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eNewsletters: What Every Business Should Know

By: Evelyn Anne Johnston
Published: February 2008

The internet has changed the way we work.

With the rapid and seemingly endless development of internet technology, many businesses are struggling to keep up with the changing habits and interests of their clients. Gone are the days when print ads and snail-mail were the only paths to direct communication with potential customers seeking service or information. The pervasiveness of the internet has completely changed the way we work, communicate and make decisions, and staying up to date on evolving trends often makes the difference between the success or failure of growing businesses.

ENewsletters are the best investment available to marketers today.

Electronic newsletters are possibly the best example of the impact of technology on public relations and marketing. As Meryl K. Evans, the editor of eNewsletter Journal put it, “Five years ago, [eNewsletters] were seen as an isolated customer relationship building tool. Now they’re part of a whole marketing and communications strategy, in which marketers are more comfortable with electronic marketing and the tools available to them.”

ENewsletters allow for frequent and consistent contact with many clients.

The benefits of eNewsletters are many; no other form of marketing has as high a proven return on investment. For relatively minimal cost, electronic newsletters serve to keep clients and other interested parties engaged with and invested in a company’s development and services.

ENewsletter allow for frequent and immediate feedback from recipients.

A rule of thumb for marketing is that six or seven contacts are required before a prospect becomes a client. The process of building (and keeping) relationships can be costly and time-consuming; frequent and effectual interaction with a large number of clients often becomes burdensome or simply impossible. Businesses and firms with well-designed eNewsletter campaigns have an enormous advantage in this area. Weekly, bi-monthly or monthly newsletters allow for repeated and consistent contact with a large number of interested prospects and clients.

An effective newsletter campaign provides not only a direct line of communication to clients, but also valuable and immediate feedback from clients to the company. With an ever-increasing number of ways to see how many recipients actually read each installment, a percentage referred to as an “open rate”, companies can more easily gauge interest garnered from issue to issue. This kind of direct feedback makes it possible for a business to meet the changing needs of their clients more quickly and directly than ever in the past.

The average, acceptable open rate is between 20-40%.

Open rates, the percentage of emails that are actually opened, can become an illusive and sometimes confusing measure of the success of an eNewsletter. Statistics from such email marketing services as Mailchimp, Bronto, Mailer Mailer and Campaign Monitor show a range in results, often linked to the industry sending the newsletter.

• The highest open rates, around 40%, are usually seen with non-profit, religious and art related publications.
• Insurance and e-commerce represent the lowest average open rates, often in the 15%-20% range.
• Generally, an open rate between 20%-40% is considered a healthy average for any industry’s email campaign.

Emails not recognized as “safe” can sometimes be sent to a “junk box."

Over-zealous spam filters and wildly varying email formats can pose significant challenges to some email marketing efforts. The best and most surefire way to get an eNewsletter through is to make sure your recipients mark you as a recognized sender. Reminding readers to make sure your eNewsletter is placed on their “safe” list is a simple step that can greatly increase the percentage of emails clients will actually see.

Spam filters asses emails based on differing but testable criteria.

Spam or junk mail filters rate emails from unknown senders on various criteria in an attempt to keep unwanted messages from piling up in in-boxes. Though these criteria often differ from one mail server to another, there are some basic items that will almost always increase the chance of an email finding its way to the junk bin.

• Subject line containing the words “advertisement,” excessive exclamation points (!!!!!) or multiple dollar signs ($$$)
• Message body with the phrase “money back,” “Dear friend,” “order today,” “check or money order” or “buy now”
• Emails that are comprised of one large graphic, with little or no text

Because each mail provider may use different criteria, email marketing specialists recommend frequent testing of each eNewsletter through various email recipients to better understand what will be marked as junk and what will not.

Email providers display emails in different formats.

Besides the differences in spam filters, mail servers such as AOL, Google, MSN and others also differ in appearance and viewing dimensions. This can cause frustration when an email that looks great in one viewing window becomes skewed or loses picture quality in another. The email-marketing experts at iMedia Connections, Campaign Monitor and Mail Chimp offer a few common pieces of advice to ensure consistent quality to all recipients.

