Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

What are the most important elements to have in your email newsletter?

Still, direct from scrap-land:

1. Branding. If you're doing an HTML newsletter, include your logo, tagline, Visual Vocabulary, etc. It should probably match your website to some extent so that people who signed up for your newsletter on your site will make a visual connection between the two - and relate your website to your newsletter. 

If you're doing a text-only newsletter, then you can brand your newsletter by the introductory text that you use. For example, you can start your text-based newsletter with your business name, your tagline, a consistent description of your offerings, and/or some other memorable text. 

 2. Consistency. Once you start putting out a newsletter, you need to maintain some consistency around the newsletter in a few different ways. 

• Consistency of the look and format of the newsletter
• Consistency around the type of voice you use in the newsletter – word choice, level of formality of the language  
• Consistency in the types of features in the newsletter – if you’re going to have an introduction, article, promotional area and then an “about “ box, then include these features each month.
• Consistency in timing – the date and time when you send out the newsletter are also important. You can choose a date – say, the first of the month. Or, a particular day – on Tuesdays. You should also try to schedule the newsletter to send out at the same time, say, 8am.

 

3. Include your contact information. It’s important that you include this so that once people read your newsletter, they know how to get in touch with you for the next step. Also include a link to your website so that readers know where to go to get more information.

 

4. Tell people what you want them to do next. Now that they’ve read your article, what’s the next step? Should they go learn more about this topic at your website? Implement it on their own? Hire you? Buy an info-product? Just by telling them what to do next, you can reduce confusion and increase conversion of prospects into clients.

What should you write about in your newsletter?

This is usually the biggest concern that entrepreneurs struggle with when thinking about starting a newsletter. You’re an expert in providing your service or creating your product, and there aren’t many professions where that also includes writing articles and copy.

Keep in mind that you are the expert in your field, and most of your clients don’t know the things that come as second-nature to you. An article that you might consider basic or boring might be really helpful for your clients and target market. For example, I wrote this article on fonts, and many of my clients have been able to use that article to improve the overall look and legibility of their materials.

In addition to talking about some of the basics in your field, here are some other ways to find topics to write about:

• Answer the most common questions that people ask you. Every businessperson has those few questions that people constantly ask them. Some of mine were “What pages do I put on a website”, “Should I have a text-only logo or have a picture too”, and “What should I put on my business card”? Writing up the answers to these can produce great articles that you’ll be able to also place on your website to point people to time and time again.
  
• Ask your audience. I have invitations on my website and in the newsletter itself where I ask people about the questions and topics they’d like me to write about. It’s always great to find out exactly what’s on their minds!
  
• Consider your subscriber’s experience. If you have a lot of past clients subscribed to the newsletter, don’t just write introductions to your various services; also talk about the next steps they can take to grow their businesses.
  
• Brainstorm new ideas. Make a long list of everything in your expertise that you could write an article on. Keep this list, and keep adding to it as new ideas occur to you.
  
• Ask a colleague to brainstorm with you. This can be an especially fruitful tactic if you brainstorm with a colleague in a similar field, or someone who understands your profession and/or your target market.
  
• Subscribe to your competition’s newsletters. I subscribe to many other newsletters in my industry – both to keep up with the trends and to get new ideas. When I read an article that is particularly interesting, or that I don’t agree with, I’ll often write an article of my own to express my thoughts on the topic.
  
• Research on your competition’s website. Reviewing their blogs, article libraries, or even just their text can spark new ideas.
  
• Read industry and business magazines. If you’re thinking about business, you’re more likely to come up with ideas of your own on a topic!
  
• Think about the topics discussed in your education. Chances are, anything that you’ve taken a class on would be an interesting topic for your readers.
  
• Save emails and forum posts you write as a base for a new article. When you find yourself writing something that’s got potential, save it so that you can later expand it into a new article.
  

With all of these options in mind, you should be able to come up with a long list of article ideas.

When to send your newsletter?

Another thing to consider is the day of the week that you plan to send your newsletter out. Your clients will be more likely to read your newsletter if they receive it on a day when they’re not very stressed out and when they feel like they have time to read it. You also want to catch them when they’re in the mood to think about your topic, and to consider buying your products or services.

For businesses where your target is other business owners, this means Monday is right out. People are just coming back from their weekends on Mondays, and they’re often not thinking about improving their businesses or buying other services yet. Often, Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays are better days to catch an entrepreneur’s attention. A similar time schedule often works well with corporate employees.

If you’re running a restaurant, vacation or entertainment company, Wednesday or Thursday would be a great time to send out your newsletter since that’s when most people start to think about their weekend plans.

Fridays are generally bad days to send out newsletters – most people can’t wait to get away from their computers on Friday!

A weekend newsletter might be appropriate if you’re discussing religious topics or hobbies, like exercise, knitting, or cooking. Since people are more likely to think about their hobbies during the weekends, you might catch them in the mood to buy.

And, again (this is getting to be a theme, I know) – ask your clients what day they’d like to get your newsletter. There may be some hidden element of their schedule that you would have no way of knowing about – for example, the end of the month is typically a stressful time for people in a financial profession.

Should your newsletter be pretty?

Text-only vs. HTML format: Text-only newsletters look like a standard email; there are no graphics or colors in it. HTML-formatted emails can have graphics, colored text, bold text, and larger text for headlines.

So, which one should you use? There are some experts who are really set on text-only newsletters, and others who only recommend HTML. Often, their reasons for making their recommendation are based on:

• Technical stuff: It used to be more common for graphically-based HTML emails to be rejected by email hosts as spam. Or, different email-reading programs would misinterpret the graphical content, resulting in a funky-looking, illegible email. This is becoming less and less of a problem all the time, though, as long as you have a well-coded HTML email template to work from.
  
• Ease of sending the newsletter yourself: Text-based emails, just by their nature, are very easy to write and format. HTML emails do consist of HTML code, and can be more difficult to format and send out every month. But, many email management tools now offer easy-to-use editing tools that you can use with your template to place the new content for each newsletter, seamlessly.
  
• Sales effectiveness: It’s long been said that graphics can increase your sales numbers. But, I’ve also seen many newsletters done in a text format that are very effective at selling products or services as well. So, it seems that the effectiveness of the sales in the newsletter is more likely based on the offer, product, text you use to promote it, the benefits, the audience and the price than whether or not you use a picture.
  

I think the answer depends on your business’s brand, what you do, your newsletter’s purpose, and your customer’s tastes:

• Business Brand: If your business has a rich brand and Visual Vocabulary, it can’t hurt to create a graphical newsletter to extend your brand. But, you can also extend your business brand in a text newsletter by beginning and ending each edition of the newsletter with the same text.
  
• What You Do: As a graphic designer, I couldn’t imagine having a plain-text newsletter. Fashion designers, jewelry makers, artists, photographers, interior decorators – anyone whose work is primarily visual in nature – should all strongly consider having a graphical newsletter. A copywriter, on the other hand, might benefit from the focus that a text-only newsletter would place on the words in the newsletter.
  
• Newsletter Purpose: If your newsletter is primarily intended to educate your potential clients, then a text-only newsletter could certainly work. But, if your newsletter’s primary function is to sell products, then you might want to consider going graphical, since that can help you make more sales.
  
• Customer’s Tastes: Your target audience can also help you determine the best format for the newsletter. For example, a very technical audience of programmers might prefer the straightforwardness of a text-only newsletter. Women tend to prefer images and be more visual than men. And, you can always ask your existing clients what their preference would be.