What's so great about e-newsletters?
The e-comms revolution
This issue covers electronic communications and keeping in touch with your mailing list by email.
What's so great about e-newsletters?
By Deborah Hastie
With so much pressure on every organisation to save money and reduce their carbon footprint, electronic newsletters (e-newsletters) and e-alerts have created a win/win scenario for companies in search of the elusive marketing tool to reach their key audience.
Compared to their paper counterparts, the electronic newsletter offers a cost effective marketing tool with touch of a button delivery – and without the environmental costs of printing and distribution. Pre-email days, the company newsletter was a labour intensive exercise that took time, resources and a lot of patience to deliver on time and on budget.
One slip by the proof reader could send thousands of copies to the shredder without ever seeing the light of day. Add to that the printing, packing and postage costs, and you needed to have something pretty important to say to justify the whole exercise.
Thankfully with the advent of e-marketing, the e-newsletter has effectively taken the effort out of the equation. With skillful designers to produce the template, the ease and frequency of producing the e-newsletter has never been more appealing as budgets are squeezed and Directors demand value for money.
E-newsletters can be written, produced and delivered to in-boxes within hours – slicing days off pre-production and post-production times. Mistakes can be wiped out at the stroke of a key and in the case of crisis management, the most complex of messages can be delivered to internal and external audiences simultaneously.
All this, with minimal impact on either the environment or your hard-pressed communications budget, and thanks to the latest software you can check the click-through rates on your newsletter to track what issues are pushing the clients’ buttons – literally.
Just as important from the recipient’s point of view is the Opt-out. Again, just one click and your database is being cleansed of unwilling and unappreciative audiences – saving wasted paper and resources for the environment and you money. Those recipients left are partners in the two-way flow of information and will provide necessary feedback and sales opportunities straight to your desktop.
As long as you ensure your e-newsletter is concise, consistent and relevant it will easily become a staple communication tool to widen your profile and professional reputation to existing and new audiences – and it won’t involve a single postage stamp to achieve.
Deborah Hastie worked as a journalist for eight years before moving in to PR twelve years ago. Since then she has worked in both the public and private sectors managing communications for a range of international, national and regional organisations.
How do you get past the Junk Mail Filter?
A lot of people fall into the trap of using e-communications as a way to play the numbers game. Because the cost is so low, they send out hundreds of identical emails to thousands or even millions of email addresses – and assume that a tiny percentage will get through and bring a return.
The truth is though that even if they are a legitimate company, most of their mail will just get caught up with the Viagra and replica watches – so how do you beat the filters?
The simple answer is you don’t try. Instead of sending the same sales message out a hundred times, put together a mailing that gives your audience something they want to read. Share your organisations knowledge and expertise with your audience, start a dialogue that will make your communications something of value that they WANT to receive.
Don’t go for numbers, look to build up a mailing list of people who are actually interested in what you have to offer. If you buy a list, make sure it is reputable, and make sure you give people a way to unsubscribe if they aren’t interested. It may seem like every name lost is a missed opportunity – but the truth is you’re just refining your list – and avoiding wasting your time.
Whether it’s your customers, your colleagues, the general public or sales leads from a list, E-comms are a fantastic and cost effective way to stay in touch with the people who matter to you.
Download our simple checklist to help you plan your own e-comms campaign.
Caboodle - make e-comms work for you
Caboodle is Hullabaloo's new e-publishing software that gives you everything you need to start producing regular email communications with your customers, your colleagues, stakeholders – in fact anyone you want to target.
Using custom designed templates produced for you by Hullabaloo, Caboodle creates attractive and clear templates that your audience will want to read, and that set you apart from the junk mail that floods our inboxes. From full newsletters like this one, to news alerts published as the story breaks – right through to fun mailers and simple product promotions.
Whether you’re looking for a fully managed solution that is written, published and emailed for you, or you want to write your own newsletter for us to send out – Caboodle does the lot. What’s more, it comes with online statistics on who’s reading your emails, and fully automated unsubscribe links.
To find out how Caboodle works, download our simple step-by-step guide, or contact Jay on 01509 224466 or jay@hullabaloo.co.uk
Delivering measurable results
One of the key benefits of an e-newsletter is the way it let's you see exactly how your newsletters are received – both across the whole mailing list and for each specific person on that list.
This enables you to see which issues are most popular, as well as exactly who is interacting with your newsletter and which issues they are most interested in.
Our Caboodle software lays out all of the following information for you in an easy to use control panel:
READS: Tells you how many people have opened the email, identifies who they are and how many times they opened it.
CLICKS/LINKS: Tells you how many people wanted to read more on each issue so you can tell which areas are generating most interest, as well as which link each contact followed so you can target their specific interests.
UNSUBSCRIPTIONS: Enables people on your list to unsubscribe if they aren’t interested – making sure that you aren’t wasting your time with people who don’t want to know. It also means you don’t just come across as irritating spam – something which might otherwise damage your reputation.
BOUNCES: If you are being blocked by a spam filter, or an email address is wrong – our system gives you this information so you can keep your list clean – or target those people through other means.
SUBSCRIBER HISTORY: Shows you which of your emails each person has opened, and which links they followed.
LIST MANAGEMENT: Add to or remove people from your list – or even split your list down to target specific groups – all online.
You can then hone your mailing list to target those people most interested in what you have to offer, and gear your newsletters to cover the issues that they most want to know about.
How much could you save?
To find out just how much Caboodle could save for you, download our cost comparison opposite, or contact Jay on: 01509 224466 or jay@hullabaloo.co.uk