Can you think of any more convenient, thoughtful and inexpensive way to demonstrate your expertise in your business to your customers, prospects, relevant reporters, staff, colleagues at the business and civic clubs? Without the costs of layout, printing and mailing, you can provide helpful advice, offers, other ways to show people why they should buy or continue to buy from you, pass your e-mail onto their colleagues who might buy and become familiar with you.

   If you aren't comfortable writing the newsletter, get a freelancer to interview you or take your first draft to polish your words. Get another consultant to help you with the small details of online design of a newsletter, and/or mass e-mailing it. Still your costs will be considerably less than with a traditional mailed newsletter. You can "mail it" more often, offer a poll, lead them to a web site where they can learn more, link your web site with valuable business and non-profit partners whose sites also serve your kind of customer so you gain access to each other's customers . .the list of benefits goes on.

   To jump-start the introduction of your newsletter, offer prizes for the names to be drawn of the people who submit their email address to you. Offer to maintain their privacy, indicating you won't trade or sell your list of names. Tell them about upcoming topics, offers, etc.

   When you announce the introduction of your newsletter, also announce an online poll on a topic of interest to your customers -- and the media that your customers read (local and industry). Offer poll respondents first glimpse at a summary of poll results, and offer reporters an extensive description of poll results, thus positioning you as a subject matter expert, for them to also call upon whenever they come across a story that touches on your kind of business.

   The frequency of your e-mail newsletter will depend on how much time you have to write or find useful info. Ideastation (http://www.ideastation.com/) and/or Kevin Nunley (http://www.DrNunley.com) are a few places that will provide articles for use in online newsletters and on web sites.

   You can publish daily, weekly or monthly or spontaneously. You can distribute your e-mail newsletter by using your e-mail program (e.g., Pegasus Mail) or a service especially designed for this purpose called Majordomo Listbot. Read other e-zines to get a feel for the kind of content your target audience finds important. E-zine fall into many categories ranging from purely organizational with updates about a specific company to general tips for a specific target audience and classified ads ezine that direct readers to specific products and services. Remember to focus and communicate audience benefits, and through word of mouth your e-zine subscription size will expand.

Building your list

   From your web site you can advertise the benefits of your newsletter. Following your benefits should be a box or an e-mail link for people to click on or enter their e-mail address for inclusion in your mailing list. If you or your employees already ask people for their name, company, industry, address, phone and fax information, you now need to ask them for their e-mail address. If following up and keeping in touch with customers or potential customers is important to you, then all employees must ask them for their e-mail address. In addition to their email address, ask them what information about your company is most important to them. Do they want to be notified of new and/or updated products or services you offer? You may also want to add a line on all written materials sent out requesting the e-mail address of people who want to be notified of your company's services or products through your mailing list.

Additional ways to get your list noticed

• Include mention of your new newsletter on all current promotional material such as your business cards, stationery, magazine, yellow pages or newspaper ads, etc.
• Team up with another online newsletter and swap advertising space. My client Ben Kersen & The Wonderdogs has teamed up with an editor of a magazine called The Pet Gazette. They both cooperate to provide helpful material to the same audience.
• Participate on discussion boards that are related to the topic of your newsletter. Position yourself as a helpful person by offering your assistance and this characteristic will draw new subscribers to your mailing list.

The benefits

• constant contact with a list of people who have given you permission to send them your information. Always give list members the option of receiving notifications of sales or new products.
• very inexpensive. no expenses for printing, postage, long distance phone/fax calls, paper you mail or fax
• your newsletter can be used to remind your prospects and customers of your products and services - or to visit your web site for more details on them.
• you may want to profit by selling ad space in your ezine

Getting Started

Select a few ezines from our database to research what and how other businesses present their newsletter.