Some of the results are direct and some indirect.

Direct: If you plan your newsletter and then follow thru on the information provided by the tracking statistics you can generate sales. For example if your newsletter provides a link to your website promoting one of your products or services good tracking facilities can tell you who clicked on that link and even how many times. This means you have a clear indication of a person's response to what you are offering. From this you can follow up by way of a phone call or email knowing that the person you are contacting has already shown interest and therefore represents a strong sales lead.

Indirect: A newsletter can build customer relationships, contribute to branding efforts, increase awareness and profile your company as a leader in your field. It can also complement website promotion, by encouraging subscribers to visit your website.

Bryan Eisenberg of Future Now, Inc. talks of an email newsletter's Impact Quotient. He describes this as the newsletter's "ability to persuade people to save it, talk about it, refer to it and forward it to their sphere of influence". A well crafted newsletter has the potential to turn your readers into part of your marketing team as they promote your newsletter and its information and services to their friends and networks.

Here are some reasons why people no longer open or read newsletters:

• subscribers lack confidence or trust in the publisher
  
• subscribers find little of interest or value in the emails
  
• subscribers lack any feeling of connectedness or loyalty to the publisher or newsletter.

When I first started publishing this newsletter there were not so many around and it had a bit of a novelty factor that helped people to open it. Now with the growth of newsletters the challenge is to provide content and information that is relevant and helpful to your readership. Otherwise your newsletter will remain unopened or the person will hit unsubscribe.

A recent MarketingSherpa survey shows what topics people most want to read (in order of priority):

Case study on how to use a product to improve a business process

New research on some aspect of the industry

How-to guide for using a product or service to greater advantage

Top 10 list of ways to improve business by better leveraging a tactic or process

Case study on how a company used a product to learn something new

Interview with a top analyst on the state of the industry

Interview with a top executive on the state of the industry

Here are some excerpts from a recent testimonial from Propell National Valuers, one of our clients, about the successful implementation of a newsletter that targeted a specific part of their market.

"We started out using the system to send our internal newsletter (which we still do) and used that as a testing ground for things such as headlines, article content and length, newsletter size etc. In other words, the standard marketing testing process. What it showed us however, was that the old maxim of “solving a problem”or “giving the client what they want”, was not only true, but that to go against it or try to be clever was tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot.....

What is great however, is an external monthly email we sent to all the commercial real estate agents on the Sunshine Coast. This 2 page article was a classic case of “solve a problem”. The availability of commercial leasing data is a constant bug-bear to commercial real estate operators (agents, developers, managers etc) and we have been collecting this information for some time in the hope of building up a database product to assist our valuers. Given that we collect this information from commercial agents we felt it was only fair that they received the entirety of the information back as a reciprocal appreciation of their effort. Our first email achieved a 50% hit rate and we have averaged a 60% hit rate on this newsletter ever since. It goes out once a month and is now being commented on by agents as being the most sought after piece of information on market activity and pricing. It has been picked up by the local property magazines and is being used in the same way but is now seen by thousands of people who read the weekly magazine (even though the data itself is only published by us once a month)....

To anyone looking to increase their business output I say this. Get yourself organised with an online automated newsletter system such as Using The Net. Find out one area of business activity that you are involved with where information is hard to come by. Put in place the equipment, personnel and procedures to collect and report on that information and then send it out to your client base using the newsletter software. You will be staggered at the feedback you will receive by undertaking this process and by the brand awareness that occurs as a result. If you want to be seen as an industry leader you need to give your target market something that they don’t already have. They will love you for it." Read full testimonial.

Why not contact us and start you own newsletter