?

Design and layout

I’m no designer, but I know when I see a design I like and I know how important it is to make newsletters effective. Even if it has the best copy in the world, a poorly designed template can turn off your readers and cause them to hit the dreaded delete button. A few things to keep in mind for an appealing design include:

• Appealing colors and a natural blend of copy and design. (No dark backgrounds with blue text).
• Keep the layout free of clutter – no one wants to navigate through a busy email with too many visual elements.
• Videos and photos are great, but trying to pile them throughout the email make me want to scream; keep it to just a few photos or a link to videos.

Readability

Many newsletters fail to keep the reader engaged due to one simple error – they don’t make their content readable. Oh yes, there’s a difference between readable and unreadable content; ever try reading a one-paragraph, 500-word article? So, what are some ways to ensure your newsletter passes the readability test?

• No large paragraphs. Keep a paragraph to 3-4 sentences.
• Avoid content overload by not putting everything in the newsletter. Learn to link out to your website or blog too.
• Keep it consistent and use standard faces and sizes for your font.  Some standard fonts to use in your newsletter would include Helvetica and Arial.
• Add subheadings, where possible, to break-up sections.

Subject line

OK, this one is a no brainer.  For your subject line, craft one that’s compelling, related to the newsletter content and makes the recipient click and not hit delete. When you’re looking at developing a great subject line, consider these points: Ask yourself, “How does this make the recipient feel?” Try to draw on emotions or general curiosity.

If you have a numbered list of points, try to integrate that number into your subject line just as I have with the headline of this post.

Sharing

Do you think your newsletter is only for your existing subscribers to read? Actually, it’s not.  What do you do when you read something that’s WOW? Do you keep it to yourself or share it out? Yep, you share it out with your friends, connections and family. This is what you need with your email newsletter. Now, how do you get your existing subscribers to share your message?

• Ask them to share it with someone who will benefit from it.
• Give them many options to share it. This includes email, social media and other methods.

Calls to action

Most of the email newsletters I get have a good amount of valuable resources without trying to sell me something. Or do they? An effective call to action isn’t an ad or a button telling me to buy now; rather it’s subtle but effective. Some great ways to keep your readers engaged involve getting them to see more about you and your business. Consider these simple but effective calls to action:

• Add icons and links to connect with you on social networks. Check out the Content Marketing Institute Newsletter for a perfect example of this.
• Invite your reader to an upcoming event.
• Ask the reader to subscribe for their own updates if someone forwarded the email to them.
• Welcome feedback and see what your readers think of you.
• Add links to other relevant content, such as your blog.
• If you have to add a sales message, keep it small and let your content speak for you instead.

Testing

If you just write something and send it out, will it succeed? How do you know? Unless you’re Professor X and can read minds, you will need some method to test your message. What elements of your message would you test? Try these on for size:

• Do A/B testing with different subject lines or even different opening statements.
• Not everyone’s email client is the same; test on multiple email clients and operating systems.
• Speaking of that, are you testing your content on mobile devices? Does your message fit and display properly for those on the go?

Thorough testing gives you a better shot at success, and it will show when you go through your email analytics. I could go into more with these metrics, but I will save that for another post.

Content Marketing With Effective Email Newsletters

Email newsletters are not dead; they are very much alive and remain an essential element to successful content marketing. When you incorporate each ingredient, you have a checklist for successful email newsletters. Do you have a checklist for your email newsletters? What would you add to this list?

Some folks will tell you it’s dead.  Others steer clear of it because they fear that it’s annoying to potential customers.

To the first point I say, it ain’t dead.  Sure, open rates hover around 15-30% depending on your industry, but according to research from Chadwick Martin and Bailey (September 2010), close to half (49%) of consumers share content online at least once a week, with the vast majority sharing through e-mail (86%). Facebook comes in second with 49% of adults sharing content on that platform.

To the second point:  well, “annoying” is subjective.  In other words – what’s annoying to you may be kind of awesome to me.  Right?

Right.

So in an attempt to not be so anecdotal about it, I set out on a six-week test of email marketing to see what would happen. Within that six-week test, we also ran an A/B split test of a headline.

Nothing really blew my mind, but the test did give me some nice data to show the boss.  And that’s always a good thing.  Especially, in light of some folks not really understanding this content marketing thing.

The easiest way to combat that misunderstanding is to test and just hand ‘em the data.

