Business Promotion Newsletters
Business promotion newsletters and ezines can often be the most effective way to
publicize and promote a business, especially a small, owner-operated business. There are a
number of reasons why this is so but, for the purpose of this article, I will just sum up
the main ones.
Marketing Strategy
Firstly, regularly produced and well-written newsletters are wonderful platforms for
demonstrating expertise (on the part of the owner) in a subject. Readers automatically
acknowledge the authority of the newsletter owner (it goes without saying that this is
assuming she has a degree of expertise to demonstrate!). Secondly, regularity of production
establishes credibility that helps overcome the doubt and uncertainty that readers would
have if they were dealing with people they don't know. And thirdly, newsletters can engender
loyalty. Reader loyalty can be every bit as potent as the loyalty that members of a club
might feel, and it comes from the same source: through them identifying with an entity that
offers them something special—something unique to them as a group.
These are really powerful marketing factors. They are so powerful that every small
business owner, without exception, should consider a newsletter as part of his or her
overall marketing strategy. The benefits vary depending on the type of business concerned
but, in general, they center on developing a mutually beneficial and receptive sales
environment in the target market, devoid of any pressure. Once the benefits are understood
it is simply a matter of balancing them against the costs of production and distribution. In
order to determine the costs involved it is necessary to decide which format is going to be
used.
Electronic Newsletters
The number of ezines, as they are sometimes called, is growing at an incredible rate.
Originally, 'ezines' referred only to online magazines; publications consisting of a number
of articles covering a fairly broad range of topics. These often include illustrations,
formatting etc such as those found in the real world—and that they often emulate. Over
time, however, the term 'ezine' has come to mean virtually any electronically published and
distributed periodical, including short, plain-text, relatively focused newsletters. I once
preferred to differentiate between them more easily by calling these 'e-newsletters' but the
accepted jargon now is for them to be called ezines. It is not hard to work out why
publishing ezines has become so popular. For a start, anyone with an Internet connection can
produce one. As a result, there are many that, frankly, are not worth the bandwidth they use
up. To put it bluntly, these are often written by people with scant knowledge of the
mechanics of language (spelling, grammar etc) resulting in text that is barely readable.
Also, the novelty of the medium has given rise to an inward-looking culture that tends to
feed on itself. There is surely a limit to how many newsletters about Internet marketing
even the keenest student of online commerce can digest. Seemingly, however, there is no
limit to how many might be produced, including some written by people with little or no
practical knowledge of the subject. Many of these, like a lot of other activities online,
are the result of some individuals recognizing an opportunity (in terms of numbers, ease of
communication etc) and feeling compelled to do something—anything—to cash in on it.
This is not a criticism but an observation. More people need to think more carefully
about why they want to produce an ezine in the first place. If it is purely a vanity thing,
please don't bother. There are many easier ways to get your name up in lights. If the
purpose is business promotion, however, then it might well be worthwhile. Assuming that the
business is a real-world venture (as opposed to a purely online one) the first
consideration should be whether electronic production will get the best results. The format
works best for businesses with a (geographically) widely spread target market; or with a
high proportion of 'connected' individuals in their target market (such as computer users).
Hard Copy Newsletters
There has been an equally impressive growth in the number of hard-copy (printed on paper)
newsletters produced recently and this can be attributed to the universal adoption of
personal computers. In the last decade there has been a ten-fold increase in the number of
paper newsletters circulated in the USA. A similar trend, though with slightly less dramatic
numbers, is the case in Europe, Australasia and elsewhere. Once again, the main reason is
that anyone who owns, or has access to, a computer can publish one with very little more
skill needed than they already probably have. The figures, although impressive, are nowhere
near as dramatic as those for e-newsletters though. This is not surprising really. After
all, more effort is required because it has to be printed before it can be distributed, and
more money is needed to cover the costs of paper, printing and distribution.
The other side to the coin is that paper has a vestige of authority and permanence that
online publications cannot match. The electronic format is still distrusted because it is
perceived to be too easy to fraudulently manipulate documents and too easy to accidentally
erase them. You might well consider these issues to be irrelevant in the case of newsletters
but it is the perception that matters.
From a practical point of view the format is often not an issue. If the target market is
confined to a small area or if the people that make up that target market are not likely to
be online in large numbers, then hard copy is the obvious choice.
© 1999 Mike Alexander (Revised 2003)
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Mike Alexander is the creator and owner of '101 Newsletter Answers', the 'How-To'
place where the focus is on 'Power Communicating' with newsletters. http://www.101newsletteranswers.com
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