Home > Best of Larry Chase's Top 10 Internet Marketing Tips

Best Practices: Creating Compelling Content for Email Newsletters

There are those on the cutting edge of Internet Marketing who pooh-pooh Email Marketing.

Email Marketing isn't hip, like Social Media, or edgy like Mobile Marketing (both of which we cover extensively in Web Digest For Marketers). But, you know what? Email Marketing works.

The key to the health of an email list is high-quality content.

A high-value offer for a Webinar or PDF is an example of high-quality commercial content. But for this monograph, I'm going to focus on some of my best practices for arranging high-quality editorial content.

The best practices below are taken from publishing Web Digest For Marketers since 1995.

1. What Does Your Audience Want to Know?

In the best-case scenario, you are much like your audience. You want to know something that they also want to know. Sometimes, your audience won't know they want something until they see it. Surveying target audiences might reveal an unmet need.

Predicting what your audience will embrace often takes intuition. Don't let your ego get in the way when trying to divine the editorial needs of the marketplace. Test different ideas, and listen for audience reaction.

I recently started interviewing gurus in different categories of Internet Marketing, like SEO, Social Media, et al. The reaction is very good. People write in and say so. The click-through rates in those issues are way over average.

2. Spend Money on Outstanding Content

Nobody wants to hear about spending more money in tough times, I know. But, high-grade content is worth the money. If you can't write well, find a ghostwriter who can pull the content out of you and organize it properly.

High-grade editorial content, especially in B-to-B, is viral. There's nothing easier than forwarding a useful or insightful email newsletter. Unless I'm being featured in the press somewhere, my best day for subscriber acquisition is Monday, when we typically publish the newsletter.

You can get content for no cost with articles submitted by writers, PR specialists and companies themselves who merely want the exposure. This can work, occasionally, but you must perform due diligence and see where else the material has run.

Nevertheless, if you don't pay for the content, you don't have much control over its quality, timing, and message. When it's my company and my name on the line, I want control.

3. Invest in Editing and Proofreading

Brevity is highly valued by readers. When you get to the point quickly, they appreciate the clarity and time saved, even if they don't tell you.

This "Bauhaus" approach to copy adds hours to the production time of every issue of Web Digest For Marketers. We have conversations about whether we can express a thought in fewer words. Recently, we've made a conscious effort to make each issue shorter without sacrificing quality. This actually takes more time and money.

At the time of this writing, one and sometimes two people proofread the editorial and advertising content in each issue of Web Digest For Marketers. They look for typos, fact-check and click links to be sure they work. My ad clients appreciate this service.

Remember, prospective clients are reading your newsletters, too. Well-groomed content is your cost of entry for attracting new clients.

Good proofers are blessed because proofreading is highly detailed work that takes time. But, just like editing, it reflects your company's brand and you. If you run a consultancy, would readers hire your firm if your newsletters were full of typographical errors and factual inconsistencies?

4. Give Order to Chaos

A decent service you can offer readers is helping them to focus on what is really important in their fields or locales.

As many newspapers and magazines disappear, the role of assignment editor falls now to the reader. That reader is overwhelmed with too many channels of information coming at him or her 24/7. I call this condition "info-stress."

Now is precisely the time when people need a qualified filtering service to help make sense of it all. Information is infinite. Time is not.

5. Read Everything

You must know what your competitors are publishing, if for no other reason than to avoid copying what they do, making yourself look like a knockoff.

Reading your competitors' press releases, newsletters, blogs, Twitter tweets and Facebook pages will also tell you what informational needs they have identified and how they're meeting those perceived needs.

Identify "info-niches" by reading all that is available in your field. If, after some time, you find a need for a certain type of information, it might have your name on it and become a component or central theme for your upcoming newsletter.

6. Invite Other Voices

Above, I said I had begun publishing interviews with Internet Marketing gurus. This is a changeup. It brings fresh perspectives and ideas.

The gurus I interview typically point to their interviews from their blogs, tweets, Websites, et al. This brings in new traffic. Some visitors subscribe whilst on the site, reading the interview for which they came.

I much prefer doing live interviews over giving the interviewee a set of stock questions in advance. Yes, it costs more to transcribe the interview. But, the give-and-take of a live interview produces a distinct spontaneity. The interviewee can't give you a stock answer. There are typically no follow-up questions by email.

These unintended outcomes of live interviews make for good copy.

7. "Chunkify"

My newsletter toggles between short reviews of Internet Marketing resources, tactics and strategies, and now interviews with gurus. No matter what the content is, however, the copy is "chunked" into small units or items.

These bite-sized units give readers more control to "helicopter" around the copy at will. They can enter or leave any part of the newsletter without losing the context.

Every few paragraphs are usually marked by either the next unit or a bold lead-in. Bullets, numbering and lettering also help scanability and are more inviting to read.

8. Tools for Taking the Temperature of the Marketplace

Besides reading other newsletters that serve your audience, you should monitor information resources beyond your own horizon. You might find good angles covered in a contiguous market niche, which you can migrate into your own niche.

Techmeme is a useful tool to see what is being covered on any topic in which you and your audience might be interested. Enter the topic into the search field, and see the recent articles in the search results.

Google Trends will show you the increasing or decreasing popularity of search keywords and the topics they represent. If a relevant search term is trending upwards, you might want to address it in your newsletter.

Twitter Search will not only tell you what people are twittering about but will also give you an insight into how many people are chattering away weekly, daily, or hourly.

9. Selecting a Subject Line

I usually write the subject line after the content has been edited and proofed. I know months in advance the general direction in which I want the issue to go. But, I leave enough running room for said issue to define itself a bit as it is formulated.

Generally, I want the subject line to be as short as possible, but I am not slavish about this. Witness the subject line for this piece: "Best Practices: Creating Compelling Content for Email Newsletters."

We try to keep subject lines to 35 characters, else they trail off into ellipses in your inbox. Sometimes, this is okay because the first few words telegraph the thrust of the topic covered.

Stay away from hyperbole. People tend to use hyperbole when they have nothing else to say.

I like subject lines that convey the breaking-news feel of a newspaper headline. Newspaper headlines tend to be factual and succinct. They are written by specialists whose job is to get you to buy the newspaper, which is like opening an email. The only difference is the newspaper asks you to pay money while an email newsletter asks you to pay attention.

Go to Current Issue of Larry Chase's Web Digest For Marketers

About Larry Chase