Here are the details from my six-week email marketing campaign.  Note the goals are fairly broad.  That’s because I did not have a benchmark to work from.  In the future, we’ll have more specific goals, such as generating six enrollments.

6-Week Email Marketing Campaign Overview

Goal:
Re-engage “cold leads”  by re-sparking their interest in our program using new content we had developed and give them the information they need to make a buying decision.  Ultimately, we wanted to generate enrollments in our program.

To provide some context, we defined cold leads as prospects who had:

• Reached out to us before
• Received our monthly “update” or nothing at all
• Not enrolled in our program
• Not opted out of our list

Metrics:

• Primary – number of re-converted leads, enrollments.
• Secondary – average open rate, click-through rate, unsubscribes.

Strategy:
Send one email a week for six weeks – alternating between non-gated (no form) content and gated content with a heavy call to action (e.g., click here to download eBook).

Results:

• 5% conversion on gated content, equaling  around 40 leads reconverted
• Seven enrollments (representing around $100,000 ROI)
• Open rates were consistent with industry benchmarks which are in the 15-20% range for the Education sector (MailChimp)
• Zero unsubscribes
• Click-through rate:  3.5%

Take aways:

Email frequency increase does not necessarily decrease open rates.
In other words, our list did not get tired of emails sent to them.  Open rates in weeks five and six were comparable to week one as well as our general open rates.

More direct headlines win.
In a simple A/B headline test, the more direct “tell not sell” headline performed close to 20% better than the sales­y one. In this example, “Schedule your campus tour” performed better than “Take a test drive of our campus.

Customers open emails with success stories.
Our most opened and highest clicked through emails were a couple of video customer success stories. If you haven’t already, you may want to start including these in your content plan.  Keep it simple and publish them on your blog or website. Rather than a link to a YouTube video, put a link in the email to the page on your site where the video is hosted.  That’ll give you some click-through data as well as bringing the prospect back to your site.

Bottom-line is YOU NEED MORE CONTENT.
In six weeks, we generated over $100,000 dollars in return merely by sending content-packed emails to our list of “cold leads.”  The content for this particular campaign was in the form of blog articles, two ebook offers,video success stories and invitations to events. The more you have, the fresher your approach.

Final Words

Email marketing is important.  If you are collecting information from folks and that info includes an email address – use it.  Armed with nothing more than a little time and content, you can still turn un-engaged old leads into real dollars for the company.

Want to see some companies that are doing this well? Read on.

Live Report from the Future of Marketing

To further the notion that great content drives consumer engagement, Story Worldwide (my company) has created Live Report from the Future of Advertising, our free electronic newsletter. Each issue includes articles, blog posts, interviews and case studies from various sources that examine advertising in the post-advertising age and keep readers ahead of the marketing curve. Live Report from the Future of Advertising is sent twice monthly, and offers readers early-access to content so they can be the first to share it with their network.

The newsletter is expertly designed to look appealing and simple to navigate to the important information.  Custom imagery is used for lead items for visual appeal, but otherwise the newsletter is largely text-based and can be read from any computer or device. Articles are gathered from various bloggers and content sites, including a “Help Corner” with specific How-To posts (often from CMI). Unique content is also created specifically for the newsletter, thus giving readers first access.

There are a lot of things marketers can take from this example:

• Spend the time and resources to create a newsletter that is both visually appealing and filled with useful content
• Keep the self-promotion to a minimum (ideally, nil). Make sure the frequency fits with your audience’s desires
• Make it very easy to sign up by asking for the bare minimum in terms of information (email address).

Contributed by Chiqui Cartagena

Lowe’s Creative Ideas

I have been a big fan of Lowe’s content marketing efforts for several years now (disclosure:  I have done some content work for Lowe’s with a former employer two years ago).  They fully understand harnessing the power of inspiration and education to engage their audiences.

Lowe’s eNewsletter works for many reasons:

• It is always topical (based on season, month, etc.) and never tries to sell anything immediately; rather, they inspire and educate their audience with projects that are created from products in their stores.
• The eNewsletter succeeds design-wise and editorially because it uses big, colorful photography and multiple points of entry, along with a comfortable mix of typefaces.  These all combine to portray Lowe’s as a neighbor, not necessarily a corporation.
• Strategically, the eNewsletter comes at a comfortable frequency (again, seasonally and at most, monthly), not inundating opt-in recipients with daily ‘offers’ that plague their inbox’es.

