Your competitors and suppliers are sending out e-newsletters. Does that mean you should do the same? Before jumping on the e-newsletter bandwagon, Entrepreneur.com contributor John D. Leavy offered a few things for you to consider.
“It takes time, money and energy to produce a newsletter that people look forward to reading, enjoy and are willing to pass on to their friends and colleagues,” he wrote. “Before you make this commitment, you should have a mission for the newsletter and a plan for creating it on a regular basis.”
Leavy broke down the following five areas every small business should examine before launching an e-newsletter.
The Mission: “Regardless of the mission you choose, you should let the reader know your intentions about the direction of the publication and stick to that plan,” Leavy wrote.
The Content: “Readers are looking for timely, practical, useful information,” Leavy wrote.
The Frequency: “Newsletters need to come out on some schedule so people can anticipate receiving them,” Leavy wrote.
The Metrics: “You can find out how many people received the e-mail, how many bounced because of a bad e-mail address, how many people opened the newsletter, how many forwarded it to friends, and more,” Leavy wrote.
Serving the Reader: “Find out what they are interested in knowing or learning,” Leavy wrote. He also instructed businesses to respect the reader’s time. “If a newsletter cannot be read within five minutes, it’s destined for the trash folder.”
To read the complete Entrepreneur.com article, click here.
