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Six Easy Steps to Getting Publicity for Your Small Business
By Marcia Passos Duffy
Part 6: How to Effectively Use e-Newsletters
Now we'll look at using your website to capture potential customers’ email addresses to
give them information they find useful.
If you have a website and aren’t capturing your visitors’ email address you are missing
out on the most important element in creating a website in the first place – connecting
with your potential (or current) customers.
After all, how else will you know who has visited and really wants to connect with you?
E-newsletters have been a wonderful boon to small businesses that may not be able to
afford to send out a regular paper newsletter (which costs money to design, print and
mail).
An e-newsletter is just a matter of setting up a system to capture e-mail addresses, writing
a newsletter, and then sending it out. The cost: Just your time.
Setting up a system to capture email addresses is the first step. Ask your website designer
to add a link or box to collect email addresses for a double opt-in list (a list where the
person signs up, receives a confirmation and clicks to confirm), or you can create a list of
your own using services such as iContact or MailChimp.
But, the harder task is really this: What will you write about?
First, keep in mind that e-newsletters are friendly mail that promotes your business in a
non-threatening (or overly heavy-handed way).
Think of an e-newsletter coming from your business as a way to provide help and advice
to your current or potential customers. You can intersperse some promotion about new
products or services -- but first and foremost the e-newsletter must provide something of
value to the reader!
It is NOT just a huge ad for your business. If this happens, you will soon find yourself
with no subscribers. People don’t like to be “sold.”
Look at some of the e-newsletters you already get and see what you like about them. Do
a Google search on other businesses in your area of expertise and sign up for their
newsletters if they have one. Write down notes about ideas of what you’d like to include
in yours. Decide if you want to make it seasonal, monthly, bi-weekly, or if you think you
could handle writing one weekly.
My advice to you is to start with a seasonal or monthly newsletter – you can always
publish more frequently later.
(You can take a look at my newsletter, The Heart of New England, for ideas.)
And what will you write about?
Well, do you make food products? How about a monthly newsletter with recipes using
your mustard, jam, maple syrup, or whatever you sell. You can solicit recipes from your
readers. You can even provide a contest for the best recipe and give away your product
as a prize.
Do you create some kind of a craft? If you make jewelry, for example, perhaps you can
provide some tips on what kind of jewelry looks good with each season, provide advice
on what colors are “in” for the season. Take a gemstone of the month and talk about its
properties, etc. Again, provide an incentive for your subscribers to participate -- a trivia
quiz perhaps -- with a pair of earrings as the prize for the first correct answer.
There are many fun and creative ways you can set up your e-newsletter. Make your
personality shine with little anecdotes about your life -- you don’t need to get too
personal -- but it is a way for your subscribers to learn a little more about you and trust
you.
And trust in cyberspace – and in “real” life – is everything when trying to generate sales!
Next: Part 7-How in the World Does a Business Use Facebook?
About the author: Marcia Passos Duffy is an independent writer and publicity consultant.
Learn more about how she can help your small business get recognized!
By Marcia Passos Duffy
Part 6: How to Effectively Use e-Newsletters
Now we'll look at using your website to capture potential customers’ email addresses to
give them information they find useful.
If you have a website and aren’t capturing your visitors’ email address you are missing
out on the most important element in creating a website in the first place – connecting
with your potential (or current) customers.
After all, how else will you know who has visited and really wants to connect with you?
E-newsletters have been a wonderful boon to small businesses that may not be able to
afford to send out a regular paper newsletter (which costs money to design, print and
mail).
An e-newsletter is just a matter of setting up a system to capture e-mail addresses, writing
a newsletter, and then sending it out. The cost: Just your time.
Setting up a system to capture email addresses is the first step. Ask your website designer
to add a link or box to collect email addresses for a double opt-in list (a list where the
person signs up, receives a confirmation and clicks to confirm), or you can create a list of
your own using services such as iContact or MailChimp.
But, the harder task is really this: What will you write about?
First, keep in mind that e-newsletters are friendly mail that promotes your business in a
non-threatening (or overly heavy-handed way).
Think of an e-newsletter coming from your business as a way to provide help and advice
to your current or potential customers. You can intersperse some promotion about new
products or services -- but first and foremost the e-newsletter must provide something of
value to the reader!
It is NOT just a huge ad for your business. If this happens, you will soon find yourself
with no subscribers. People don’t like to be “sold.”
Look at some of the e-newsletters you already get and see what you like about them. Do
a Google search on other businesses in your area of expertise and sign up for their
newsletters if they have one. Write down notes about ideas of what you’d like to include
in yours. Decide if you want to make it seasonal, monthly, bi-weekly, or if you think you
could handle writing one weekly.
My advice to you is to start with a seasonal or monthly newsletter – you can always
publish more frequently later.
(You can take a look at my newsletter, The Heart of New England, for ideas.)
And what will you write about?
Well, do you make food products? How about a monthly newsletter with recipes using
your mustard, jam, maple syrup, or whatever you sell. You can solicit recipes from your
readers. You can even provide a contest for the best recipe and give away your product
as a prize.
Do you create some kind of a craft? If you make jewelry, for example, perhaps you can
provide some tips on what kind of jewelry looks good with each season, provide advice
on what colors are “in” for the season. Take a gemstone of the month and talk about its
properties, etc. Again, provide an incentive for your subscribers to participate -- a trivia
quiz perhaps -- with a pair of earrings as the prize for the first correct answer.
There are many fun and creative ways you can set up your e-newsletter. Make your
personality shine with little anecdotes about your life -- you don’t need to get too
personal -- but it is a way for your subscribers to learn a little more about you and trust
you.
And trust in cyberspace – and in “real” life – is everything when trying to generate sales!
Next: Part 7-How in the World Does a Business Use Facebook?
About the author: Marcia Passos Duffy is an independent writer and publicity consultant.
Learn more about how she can help your small business get recognized!
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