ebuzz - Newsletter Tips to Close Out the Year

Newsletter Tips to Close Out the Year

It's not often, frankly, that one finds useful tips in one's email box. If you're anything like us, you're drowning in information every day. And in general here at eBuzz we focus on looking at the news and nothing but the news.

But in the spirit of sharing a good thing for the holidays, we wanted to point out — in case you missed them — the really terrific newsletter tips offered recently by David Biker of Media Post:

• Newsletters aren't focused on simply syndicating content; they're a matching exercise.
• Content must be structured. Unstructured content confuses the marketer and consumer.
• Poor design and navigation translate to poor consumer perception.
• Success is measured through total reach, growth of base, historical trends in behavior, and survey response.
• Think in terms of a suggestion engine. That which historically pulls the most response garners the highest priority placement.
• Testing is a function of customer segments, NOT an afterthought you throw at your entire base.
• Newsletters advertising isn't intrusive; it's actually become commonplace in most cases, and deemed less intrusive than media on a site. In many cases, if we are designing new "content" programs, it's a bit easier to design a testing plan, content plan and calendar that strives not just to serve the subscribers and create loyalty to the brand, but either proves or disproves our hypothesis. Ongoing programs are a bit harder to test. It's risky to test new designs, content and layouts -- and even harder to bite the bullet and exclude content.

Newsletters can be useful to the customers receiving them and beneficial to the company sending them, if we're just careful about content, both original and advertising. If you're not doing one now, you might consider it for 2008!

And that's our take on the news today!

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