This will come as no surprise, but I am a great proponent of email newsletters,
especially for business-to-business (B2B) technology companies.
Some
technology providers find themselves ahead of the marketplace, that
is, the space is far from mature and there is a great deal of confusion
about how a given set of technologies competes with or complements another,
more-established set of technologies.
So there is a real need for marketplace education, and it has been
my experience that an email newsletter is one good way to address that
need.
How you should go about this, though, is a subject that might spark
some differing opinions.
When your vice president of sales hears the words "marketplace education,"
he thinks of a slightly less throat-grabbing pitch.
When your chief software architect hears "marketplace education,"
she thinks of long-winded, company-drafted white papers that, in reality,
only the programmers themselves are qualified to fully appreciate.
With these misapprehensions of what an email newsletter should do,
it's a marvel that any good ones are created at all. To those who do
this and do this well every single month, all I can say is, congratulations.
Now for some pointers derived from reviewing several months worth
of various clients' email newsletter click-through data and other metrics.
Lead With Your Best
Sometimes, your newsletter recipient will read all the way to the
end of a given issue. But, generally speaking, we live in dive-in, dive-out
times, during which sustained attention is the exception not the rule.
So, lead with your strongest or most important information.
The Reader Is in Education Mode
Why does someone sign up for an email newsletter in the first place?
Some readers will tell you when asked that they are interested in more
information about the company. But that's misleading. What they're really
interested in is doing their jobs better, raising their professional
profiles, and allying themselves with projects that improve their companies.
Easily 80 percent of folks sitting at their desks are killing time
and spending their professional lives as amiable lint traps. Harsh,
but true.
You're trying to find that 20 percent who are at least semi-awake
and want to try to change things for the better. I'm convinced that
the members of this class are most likely to subscribe.
These folks are information-hungry. Please inform them.
How Not to Inform Them
A company-drafted case study gets a 1 percent click-through rate.
A case study drafted by respected industry-analyst group gets a 2 percent
click-through rate. Putting aside the fact that click-through rates
aren't the be-all, end-all of metrics, what do these statistics mean,
especially if this is a pattern you've seen in a year's worth of data?
The lesson here is one about trust. The reader is suspicious of anything
that smacks of self-promotion. (Of course, people in the know realize
that the use of industry analysts is a dandified, tarted-up form of
self-promotion in which cologne and nice suits are worn. Apparently,
the cologne and nice suits work.)
Thus, if you are determined to not inform your audience, keep putting
out information with the house brand. And, while you're at it, be sure
to push out some recent press releases. There is nothing more boring
than a company that keeps talking about itself.
Venture Off the Topic
I know you. You won't like this. But, occasionally, venture off the
core topic of your newsletter. Let's say the topic is "optimizing your
field service organization." Every issue, make sure to throw in an article
about, for example, business ethics or bad bosses.
Why? Because it's important to remember that your readers are people,
not just job titles. The straight lines we marketers draw -- the tendency
to think in terms of mechanical stimulus and response -- can only take
us so far.
Eventually -- with time and age, I think -- you discover a new range
of possibilities. You enter into true dialogues with those you seek
to serve (and that changes everything).
Take the Measured Risk
Every once in a while, take a stand. Make a bold assertion. Challenge
the reader.
Think of your email newsletter in terms of a musical composition.
You may like massive doses of unrelenting harmony, but let me assure
you that your (and my and everyone's) ears appreciate harmony all the
more because of the dissonances that "need" resolution.
