Improve Your Results with the Eight Secrets of Successful Marketing Newsletters

An effective marketing newsletter generates a positive response from readers, enhances your organization's image and, above all, boosts your organization's bottom line.

To ensure that your publication accomplishes all three goals, follow these basic guidelines:

Educate and Inform
Provide readers with information that helps them make sound decisions. Talk is cheap — education has value.

Avoid Fluff and Nonsense
Factual information wins customers' confidence and respect, which in turn encourages repeat business. Yet each fact you include should support your newsletter's underlying marketing goal.

Emphasize the Benefits to Your Readers
Readers will care more about the information in your newsletter when they see a benefit. For example, stories about how specific customers save money or solve difficult problems will move readers more than simply reporting that a new feature "is more cost effective" or describing the increased stress tolerance of a new manufacturing device. Including a photo of a customer will help readers identify with the message even more.

Target Features to Reader Interests
In addition to increasing the publication's appeal, such features help build credibility for your newsletter by demonstrating a willingness to address "hot topics" or immediate concerns. You can identify appropriate topics by asking salespeople what objections they encounter most frequently, listing concerns that customers have expressed, and reading letters to the editor in other industry publications.

Practice Moderation with Personnel Stories
A photo and a couple of paragraphs will help readers "get to know" the people who make up your organization. After that, you're probably wasting space that would be better devoted to information that is more practical.

Create Designs and Layouts Appropriate for Your Industry
Above all, make sure your newsletter is accurate and easy to read. Remember, you're trying to convey information effectively, not create an artistic masterpiece.

Don't Combine Your Marketing and In-House Newsletters to Hold Down Budget
Just as a "man can't serve two masters," a newsletter can't effectively accomplish two such different goals. If you can't afford both types of newsletters, just do the marketing publication. When your marketing newsletter succeeds, you'll probably get the money you need for the internal version.