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Seven Reasons Newsletters Fail (Business Edition)

Date : 2008-02-20

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Seven Reasons Newsletters Fail

An electronic newsletter is a great marketing tool. It helps you stay connected with customers and prospects, target information to a select audience, build your credibility and increase sales. Yet many companies send out a few issues and then stop because they don’t get the results they want. Why?

Like any other marketing tool, a newsletter only works when a reader pays

attention to it. It must be well written, easy to read, interesting and useful. For best results, eliminate these seven pitfalls:

1. Writing for yourself, not your reader. A self-serving newsletter is like a commercial. The blatant purpose is to make a sale without giving the reader anything in return. Every newsletter should provide at least one nugget of information that makes reading it worthwhile.

2. Poorly written copy. Your newsletter is a reflection of your company. Don’t make your readers plow through grammatical errors, misspellings and disconnected thoughts. Make a positive impression with well-written copy.

3. Fluff. Show that you value your reader’s time by expressing your ideas as succinctly as possible. It’s easy to write long, windy sentences but that doesn’t win readers. Edit your copy until it is short and to the point.

4. Superficial ideas. Writing is a process that entails a great deal of thought before you put any words on paper. Gather facts, connect ideas and understand the message you want to convey to your reader before you begin to write.

5. Difficult-to-read text. Like it or not, most of your readers are not going to spend a lot of time reading your newsletter, regardless of how much time you spend writing it. Make it easy to read and scan with subtitles, bold and italicized type, and bullets.

6. Jargon. Every industry has words that are used to convey technical information quickly. If your audience won’t understand these words, don’t use them. They don’t build your credibility. They only confuse your reader. Build credibility by explaining your topic so that your reader understands what you are communicating.

7. Hit-or-miss distribution. To have impact, your newsletter should be distributed no fewer than six times a year and preferably monthly.

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