eNewsletter Marketing Planning

eNewsletters can promote your business successfully and help you reach your target customer base and niche audience.

While online marketing uses many tools, enewsletters are an accepted form of communication. But an enewsletter must be well-planned for it to reach its potential as a marketing tool.

Here are six important questions to answer:

1 Who’s going to receive your eNewsletter?

2 What do you want to say to them?

3 What actions do you want them to take after reading?

4 Why are you producing a newsletter?

You can produce one to promote specific products and services, discounts, or simply pass on information.

5 Are you trying to build community? I recently helped a client who owns 26 apartment buildings produce an eNewsletter. He doesn’t want to be a typical apartment landlord who simply sends information to his tenants and remind them to pay rent. Instead, he wants to use it in part as a vehicle to connect his tenants with local businesses.
You build community, too, but will doing so be worthwhile for your business model?

Narrow your enewsletter for as specific a purpose as possible, that way readers will either know what to expect in each issue or else they’ll know they don’t want to opt-in and receive it. And that’s okay. Visit here to read the full article on how I planned this specific newsletter.

6 Where will you link in your enewsletter?

Direct mail newsletters are still valuable as an alternative way of reaching your audience or customer.

But using an eNewsletter is also valuable because you can link to your main web site, a specific promotional landing page or helpful videos that you or someone else has produced.

If you want to direct readers around your community you can use an eNewsletter to link to points of interest and perhaps a specialty web site where merchants can offer discounts or link to an online store.

7 How much do you want to spend?

Know your budget. Many enewsletter services are competitively priced and many come with templates. But it may take some time and money to customize your enewsletter for greatest impact.

Don’t just budget your dollars.

Budget your time as well since there is a learning curve to using the simplest programs.

Here are budget considerations:

Do you want to hire a photographer or can you take a few custom shots? Do you know how to use Photoshop or do you know a graphics artist who can lay out your enewsletter for no more than $ 200 or $ 300 dollars? If there is a template you like that comes with images, you might want to blend a custom image with a template image – that’s what I did with my client. Choose an email service provider that offers effective support and has a reputation for getting past spam filters. Finally, and importantly, build your mailing list. It may build over time.

Some ideas for building an enewsletter list are: collecting business cards and then asking the person for permission to mail them something helpful to read.

Build a one-page web site using a free web-site building tool to use as a page to promote your enewsletter and offer readers a chance to sign up for free. Interview others, use their name, contact information and then ask them to pass along their interview to their contacts. An eNewsletter is one part of your overall marketing mix and planning but it can be strategically powerful for your business goals.