How emails and enewsletters are different

Two forms of online marketing are email and enewsletters. Both email and enewsletters are accepted methods for businesses to reach new customers, retain current customers, and inform employees and vendors. Families can use online tools to keep relatives and friends up-to-date on their latest adventures.

When looking more closely at email and enewsletters, it’s easy to see so many similarities that they begin to blur. Are they really different media or are they the same? If they’re so similar in form then why create an enewsletter when sending an email may be easier?

I wrote this Hub based on a question fellow Hubber BirteEdwards asked me about the differences. In my previous Hub on enewsletters that Birte read, I wrote about the need to plan enewsletters before producing them. Effective emails need planning, too.

Let’s look at the similarities and then we’ll look more closely at the differences between the two types of communication.

Emails and enewsletters can both be programmed and written to link to specific web sites of interest. An email can be intricately designed or simply designed and so, too, can an enewsletter.

In certain programs, both can be scheduled to be sent at specific times and dates when the reader is most likely to read the message.

I want to focus on two important differences.

Emails are more personable than enewsletters.

An email is written to one person. An enewsletter is written to a particular type of audience.

Okay, be patient. A company can produce custom emails and send tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands at one time. While emails can be sent in mass quantities the message is written as though one person is the receiver. That person reads the message and thinks – even subconsciously – hmm, they’re writing to me directly.

I work with an interactive agency that can personalize emails for companies that have national franchises and sales staffs. The message is composed by one central department but it can be customized to look like it’s coming from one individual salesperson or franchise owner.

eNewsletters are able to act more like magazines: segmented topics effectively combined to inform readers and direct their attention to different segments of the copy.

A person receiving an eNewsletter knows they’re part of a larger audience.

Timing is another important difference between emails and enewsletters.

An enewsletter is going to be sent on a regularly scheduled day or days of the month. I used to work in the non-profit world, and we had an editorial calendar for sending out paper-based newsletters. eNewsletters work in similar fashion. Again, enewsletters fit the magazine concept. The receivers begin to expect the delivery.

Emails, even ones sent in mass quantities as part of a promotional campaign, aren’t necessarily anticipated by the recipient. The sender may set up a schedule of when emails are going to be sent, the message, and the actions they want the readers to take but the readers themselves aren’t aware of that production schedule.

They simply see a nice email appear in their inbox. If it comes on a regular basis and they like the content then they’ll be pleased when it comes. But an enewsletter mostly has the Vol, Date, Number approach.

Knowing how to identify the differences between emails and enewsletters can result in both avenues of communication being used to their potential.