E-Newsletters That Work

The Small Business Owner’s Guide To Creating, Writing And Publishing An Effective Electronic Newsletter

First things first, let us define what is an E-newsletter. The ‘E’ actually stands for ‘electronic’ and it is because emails are used to disseminate or distribute a series of E-newsletters. Just think of it as a regular magazine with loyal base of subscribers. So within your specified weekly or monthly publications, your subscribers will be receiving the latest E-newsletter.

What is its purpose? There are many actually but for a small business like yours some of the more obvious ones are:

• You maintain the interest of your subscribers/customers about your business
• You keep people informed about the latest happenings, product launches, or whatever you deem necessary to announce.
• You can offer discounts or even do a controlled trial on your latest products and quickly get feedback from the members of your list.

Should You Use HTML Or Plain Text?

Most people nowadays are using the more popular email services like GMail, Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail. What this means is they can receive and read HTML-based E-newsletters. These are more attractive because you can use images and other design elements to beautify your newsletters. Plain text, on the other hand, is just as it says, purely text.

So which one should you use? I suggest you let your subscribers decide. From the very beginning when they opt-in to your newsletter, give them the option to choose if they would like to receive either the HTML or the plain text version of the e-newsletter. This way you can better conceptualize how you would write and format your newsletters.