The Creative Ideas content marketing platform, as a whole, is outstanding:  they integrate eNewsletters, social media, websites (static, flash, and video), printed magazines and community ‘live’ efforts seamlessly.  They even trumpet user-generated content in the form of projects customers have tackled and completed, giving shoppers a forum for showing off their personal accomplishments inspired by Lowe’s.

Results are proprietary, but I recall that those customers opting in and receiving Creative Ideas content efforts are more valuable customers to Lowe’s by a multiple (versus those who do not).  Their opt-ins are in the seven-figures.

Contributed by Keith Wiegold

The Fitz-e-News

The eNewsletter from one of my clients, Fitzgerald Photo Imaging,  is a great example of a business establishing their expertise and building goodwill through their content. Owner Paul Maietta invests in professional design and copywriting to ensure that his message supports his brand. The newsletter is archived on his website where it boosts SEO and continues to act as a reference to his business. Because he’s consistently delivering great content with very little spin about his own business, he enjoys an open rate well over 50%.

Contributed by Sarah Mitchell

M4B Marketing Newsletter

Week after week, Susan Oakes delivers more useful content than seems humanly possible. The M4B Marketing Newsletter provides weekly actions to keep your marketing on track. It’s a quick read leaving you plenty of time for Susan’s excellent blog.

Contributed by Sarah Mitchell

Do you know of any other eNewsletters that are well done? Share them in the comments below.

Based on his experiences, Graham developed this checklist for his eNewsletter that he offered to share with our readers.  (As a note, 61% of B2B marketers use eNewsletters, but only 55% of users think they are effective. If you are one of the 45% who is looking to improve your efforts, definitely check out this list.)

Goal

Who is your audience and what is the goal of your content? This may seem like an obvious question, but your answer will certainly impact your content and how you measure your success.

In the case of Graham and his team, they determined the goal of the EMC Business Bulletin is simply to engage their audience of prospective advertisers for Interference Technology magazine so that they view them positively. For them, this is first and foremost a branding exercise. They may develop leads from it, but that is not their primary purpose. To measure this, they use open rates and click rates.

Subject line

Tease them, ask a question, but don’t give away the answer. Use 50 characters max.

Layout

Don’t overlook the importance of layout. When we first asked the CMI community for advice, many of the suggestions were around how to make small changes to the design to improve the experience for the user.

In addition to the design elements, decide how much content you want to have in the eNewsletter. Graham suggests saving the good stuff for the website to ensure people click through from the email.

Detail

The devil is in the detail! Make sure you develop a checklist like this and have everyone in the team follow it every time. In Graham’s case, his checklist is used by his writer, editor, production team, and management.

Content

You guessed it . . . content is king!. People simply read stuff that is interesting, and in Graham’s case, readers prefer practical instead of theoretical.

Regardless of your subject matter, try to be conversational. In Graham’s case, he found that blog-style content worked better than traditional newsletter content to draw people in.

Call to action

Make your call to action very clear (such as “Click to read more”). In addition to simply driving traffic, also invite feedback.

Sales message

It’s OK to have a sales message, but make it relevant to but separate from the post. Graham plans to place short text messages in italics at the end of each post.

Anything else you would add to this checklist?

Since we last checked in, Graham has sent two issues of his newsletter, and after six months and six issues, he wanted to share some of his lessons learned.

Initial stats don’t tell the whole story

To Graham’s surprise, some of the open / click-thru stats increased significantly weeks after the Bulletin went out. For instance, he sent a newsletter out on August 4 that promoted a relevant study in his industry – and he says a further 200 opens and 50 click-thrus occurred between September and October.

Conclusion:
If it sounds like good material, people will hold it and eventually read it. Conversely, with some of Interference’s less interesting topics, the numbers did not change much after the first few days.

Intriguing subject lines help open rates but you need content to back it up

Sometimes, the open rate on a topic went up over the two months following the broadcast, but the click-thru rate did not.

Conclusion:
Subject lines get readers to hold onto issues of the Bulletin, but if the content is not compelling, the click-thru rate does not increase.

Pragmatic topics draw readers

Graham shared the top three Bulletins to date based on (total) open rates:

• New Europe EMC Market Report (1,542)
• Getting the Most Out of Your EMI Components Catalog (1,236)
• Are you Hooked on Leads? (1,192) NOTE: as we mention above, this number could still go up if folks are holding it

Graham is using open rates as the primary measure of success which is a way to tell how well they are  engaging their audience, which are advertisers.

