How to transform your printed newsletters into their online equivalents: Part 2

In last week’s post, we looked at a fundamental change in approach to the old way of producing newsletters for an online world.

This week we examine the kinds of tools you will need to get the best bang out of your eNews buck.

Many organisations mistakenly think that simply attaching a PDF Newsletter to an email sent via Outlook or equivalent is the online way to send a eNewsletter.

But as we pointed out last week, not only does this approach risk not getting to participants at all but it fails to take advantage of the myriad of benefits a truly integrated and web-savvy eNews approach can offer.

Beyond sending PDFs

So to properly leverage these benefits, you will need the following tools as offered in most Email Marketing Systems (EMS).

A great Email Marketing System will not only allow you to create news pieces that are designed for online consumption, but will (in no particular order):

Be personalised to each participant (ie. “Dear Craig”).
Be able to be sent in unlimited quantities.
Be scheduled to be sent in advance.
Include statistics of opens and forwards, etc.
Be Spam Act compliant.
Drive traffic to your website.
Allow participants to adjust their own subscription settings.

Integration again important

Best scenario of all is when your EMS is integrated with the rest of your website platform and Content Management System. This means that all your recipients are stored centrally for purposes like statistics, sign ups, change of details, extranet entry, sales database, eCommerce records and so on.

This customer/stakeholder record part of the system is known as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

Integration with your Content Management System also means that you minimise re-formating between your eNews and your website version of the same content.

Useful EMS features include:

Personalisation – the ability to automatically address the individual recipient.
WYSIWYG Editor – A “what you see is what you get” editor that allows considerable control on the “look and feel” of the eNewsletter while being easy to use.
Scheduler – Allows you to create the eNewsletter at one time but have it sent at another.
Approvals – Allows an administrator to view and edit the eNewsletter prior to send (also known as Workflow management).
Statistics – Full data on eNews opens, forwards, click-throughs, etc.
Plain Text option – Allows recipients who can’t receive an HTML eNewsletter a plain text version instead.
“On the fly” build – Allows you to assemble a newsletter from pages already published on your website.
Recipient detail access – Allows recipients to access their details online and be able to adjust them.

The more of these tools that can be included, the more flexibility you will have in creating and improving your eNewsletter over time.

Many EMS allow you the choice of either a template or customised design which allows those on a budget to still create an acceptable result.

Cost

Given the benefits they can provide, these days EMS are very affordable indeed. For small numbers of emails per month you can get a free plan, ranging up to several hundred dollars a month for a state-of-the-art service.

One of the best pricing models to look for though is a set monthly fee for unlimited “outbound” emails, allowing you to send as many emails as you like to as many recipients as you like.

Once you have these tools at your disposal, you can then focus on the subject of next week’s topic – planning and preparing your eNews content.

In addition to being a leading eBusiness educator to the smaller business sector, Craig Reardon is the founder and director of independent web services firm The E Team which was established to address the special website and web marketing needs of SMEs in Melbourne and beyond.