Running a successful newsletter Part I – Content & Delivery

[Ted S]

Ted S submitted a new Article:

Running a successful newsletter Part I – Content & Delivery

Newsletter can be a fantastic way to increase visitor retention and bring back old users while providing you with an additional revenue and contact channel. However, while many sites offer newsletters, few take full advantage of the potential of this communication method and many fall flat out their feet failing to deliver a meaningful communication on time… or at all.

Part I of this article takes a look at what is required to put together a functional, useful newsletter. This means covering the basics, establishing a send date, determining what content to include and producing something that, while by no means elegant, gets the point across and drives in traffic.

Content: We often leave content to the last moment, assuming that a quickly written article or a few paragraphs about what’s happening with the site will suffice so long as the format looks good and the message is delivered. However, if your focus is on building a truly successful and long running newsletter, content has to come first. Content is what people read your newsletter for and what keeps them reading. Really well done newsletters are something you look forward to seeing, not merely glanced at before hitting delete the delete key.

Newsletter content generally takes one of two paths. You have newsletters that are all about the site they are promoting with facts, updates on new features, member highlights and you have truly informative newsletters with subject oriented content. Which you chose to develop really depends on your goal – newsletters that focus on the site tend to have lower read rates but work to really promote the community. Those with more informative content are read more but require more effort to put together. An ideal solution may be to combine both, offering mostly informative content but with a section devoted to site statistics and news.

Creating content for your newsletter, especially informative and relevant content, can be a time consuming process. By leveraging your popular discussion topics and pertinent topics you can speed up the copywriting process. Short articles, helpful tips and common reminders often serve as great content pieces. In busy months supplementing articles with forum events can work to help you meet your deadline.

Case Example: When ScubaBoard.Com first started sending regular newsletters the focus was on site updates and events with a few highlighted threads but little to no direct content. After measuring open rates it...

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[Kathy]

Really great article, Ted. Good tips and important info. I keep toying with the notion of a newsletter. Thanks for the nudge.

 

[KeithMcL]

Good article indeed Ted. I'm curious as to what parts II and III will contain.

 

[Ted S]

Good article indeed Ted. I'm curious as to what parts II and III will contain.

I'm planning to write parts II and III to cover more "advanced" concepts like optimization, deliverability and going beyond a simple newsletter with event triggered and recurring messages.

Thanks!

 

[Scribbller]

Ted which method do you use to send newsletters from scubaboard? html or text and through VB, third pary script or vendor?

 

[Ted S]

I use both in the form of a multi-part messages. Clicks and open rates are tracked through a simple script I setup. The only part vB plays in the process is providing me the list.

I have used many email vendors in the past that would probably work just as well, if not better, but this serves my purpose and lets me customize things to the degree I want.

 

[MissMoke]

I have my first newsletter going out on Monday. It's sparse for the first one but it is just members who signed up through a link on the board, for right now.

 

[KeithMcL]

I'm planning to write parts II and III to cover more "advanced" concepts like optimization, deliverability and going beyond a simple newsletter with event triggered and recurring messages.

Thanks!

Great. I look forward to reading it. Are you going to cover things like the best day to send out your newsletter or if the newsletter should be personalised to each individual reader?

<off topic>Adsense is right on the money with the ad it's displaying for this thread - intellicontact pro </off topic>

 

[Lugh]

Very good as usual Ted, looking forward to the next parts

Studies show that emailing users between 12 and 22 times is optimal for insuring high open rates and low op-out rates.

Just to confirm the obvious, that's 12-22 per year?

 

[phoenixdown21]

Great article Ted - thank you for sharing this. You just saved me alot of research time

 

[Ted S]

Just to confirm the obvious, that's 12-22 per year?

Yup. Once a month is ideal for a newsletter but if you have more, good (as in interesting to your users) content based mailings upto 22 times may be ideal.

 

[fechten]

Nice article.

I found some of the same results for the newsletter that I run from fencing.net. My content focused stories get far more clicks to the site than my store/product promotions and it has been pretty consistent even when I change the positions of the blurbs.

I'm currently using constant contact for managing the email newsletter and they provide really good reporting of exactly which links were clicked on, which gives me additional information as to which stories were the "hot" ones and generate the most interest. That's useful information that tells me where to focus my limited editorial time.

I'm looking forward to parts 2 and 3!

Craig

 

[akoj]

Going to start getting a newsletter going and have a few questions...

1. I have been looking into 12All . Does anyone have comments and experience to share with about this management system? Do you have another suggestion?

2. Does using the emails of members that have checked 'receive email from admins' qualify as complying with "can spam" or will I need to collect specific opt-in emails?

TIA

 

[jappyx]

Nice Article. Well done!

 

[EricW]

Very interesting, Ted.

I look forward to part II.

 

[aninhill]

Very good. its very helpful.

 

[KeithMcL]

Are the other parts coming soon Ted?

 

[Orp]

Good info Ted. Thanks! I look forward to parts II and III also.

Just wondering if any of you are willing to share a sample newsletter that you have already sent out? That would be useful to folks like me getting ready to send out my first one. Look for a new thread asking this same question .....I have no intention of hijacking this thread.

 

[Worm Rider]

What would be your suggestion for a phpBB board? I can do mass emailings from the ACP. It would seem to be very plain though. Maybe I could make a list (very hard to do from what I can tell in phpBB based boards) of the members email addresses.

 

[CodeRed]

very good read...

i have a php based board and i export out all of my emails and opt not to use the bulletin mass emailer...

i send out html newsletters about once a month. after reading the article im gonna try to focus a bit more on general content... i think that may help me a bit more...

thanks again