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Why do we continue to call them NEWSletters?
Today everything is about instant information delivery. News streams are constant and instantaneous. An event occurs and stories, photos, and videos are available on the Internet HOURS before the mainstream media covers them. Even company news travels quickly these days via blogs, tweets, and personal email.
But many company newsletters are written on a monthly basis. Often there’s not a lot of NEWS in them and with today’s overstrapped marketing departments, many newsletters simply include rehashed information. Companies want to ”stay in touch” with their customers, but this may not be the best strategy.
What are marketers doing these days to keep monthly NEWSletter "open" rates up (I'm assuming 'online' here) and opt-out rates from decreasing? Are companies keeping or dumping their NEWSletters?
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8 Answers
Hi Carol,
Great question. Perhaps the word "newsletter" is outdated and we should call them something else. No idea what at this moment. However, I'm seeing a lot of companies use them. A couple of tips for things I've seen increase their value for my clients' subscribers:
Offer subscribers a choice of topic - even if you can only do a couple. It's a great way to learn what your subscribers are interested in. At the very least, produce one version for prospects and a different version for customers. These groups have different informational requirements.
Create an editorial calendar so you have a plan for content development or repurposing and use. If the newsletter runs in parallel with your other nurturing programs you can likely develop content for both at the same time, with the same resources.
Try to include interactive elements - a survey, a webinar registration or ask an open-ended question and turn the responses into an article for the next issue. People love to know what their peers are thinking about issues that are relevant to them.
The question really brings to light a marketing practice that I think is still valuable yet is in desperate need of redefinition. I think the fact that we do have plentiful and instantaneous information available at our fingertips can actually be used to enhance these "reach-outs" to our customers and prospects. The fact that all this information is indeed out there, long before the "newsletter" gets to me the reader, is not really an issue because there's no way I can keep up with the flow of information anyway.
What can be a potent tool for a marketer are e-nurturing tools that keep track of the reader's preferences (based on what I say as well as what I do over a period of time) and then they custom design a "dynamic" newsletter which assimilates disparate data elements into a usable (and also visually appealing) format that I can view at my leisure.
I don't need to know the information the minute it happens. I want to read it at MY time schedule. Much like we do with time-shifting on DVRs. So this is the long way of saying...the "newsletter" may be dying but the "ME-letter" is just being born.
Ardath - These are all great ideas. I write a blog for my company - Ennect - and wonder if you'd mind if I used these as a basis for a post...I'd attribute them to you, of course. Would you mind if I did a trackback to your blog @ Marketing Interactions?
For our clients, periodic email newsletters are still a core component of their marketing programs to prospects and customers alike. The best newsletters I've seen have a couple things in common:
1) They focus purely on what's important to the reader - their issues, their needs, what they want to read. No company news, no press releases. It's all value-added content - articles, webinar announcements, even articles from other sources. Your customers & prospects will place a lot of value in the fact that you've aggregated so much valuable information together in one place.
2) You don't need to write unique content for each newsletter. If you're publishing in real-time throughout the previous week or weeks, you have plenty of content to publish in the newsletter. Don't assume that every customer has read all of your blog posts. Don't assume that every prospect saw the webinar announcement on your Twitter feed. Use content you've been publishing in real-time previously in your periodic newsletters.
I think you are asking a great question. I think all of our employees really just want to know what the boss is thinking, and those are the times I wish I worked for someone like Bill Marriott. This is a link to his blog if you haven't seen it: http://www.blogs.marriott.com/ -- personally, I think real news should happen in real time and the conversation should be two-way.
BUT, back in the real world, I create a typical newsletter called INFO bi-monthy that is sent out as a .pdf and printed for union employees that do not have computer access.
Hi Nick -- "ME-letter" is an interesting way to describe not just the personalization of content that marketers can do for their readers, but our readers' way of absorbing content on their own terms. Do you mind if I re-purpose your content for our blog the way I did with Ardath's? I will credit you and Focus.com as well. See this post for example: http://www.ennect.com/blog/why-do-we-continue-to-call-them-newsletters/
Thanks for your comments.
Carol, I would be thrilled if you used it. Thanks for asking!
Hi NicK -- Your comments are posted on the blog. You can see them here: http://www.ennect.com/blog/instead-of-newsletters-why-not-make-them-me-letters/
If there's anything you want modified, let me know. And thanks for your great idea!
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