Conclusion:
Practical topics, with information that readers can apply, are most effective. The converse is also true: more theoretical topics, such as “How does timing affect your marketing?” did not perform well.

Consider how long people are spending on the site

The top three performing Bulletins to date based on (total) click-thrus to the website were:

• New Europe EMC Market Report (209)
• Are you Hooked on Leads ? (219) [Note: This  is now their top  “click-thru” Bulletin to date.]
• Getting the Most Out of Your EMI Components Catalog (100)

Graham is using click-thru to measure how successfully they get readers, who are potential advertisers, to spend time on their site.

Conclusions:
A few things can be noted from this:

• When Interference Technology presents information from electronics suppliers in the industry, the readers, who are their competitors, get more interested  – no surprise. For example, the Europe EMC Study quoted data from suppliers, and produced the second highest set of responses to date. See above.
• Information that directly helps to build their business (practical not theoretical) is the most attractive to their audience.
• Interference Technology needs to think carefully about how they structure the Bulletin, and “save the good stuff” to post onto the site to pull readers through.

One last thought about increasing the level of interest – the EMC Business Bulletin started in June as a newsletter with several items of news per issue. It has evolved, with the invaluable input of the CMI community, into a single topic per issue, and although Graham does not see it as an “op ed” vehicle, he is now gradually adopting more of a blog style of writing in an attempt to increase the “interestingness” of the subject lines and the content.

Of course, all audiences differ, but how do your experiences mirror/differ from what Graham found? Any other ideas you can share?

What’s more, marketers rate eNewsletters as one of the more effective content marketing tactics.

Over 61% of the respondents to the B2B Content Marketing: 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report use eNewsletters and rate them as one of the most effective ways to distribute content. Only in-person events have a significant advantage over eNewsletters on the effectiveness front.

What can you do to encourage more people to subscribe to your eNewsletter?

Dedicate a page of your website to your newsletter

Something I don’t see often but I think is very effective is creating a dedicated page for your newsletter. Displaying an example is a great way to entice people to subscribe.

Recently, I encountered an excellent example where the design of a company newsletter is used to encourage people to subscribe. Master Photographer Geoff Fisher of Fisher Photography kicked off a new eNewsletter campaign as part of a complete rebranding exercise. His web designer, Ryan Briggs, included a sneak-peak of the customized newsletter he developed for Geoff.

By conveniently providing a sign-up form next to the body of the preview, visitors to Geoff’s website can easily add their name to his list. This technique is not limited to eNewsletters; a print newsletter can be easily dissected for success, as well.

Invest in custom design

It’s extremely easy to fire off a newsletter using a template or a wizard from your email marketing software, and that’s why everyone does it. However, consider investing in a professional design. Your content will stand out and lend a hand to your brand at the same time.

As you can see from the mock-up of the Fisher Photography newsletter above, the design has been developed specifically to support Fisher’s business. The dedicated website page also displays a description of each section. The benefits to this technique include:

• Transparency – The visitor knows exactly what content to expect
• Visual appeal – A custom design supports your brand and shows quality
• Commitment – Posting your design demonstrates an intent to produce regular content
• Excitement – An attractive teaser provokes people to want the real thing

Archive your past newsletters on your website

Not only is an archive of past newsletters an excellent way to extend the life of your content, but it also works wonders on your SEO.  Visitors to your website immediately understand your commitment to publishing good content when they can see a body of work all in one place.

Promote your newsletter like crazy

Of course, once you have your eNewsletter landing page set up, you want to start driving lots of traffic there. Here are some ideas.

Put your subscription form on your home page
It might seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many people bury their form deep in their website or don’t have it on their website at all. And, remember to point people to your landing page to learn more.

Put a subscription form on your social media profiles
Do your Facebook fans know you have a newsletter? Why not let them sign up right on your page?

Add a link to your subscription form at the end of every blog post
If you’ve got a reader who made it all the way to the end of your post, it’s probably because they found value in what you’ve had to say. Chances are they’re going to want more of the same. Why not convert them immediately?

Add a sharing widget on your eNewsletters
If you want people to promote your newsletter for you, make it easy on them by including a sharing widget. Give people the option of distributing it on any channel they want and there’s no telling where your content may end up.

