By John Eberhard
Sending out a regular newsletter is a great idea for nearly every type of business. The most common way is to send this out via email, which means it is important to build up your email list. These newsletters should go out minimally once a month. Once a week is better.
So what should go in a newsletter? Believe it or not there are widely used and accepted guidelines or rules for what should go in a newsletter, that have been around since before email even existed. I know that last part probably blew your mind, but yes, there was a time before email existed, and people sent out printed newsletters in the mail.
The general rule that has been around forever is that the majority of content in a newsletter should be interesting and helpful content, not sales content. The age-tested rule is that 66% to 75% of the content should be helpful information, with sales content not to exceed 25-33%.
Let’s look at why this is the case. Basically people don’t like to be sold all the time. This is especially true now since the amount of sales messages hitting your average prospect has increased markedly over the last 10-20 years. So if all your content in a newsletter is selling your products or services, people will not read it for very long, or at all. You have to sort of lure them in with information that is helpful to them. Then they will stay around to read your sales info.
What type of helpful information should go in the newsletter?
- Articles that contain helpful information related to your topic or business. These could be specifically about your products or services, or about the more general topic or industry. I favor including only a part of the article in the newsletter itself, then linking to the full article. This helps to drive more people to your website.
- Links to your videos that contain helpful info
- News and updates about your company
- Webinar announcements
- Interview with an expert
- Offers for free information products such as ebooks or free reports
- Holiday greetings
And what type of sales content should be in the newsletter?
- Ads for products and services
- Testimonials and case studies from clients
- New product releases
- Specials and discounts
- Links to videos that are specifically sales oriented
Generally I think that an email newsletter should go to your “in-house list,” meaning a list of clients and prospects that have been in touch with your company. I do not generally recommend sending out an email newsletter to cold lists, meaning people who have had no contact with your company.
Most of the rules in this article also apply to webinars, i.e. they shouldn’t be all sales content, etc.
Good luck with your newsletters.
If you need help putting together a newsletter for your company, call us at 661-441-2429 or fill out form here.
