Writing email newsletters

by Dave Riches

Why write an email newsletter?
How do I write an email newsletter?
What should I put in my newsletter?
What software should I use?
Should I use HTML or plain text?
What does 'opt-in' mean?

Why write an email newsletter?

An email newsletter is a great way to stay in touch with your customers. An email arrives from you on a semi-regular basis; if they aren't busy it is a welcome diversion and if they are they will read it later or delete it. You give them the opportunity to automatically unsubscribe at any time, so they don't need to let you know when they don't want to receive it any more. Banks, airlines and telecommunications companies are all using email newsletters to keep in touch with their customers - you should be doing it too!

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How do I write an email newsletter?

Either you write it yourself or you pay a writer to do it for you. If you keep them short (which you should!) then a professional writer can do the job at an affordable cost. You need to have some idea of your customers and what they would find interesting so that you can brief the writer. Subscribe to some online newsletters and see what other people are putting in them.

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What should I put in my newsletter?

Anything you think your readers and customers might find of interest. It doesn't have to be business related either. Keep the content fresh and make it useful. Some ideas to get you started:

• Useful or unusual internet links
• Computer tips
• Summaries of relevant news stories
• Jokes can be good (but keep them tasteful!)
• New product reviews

Try not to use your newsletter to 'hard sell' your business to your readers. If you introduce a new service or product though, by all means let them know. End your newsletters with a short statement on your products and services plus your contact details.

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What software should I use?

There are different ways to run the back-end of email newsletters but they all have the same function - to automate the list management and make it easier to administer. If you don't mind the advertisements that come with them, there are a range of free newsletter or mailing list providers on the internet. These use a web-based administration area and include Your MailingList Provider (probably the least commercial), ListPower, NotifyList.com and ListApp. Your MailingList Provider also has a premium version which is ad-free and reasonably priced.

You may like to consider a solution where the list is hosted and managed by a small business specialist like Constant Contact. Monthly rates increase with the number of subscribers but lists of up to 50 contacts are free.

If you are reasonably confident with web page design you should be able to install and run a PHP script (if you want to know more about programming with PHP take a look at the PHP home page). Our newsletter uses MyMail, a PHP script written by the guys from CodingClick. It is a free script and works very well. There are plenty of other scripts in PHP and other languages at HotScripts.

There are also commercial programs that can do the job for you such as eNewsletter Pro, PostCast and MailWorksPro. They either run on the web server or on your desktop.

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Should I use HTML or plain text in newsletters?

HTML newsletters look like a web page and can make use of graphics, different fonts and other web formatting techniques. However, there are some problems with sending HTML newsletters as email:

• the file size is larger
• the risk of viruses and email worms
• there are email client incompatibility issues

The ideal system is to provide your readers with the ability to choose what format they prefer. This requires a more powerful program to manage the list and you will probably need to format a plain text and an HTML version, which is more work.

Plain text emails look identical on different email systems such as Hotmail, Outlook, Palm computers and corporate email like Lotus Notes. We use plain text because it suits our company and our readers. It's an individual choice but sometimes the simplest way is the best way.

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What does 'opt-in' mean?

All email newsletters should use an opt-in approach. That means subscribers enter their email address and then have to validate the address after receiving a link to click in their email (subscribe to our newsletter to see how this works). This prevents your list being abused with fake sign-ups and makes sure your readers really want to receive the newsletter. You should also make it simple for readers to unsubscribe to your newsletter, preferably by having a link in each email newsletter you send them.

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More email newsletter ideas…