• Keep in mind that many recipients will only view what is in the preview window of their email. Make sure the most important words and graphics are in the top third of the page.
• Use high-quality and relevant graphics. Unrelated icons and clip art images can often distract the eyes from the more important ideas on the page. Make sure the images you use are adding to your message.
• Use your company logo in a visible place near the top left corner of each email. This will increase the recognition of your brand and decrease the chance of your readers mistaking your email for junk mail or spam.

Smaller mailing lists produce higher open rates.

Judicious management of mailing lists and a sharp focus on relevant and creative content can do a great deal to ensure that all interested parties consistently receive information they want. Statistically, the open rate of an eNewsletter is inversely proportional to the size of the mailing list. This is most likely due to the fact that smaller mailing lists are more targeted toward individuals with a known interest in the product or information.

Consistent messages sent to clients with interest in the company will always produce the best results.

Besides being illegal, sending eNewsletters to people who have not expressed interest in receiving them will ultimately work against a company’s image and devalue its brand. An emphasis on integrity and applicability over blatant self-promotion will go a long way in building trusting relationships with clients and strengthening brand identity.

Employee eNewsletters can provide essential information and convey company goals.

This same emphasis on brand identity and relationship building applies equally, if not more so, to internal eNewsletters from management to employees. Creating employee newsletters with consistent messages from the management of a company increases the understanding of company goals and values. Internal newsletters, just like those sent to clients, must be extremely relevant if busy employees are expected to take time to read them. A truly effective employee newsletter should be a first source of new and relevant information and communication from the management or other employees. Key elements of an internal or company-wide eNewsletter should not simply inform, but also motivate.

• Internal eNewsletters should be employee oriented, presenting a unified sense of company challenges, successes and events.
• New information such as new product releases, new contracts or recent awards and achievements should be consistently presented.
• Employees should be able to trust the consistency of internal communications.
• News of management restructuring or changes to benefits should appear in the internal eNewsletter before employees read about them in the local paper.

In this way, the company newsletter becomes a valuable tool, a dependable resource and an opportunity for encouragement, not just one more item in an already full in-box.

Advances in technology provide new challenges and opportunities for email designers.

Advances in digital imaging allow creative professionals to use design technology to maximum effectiveness. Carefully selected media elements, such as photos, graphs and charts add interest and increase the likelihood of recipients taking time to open and read each message. According to Bronto, an email-marketing provider and statistic source, 98% of opt-in email recipients choose to receive html emails rather than plain text. This means that people do, in fact, prefer graphics and quality design to plain text emails and will be more likely to read and remain subscribed to well-designed newsletters.

Microsoft Outlook 2007 presents special challenges to html programmers.

Programs like Microsoft’s Outlook 2007, now used in more than 50% of businesses around the world, impose strict limitations on the kind of html design their clients can view. While this can be limiting to some designers, many see these restrictions as an opportunity to focus on high quality design and tight, well-executed html production. Ben Chestnut, of the Mail Chimp design team, offers this advice:

• Keep a high text/image ratio. If your email does not have a great deal of text, don’t overwhelm it with pictures. If you must rely on images only, make sure the html code is spotless.
• Never send out an “eflier” or any email that is only one large graphic. These emails will almost always end up in the junk mail bin and can often be hard to view through email servers that automatically turn off images.
• Link graphics or text lines in your email to a “landing page” on your website. Use this web page to display more complicated elements such as flash video and sound clips.

Investing thought and planning into email campaigns will make a significant impact on the marketing returns of a company.

As available technologies increase and transform, the importance of creative approaches that stay ahead of changing trends will become more and more important. By investing a small amount of effort in planning a thoughtful and innovative email marketing campaign, companies of all sizes and industries can insure themselves maximum returns in the form of reputation, communication and profit.

Schroder PR oversees eNewsletter copywriting, design and distribution for a number of clients and would be happy to discuss the benefits of creating an eNewsletter for your organization. Contact Chris Schroder at chris@schroderpr.com. Visit our website at www.schroderpr.com.