Getting your newsletter into as many hands as possible doesn’t have to be a challenge. Creating opportunities to extend the life of your newsletter and encourage new readers is easier than you may have guessed. Don’t think of your newsletter as a static document with a limited shelf-life. A  collective body of well-constructed, beautifully designed and strategically managed newsletters are an asset to your business. Consider the different channels you use to promote your business and ensure your newsletter is referenced in every place. Before long, you’ll be striking gold.

How do you squeeze more value out of your newsletter?

Last we left off, Graham had made the big change of focusing the content in each eNewlsetter on one topic instead of six. This way, readers would be better able to see his key point, and it would save Graham a substantial amount of time putting each newsletter together. Results were positive: clicks on the main report increased dramatically and Graham attributes 12 requests for proposals to this new approach.

So, what did the CMI community suggest that Graham do next? Ideas fell into a few categories.

Design:

• Add some “eye candy” – from Billy Mitchell (@billymitchell1)
• Have the headline stand out more; the logo and Top News headline are competing for space  -  from Barry Gleeson
• “Consider moving the ‘Top News’ from what looks like an image to something text based. In this case the image doesn’t gain you much, but using something text based will just look a lot nicer for his audience.” – from Kristina Stiffler (@k_Stiffler)
• Move the editorial box to the right and include additional “resources” – from Barry Gleeson
• Add good alt tags to images – from Kristina Stiffler (@k_Stiffler)

Copy:

• “Headline could do a better job of delivering value” – from Laurie Dunlop (@lauriedunlop)

A/B Testing

• Add a Twitter handle under Graham’s phone number – from Mark McClure (@samuraiwriter99)
• Personalize in the subject line or body – from Barry Gleeson
• Split test subject lines and headlines – from Kristina Stiffler (@k_Stiffler)
• Test different subject lines – from Amanda Maksymiw (@amandamaksymiw)

Promotion/frequency

• Review landing page and unsubscribe rates – from Brian Massey (@bmassey)
• Increase the frequency – from Brian Massey (@bmassey)
• Consider the mailing list – who is this going to and could there be list fatigue?

For the next issue, Graham decided to tackle the design. He made these changes:

• Removed the “Top News” headline as this was adding little value, and he wanted to instead promote the headline of the story.
• Moved the Interference Technology logo to the bottom of the email. Again, the logo was doing little to add value above the fold.
• Added his picture in the editorial box to provide a personalized touch (For many of Graham’s customers and prospects, they consider him to be the “face” of his company, and for some people he is seen as knowledgeable about building business in this marketplace.) Graham wasn’t sure how much of an impact this would have, so he created two versions and did an A/B test. Version A has his picture at the top, and version B includes it after the story.

We also talked about adding more visual appeal to the EMC Bulletin headline, but Graham decided to leave it as is. His audience is “marketing engineers”, so he wanted the bulletin to have a simple, no-nonsense, non-marketing feel.

(Version A)

(Version B)

Here are the results:

June edition
Opens: 1550
Unique Opens: 684
Clicks on Europe Report (the main thing they are trying to drive traffic to): 32

July edition
Opens: 943
Unique Opens: 520
Clicks on Europe Report: NA

August edition
Opens: 1231
Unique Opens: 705
Clicks on Europe Report: 138

September edition
Version A:
Opens: 574 (33.6%)
Unique Opens: 314 (17.9%)
Clicks on report: 14 (0.8%)

Version B:
Opens: 523 (30.5%)
Unique Opens: 306 (17.5%)
Clicks on report: 24 (1.4%)

While the response rates for both versions were not that different, it was interesting that Version A had a higher open rate whereas Version B has a higher click-though rate on the report.

All in all, Graham is optimistic about the progress. Going forward he feels he can push the click-through rate by not telling the whole story in the Bulletin itself. He has also realized the importance of featuring strong content (in retrospect, he’s not sure if the catalog case study he promoted in the issue was a particularly exciting topic), so this is something he will continue to work on.

Additionally, there were internal issues that delayed this newsletter. His goal is to send the Bulletin twice a month, and once he is able to maintain consistency, it will be interesting to see how the open and click-through rates are impacted.

For the next issue, Graham is planning to A/B different subject lines and headlines. What do you think of that plan? Is there something else you would change or test instead?