1) Minimize exclamation marks. It’s nice to show expression, but don’t get carried away. Keep it professional.

2) Have consistent branding. It’d be a shame to take the time to develop a critical tool in the marketing mix without taking advantage of seeing the bigger picture. Your brand is everything so it should be on everything.

3) Focus on where you place links. Obviously this applies to email newsletters. Take advantage of the Web and link to other stories and even back to your blog or Web site.

4) It’s all about incentives. We’re not saying you should bribe people to read your newsletter, but a little incentive never hurt. got any free giveaways or coupons off the next purchase?

5) Put your subscribers to work. Having a hard time coming up with content? Invite your customers to provide favorite stories, product reviews or even share photos of your products in action (or in different parts of the world).

6) Make it easy for readers to adjust email address. Don’t make them jump through hoops if they want to change or adjust their email address. There’s nothing more frustrating.

7) Tie-in landing pages and other email campaigns. Again, for e-newsletters we’re talking about here. Don’t forget the larger branding picture. Be consistent and repetitive so that people get your messages often and everywhere.

Opt-in is the key. “The only thing we have to fear is….email spam.” Didn’t someone once say that? Ok maybe not. But still, don’t send unauthorized emails.

9) Focus on good content. Develop content that is truly interesting to people. Case studies, success stories, news on the company, sneak peaks at upcoming products; these are all great topics for a successful newsletter.

10) Promote sign-ups on every page. Your email newsletters will often get forwarded around to people who aren’t currently on your email list. So make it easy for these “strangers” to sign on the dotted line!

11) What’s your frequency? How often you send a newsletter depends on what your company is all about. Consumer-oriented companies should send newsletter monthly. More scientific and B2B companies should do quarterly newsletters that offer longer, more in-depth industry stories.

12) Layout should match content tone. The design of your newsletter should be fun with bright colors if you’re a kids-focused company. Medical companies should us more conservative designs with muted colors.

13) Which day of the week to send? If your newsletter is read by people at work, send it out in the middle of the week. If it is for consumers at home, send it on the weekends.

14) Don’t forget photos and video. We’re not saying to load up your newsletter with flash, but don’t be afraid to tell the visual side of your stories, either.

15) Have a message from the president. Your company has a leader. People want to know your company has leadership. Let this come out in each of your newsletters by having a clear and friendly message from the president.

What other newsletter tips can you share here?

Email newsletter campaigns

1) Get a good email list: It all starts with the right email list. Don’t purchase a list or use someone else’s because you’ll likely upset the majority of your list’s recipients – a major marketing no-no. Instead grow your list organically with proper opt-ins.

2) Make sign-up easy: Don’t ever make your customers jump through hoops to do something. Have a clear and simple way for people to sign up and opt-in for your newsletter, perhaps via a link to your home page or landing page. Simply ask for their name, email, company, and maybe one or two other questions to help you determine their interests.

3) Link to privacy policy: Make it very clear that you are committed to protecting their privacy. They need to feel comfortable that you’ll always have their best interest here.

4) Welcome each new member: Give people a nice, warm welcome when they sign up through an automated email. Get them comfortable with receiving emails from you right off the bat.

5) Stay on top of list: Always keep a tight list. You never know when you’ll have to reference details of your list as time goes by.

6) Unsubscribe when necessary: If someone wants off your list, release them and release them in a timely manner. Again, marketing is not about harassing people.

7) Remind people they opted in: Whenever you send an email or newsletter, remind people up front that they did indeed opt-in and request to receive the information.

Subject line tips: Do research to find out which words are most often used by spammers. You want to make sure and avoid using these words in your subject lines because email spam police on most computers will catch on to these words and refuse to let your email through. But also be sure to include catchy words that grab peoples’ attention.

9) Physical address & phone number: The law now requires that you make it very easy for people to contact you and this includes making available your company’s physical address and telephone number. There is no way around this so do the right thing.

10) Content that attracts: Don’t just fill your newsletter with promotions and sale items. Talk about things that would interest your customers, including other customer success stories, happenings in the industry, trend information, etc.

