Much of what I and a former student put in “Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips” also applies to e-newsletters, but people are much more likely to scan (or trash) newsletters that seem irrelevant.
I like e-mail newsletters because they are self-contained — I can print them out and read them offline, or I can download them to my digital organizer (which doesn’t have internet access) knowing that I can read it while standing in line at the grocery store or during my son’s piano lesson, and I won’t feel disenfranchised by the fact that I can’t click a link.
- What A Newsletter Can Do For Your Business
- 7 Formulas for Writing Articles that Get Read
- Writing E-Newsletters that Sell
- Targeted Email Newsletters Show Continued Strength
E-Mail Newsletter Writing Tips (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)
Creating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can always improve…
Nothing in this stack is pressing, but they do include rough drafts of final papers,…
Here’s the underlying problem. We have an operating image of thought, an understanding of what…
Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.
The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.
View Comments
Chris Pirillo's book, Poor Richard's Guide to E-mail Publishing, really helped me give a shape and purpose to my electronic newsletter, The Goreletter (which I still can't believe won the Bram Stoker Award in "Alternative Forms" this summer! Click my name below to check it out). Although some of Pirillo's links and recommendations are a little outdated, the essays in the book cover every angle and really help the would-be newsletter writer have the foresight they need to make the e-letter one that people won't auto-delete or unsubscribe from. (Pirillo, by the way, is also the head honcho at Lockergnome, a computer geek's treasure trove of info...you might find a discounted e-book version of Poor Richard's guide there).
The big problems with sending e-letters, in my view, is improperly administered spam filters, users who are unconsciously over quota in the inbox, and users who don't bother to properly unsubscribe once they've abandoned an e-mail account. Every time I send out a Goreletter, I get thirty or forty bounced messages sent back to me. It's a real pain. But worse, I know that some of those lost readers would still want to read the eletter. So to make sure that folks could subscribe without problems, I set up an RSS feed for the newsletter, and post the various articles and departments that will appear in the e-letter a bit early, as I complete them. It covers all the bases.
Thanks for yet another useful comment, Mike. I did link to the Goreletter on today's agenda as an example.