Keep customers informed with an email newsletter

Do your customers know what’s going on in your business? How can you inform them of that press release or that award in a low cost way that’s non intrusive? Most businesses know they need to have an eNewsletter, indeed, many have attempted one, only to find that it doesn’t go out on schedule, the content isn’t quite perfect and it ends up taking ages to get right. This is where the free web service Nouri.sh really helps.

Here are our top tips to ensure you keepsubscribers subscribed and maximise open-rates and click-throughs:

1. Segment your subscribers: This is probably the best tip. Different readers want different information. Give some thought to your different groups of subscribers. For example you may want to use separate campaigns for: Customers, Prospects, Leads, Suppliers, Partners and Investors. With Nourish you can have multiple campaigns, each using a different feed category from your chosen blog(s).
2. Give subscribers multiple schedule options: You might have daily / weekly / monthly campaign options. Some people want to be in the know, while others want an occasional summary.
3. Use at least 1 image per article: Make it visually appealing, but not overly visual so that it reads like a promotional email. This can normally be achieved by adding images to your RSS feed. Put some effort into the image quality, photoshop images to enhance colors if needed.
4. Summarise everything: Instead of sending out whole articles in your newsletter, use the ‘read more’ tag to allow readers to get the gist of each article, then if they want to read it they are more inclined to click the link and before they know it customers are reading around your website to find out what’s new. Most blogs have the ‘read more’ tag built in.
5. Don’t send less than 3 items: If you don’t have any news, don’t bother your subscribers. It’s better that a campaign is skipped than sending a newsletter with 1 or 2 summarised items. If they don’t like either article there’s a high chance they’ll unsubscribe. If you don’t write a lot of content, it’s easy to syndicate someone else’s, just use the RSS feed from your trade association. Nouri.sh lets you use multiple RSS feeds for content in your newsletter.
6. Write good content! Sounds simple but in the haste to get news published it’s so easy to make mistakes. Always ensure your articles are proofed. Also too often we see over-optimised articles. Write for your audience with catchy headlines, don’t write for the search engine. Exclude optimised articles from your newsletter.
7. Encourage a debate and use Social Media:  If your readers post comments on your articles/posts/news get back to them, answer any questions show that you appreciate their readership. There’s nothing better than having someone else promote your news for you. Make it easy for readers to tweet your news, include links to your LinkedIn Group or Facebook Fan page for example.
8. Give something away Having a competition is a great way to get and keep subscribers. If you can afford to give away something good like an iPod or a case of champagne.
9. Use a neat template: A good template doesn’t need to be a work of art, it just needs to give the email a reliable structure, visible in a host of different email clients. Also use a text only version so Blackberry users can read you newsletter. Most good email syndication tools will take care of this.
10. Use a trusted server or service provider: It’s easy to get your server blacklisted if you try to do your own campaigns from Outlook. A web application like Nourish will mean your email comes from a white-listed server and that the email is trusted, thus avioding the junk filter.

We all know that we should be in front of our customers more. The chances are that you have great news, case studies and plenty going on, Nouri.sh makes sure that your customers know about it, best of all, it’s free!