HAVE a guess when my newsletter goes out? If there is one thing I stress to any website owner big or small it is the importance of offering a newsletter service.
The graphic above features the stats from April 2008 for my website This French Life and clearly shows the increase in page impressions each Wednesday when I send my newsletter out to readers.
It doesn't have to be anything too flashy, if anything the simpler the better as ISPs' spam busting tools are getting increasingly voracious, so all I do is list the stories from my site over the past week, have a short line explaining the piece and a link directly through to the page on This French Life.
Sticking to a simple template it takes me about five minutes to prepare and around 10 minutes for the newsletter service I use to send them out to subscribers.
Another key element is the free ebook I give to those who subscribe to the newsletter by way of a thank-you for their email address and then I ensure I turn up every week in their inbox.
Here is an example of this week's newsletter you can download and use as a template, This French Life Newsletter.
There are a number of paid for newsletter services out there, many of which offer a free trial period and if you are trying this out for the first time test them hard until you find one that is suitable.
Ultimately you want a service that you can quickly understand and use so that it is easy to place your newsletter in front of readers, who are then clicking through to your website, which is where you want them really.
For a completely free service that uses an RSS feed as the basis of the newsletter check out the options available from Feedburner.
Other simple tips I would highlight are to make it as simple as possible to subscribe, do you really need name, surname, postal address? It's a newsletter not a passport application.
When people are ready to buy from you, and they've come to trust you thanks to the newsletter, you will have to ask them for all these details once again anyway.
Also don't make it difficult for people to unsubscribe, it might not be a reflection on your website maybe it's just a change in their circumstances.
And at the same time make sure people are aware they can forward the newsletter to their friends.
I am a big fan of making the writing you've already produced work harder for you and a newsletter is one way of doing this, so don't pass up the chance to be in front of someone when they need you.
Hi Craig,
The area of newsletter's is something I have been mulling over for a while, having just taken up blogging and enjoying it, I can really see the sense in your final comment "make the writing you've already produced work harder for you". Plenty of food for thought in your excellent article and thank's for the tips on Feedburner and sharing the fact that you use a newsletter service.
Posted by: Gill | May 30, 2008 at 14:49
Hi Gill, as you can tell I am a big fan of a newsletter.
Another reason, which I didn't mention above, is should your site be knocked down search engine results you still have a direct connection with readers.
And as a freelancer I do think that with many of the publishing tools out there you can definitely make your writing, or whatever you create, work much harder for you.
All the best,
Craig
Posted by: Craig McGinty | May 31, 2008 at 11:17