|
Vol. 4 :: No. 2 February,
2002 (Magh
- Falgun)
|
|
|
|||
|
|
E-Marketing |
|
The power of E-Newsletter By Smriti Shrestha
Think of the following scenario: ‘Someone is surfing the net for information on ‘Personal Accounting Software’ and comes across your website. You are marketing an accounting package called say ‘Nepali-pasal Accounting Software’. ‘ Great! They will try to contact you to buy that software, right? Well, not necessarily… Perhaps the web surfer reached your website while searching search engine listings. But then the search engines generate hundreds of sites and perhaps the visitor is shifting through hundreds of websites and just happened to stumble across your website. If you don’t capture the attention of the visitor in the first few seconds, he/she will simply click a button on their browser and move on to the next web site…and you may neither see this potential customer again nor will you may have the opportunity to sell them your accounting package which could have been just perfect for him. Now imagine a different scenario: This person surfs to your web site and sees the offer of a free monthly newsletter on accounting and tax tips. He signs up (subscribes) for the newsletter and perhaps hangs out in your site for 2 minutes and then leaves your site to visit another site. The difference …Though this person has left your site you have his email address and will be able to send him your monthly newsletter for which he signed up. This means you have got another chance to sell your accounting package and in business second chance sure does mean a lot. With a free newsletter, you can easily attract people to your website with the lure of free relevant information. Best of all, an e-newsletter gives you the perfect opportunity to contact your visitors again and again. For those who are not very familiar with the term e-newsletter, it is simply an online equivalent of the newsletters that we see printed on paper by organizations at a regular interval of time. The newsletters usually contain information –updates and announcements about new products/services etc. , about the particular company or institution that publishes it and also other relevant and related features. The print newsletters are usually sent to the subscribers or members by post while in the online world the e-newsletters are sent by email. As I mentioned above, e-newsletters not only allow you to keep in touch with your customers, visitors and subscribers…it also allows you to build credibility and rapport with them. A lot of people leave a website because they feel they don’t know you or don’t feel comfortable to contact you because they don’t know whether the website represents a legitimate business or just a net savvy person. They might also be concerned that your product won’t live up to their promises or that they will be cheated. These are all valid concerns of a customer. You have to prove to them that you are credible and an e-newsletter is a great way to do this. Once they sign up the newsletter you can begin to develop a relationship with them. After a few months of reading the newsletter, your readers will become comfortable with you and begin to trust you. The information you’ve shared in your newsletter will establish your credibility, so they will then be far more likely to buy from you. A newsletter is thus a highly valuable marketing tool. People who subscribe to the newsletter are not just ordinary people; they represent your potential buyers because:
Remember that the first time customers are always of the highest cost to you! You will earn far bigger profits by focusing on the relationships that have already been established with your current customer base. By overcoming the obstacle of gaining the trust with the help for the newsletter you could close the sales for your product or services to them. They will not only buy what you are offering now, they will also buy entirely different products that you offer in the future because you will have established your credibility and developed a rapport with them. The E-newsletters can be in simple text format (like your word document) or in HTML format, which are usually visually compelling. Some prefer text e-newsletter to HTML ones because the text newsletters are easier to receive and also takes less space. Whether text or HTML e-newsletters, the result-driven e-newsletters must fulfill the following criteria 1. Acquire subscribers One of the challenges of a successful –e-newsletters is acquiring the subscribers. Advertising the newsletters in the form of online or off-line banners is one of the popular ways of acquiring more visitors (and subscribers) to a website or the page where the visitor can subscribe the e-newsletter. Other promotions may include free gifts to the subscribers, or discounts on the services or any other attractive incentive to those who subscribe to the newsletter. Be sure to offer a place to subscribe to your e-newsletter on every page of your website. This way, if someone visits the website and has a look around they would be no way they could miss the offer itself. 2. Great copy Copywriting for e-newsletters is a bit of an art. You are writing for a global audience, but—this is the key—you are speaking to one person at a time. Therefore even if you are sending your e-newsletter to hundreds of people, write as if it’s one to one. Also, you need to keep the content fresh and interesting. Add some spice to your newsletter, and make sure that what you are offering to your readers is something they have not read it a thousand times before. You can develop legions of loyal readers by developing an interactive relationship with your readers through the use of some proven reader responses mechanisms such as:
These ‘Reader Response Mechanism’ mentioned above encourage your readers to respond to your messages by sending out requested information. From this information you can learn a lot about their passions and interests. Armed with the specific information about your readers, you can present them with high quality relevant content, so that they become active participants in your newsletter community. 3. Link Strategically The e-newsletter that you send to your subscribers should have the navigation bar linking back to the relevant website or the web pages. There is no absolute right or wrong about how many links a e-newsletter should have. The key to linking is to think strategically how the links could serve the business objective. If your goal is to convert more subscribers into buyers, you’ll need to place links on the e-newsletter, which lead directly to the product page on the site where you can purchase the product. If you objective is to build more credibility about the service that your company offers then perhaps the links should lead the reader to the Feedback or On-line Assistance page of the website where the reader can clear his/her queries. Submitting an e-newsletter to the subscriber can be done both manually and automatically i.e. automated with the help of software. Examples of popular software that can help save time in submitting the newsletter are ‘Mailloops’ and ‘E-newsletter pro’. If you have a large list of subscriber, perhaps investing in such soft wares can help you automate the process, save time and help streamline and improve customer services. Publishing your very e-newsletter is thus a great tool for marketing to your customer base, getting visitors to return to your site, and winning their trust and even selling your products or services to them. Just because you don’t run one yet doesn’t mean it’s too late. It is never too late to get started as this incredible source of Free marketing for your website should not be overlooked. Publishing your newsletter can be a new, fun and exciting experience for anyone whether you sell movie tickets or consulting to multinational firms. |
|
|
Cover Feature
| Editorial
| Opinion
Poll |
Inner-View | Letters
| Voices |
Business
News | Management | |
|
Send your feedback to the editor: bizage@ecomail.com.np |
