ezine

I don’t know how many times I have come to a website and they have some little box halfway down the page that says “Subscribe to our newsletter” and a “click here” button. Give me one good reason why I would subscribe to that newsletter. Actually, I’ll give you several great reasons why no one will:

• They didn’t even consider it important enough to give it a name. How lame or unimportant must that newsletter be?
• And is there anything there telling me why I should subscribe to that newsletter?
• Any hint of the powerful or useful information I’ll be regaled with should I subscribe?

#1 Make sure someone proofreads your copy.

There’s nothing more distracting than misspelled words in your copy. And nothing says “I do sloppy work” more than bad spelling or bad editing. The first thing your reader will think is, “What kind of job would this person do on my projects?”

#2 Don’t overwhelm or underwhelm your readers.

I don’t know how many people have told me that nothing bothers them more than getting on someone’s email list and then getting something from them every week! However, the inverse can be just as bad. If you send your eNewsletter or eZine out too infrequently or sporadically, people won’t remember you and delete or unsubscribe your newsletter. Monthly is pretty much the standard.

If you send out email newsletters or even just emails to business associates or clients, the last thing you want is for your email to wind up in the junk file, sight unseen. To prevent that from happening, you need to know a little about how spam filters work.

How spam filters work
Spam filters get more sophisticated every day. However, they haven’t reached the level we would call “expert”. For that reason, they operate pretty much the same way a human does who needs to do a job but hasn’t developed his or her own expertise.

I was recently at a great presentation by a local business coach. And two things he said really stuck out for me:

1. That it takes a lot less resources to resell to existing clients or customers than to get new clients or customers, and
2. Approximately 60% of customers don’t re-order because of apathy. In other words, they feel ignored or disconnected because they never hear from you.

And a point I’d like to add to that is that people are much more likely to buy from someone they know and trust than a complete stranger. So how to keep that relationship from going south?