11) Offer incentives: Include giveaways and other contests as part of your newsletter. Include games inside your newsletter so that people are excited about opening it up each month or however frequent you make your emails.

12) Include as part of your loyalty: Reward people for being a member of your newsletter club. Do cross-promotion opportunities with a larger loyalty program that you have and include special offers for members of your newsletter club.

13) Let customers contribute: Like social media, newsletters are best when customers can also contribute. Make it easy for readers to email you with their own content, photos or stories and include the best ones in future newsletters. Make it their newsletter, not just the company’s newsletter.

14) Hold interesting contests: Create some excitement by holding contests that get all your readers involved and excited. Maybe history games and trivia on the company’s background, for example, would be a great place to have people get involved and learn more about the company. Giveaway items to participants and winners.

15) Tie in with PR efforts: Whenever you have company news that you send out via press release be sure to include in your newsletter. Readers want to know about the hard news as well as all the fun feature stuff, too.

16) Photos and multimedia: Don’t just write until the cows come home. It’s important to include great information but be sure to also include lots of photos so that you can engage with your readers on a visual level, too. Since we’re talking email be sure to post videos or link to your company’s Flickr or YouTube site.

What kind of email newsletter success have you had with your small business?

A newsletter is a great way to communicate with everyone involved with your small business – employees, customers, prospects, industry personnel and any other key stakeholders. When developed properly, a newsletter can bring great return from large readership because of its very nature of being informational first, sales second. But in order to develop properly, you have to ask yourself a series of questions. The main questions always revolve around newsletter length and what kind of content.

In my experience, newsletter length is always dictated by your audience. If it’s a consumer audience, you typically want shorter, fluffier pieces since your audience doesn’t want all the details (plus they have a shorter attention span). If the newsletter is for an academic or technical industry, like the medical or legal field, you’ll typically find much longer articles in a white-paper style format containing all kinds of research, facts, stats and perspective from industry experts.

However, sometimes you’re stuck in the middle and you want a good mix of insightful articles and fluffy, short-read pieces. In this case, you’ll want to choose two or three topics for each newsletter that go into good detail (1000-1500 words in length), supplemented with anywhere from 7-10 shorter articles that serve more as industry briefs like an news roundup.

The other thing you’ll want to keep in mind is the frequency of your newsletter. This is all about preference of your organization and/or industry. But keep in mind that if you want to do a monthly newsletter (12 times a year), you’ll want fewer long articles and more industry briefs since you have the opportunity to include more timely breaking news. However, if you move to a quarterly (four times a year), where you don’t have the luxury of having timely news, you’ll then want to have fewer briefs and more long and detailed articles that go into great detail about trends happening in your industry. Here are a few sample topics for these articles:

• Effects of the new U.S. President on your industry
• The environment/green movement
• Economic slowdown
• New legislation being passed and how it affects the industry
• Case studies and success stories

As always, the key to an effective newsletter is all about identifying the characteristics and needs of who you’re writing for. Understanding your audience always goes a long way towards understanding marketing and the tools you have to reach them. And if you find yourself having trouble getting started, you can always do a Google search on different newsletter examples.

Have you had success with developing your own newsletter? Tell us about it here.

They’re neat and all, but how can you really put them to use? They’re filled with all kinds of interesting articles, but you need to build a business. How do you have time to reflect on all kinds of things your company is doing – and spending time writing about it – while you should be researching where to go after new business.

Simply put, newsletters are a big part of the new business process.

Did you know that you’re more likely to get a sale from an existing customer compared to a new customer? If this is the case, did you ever stop to think about how you can entice an existing customer to come back and buy from you again? Newsletters are a great way to accomplish this.

Customers that have already bought from you are naturally a little more interested in your company compared to a company they’ve never bought from. So give them the scoop. Let them know what’s going on with your company. Get them excited about new things going on. New employees in the mix. New promotions being launched. And new initiatives being worked on. It may even lead to some great word-of-mouth marketing for you.

Build newsletters that get your existing customers excited. You already have their e-mail addresses by capturing them at the point of sale. So make use of them!