One of the most underrated but easiest ways of reaching your target audience on the Internet today is the e-mail newsletter, or e-mail newsletter. It's an inexpensive and uncomplicated form of 'push' technology that is quickly gaining ground as its commercial value becomes clear. 

From Amazon.com and ZDNet to special interest and small business websites, e-mail newsletters are being used to get return site visitors, promote branding, and generate new customers. 

Any web site and any business sector can create a e-mail newsletter geared towards their audience. With a little thought, your free, brief, regularly delivered e-mail newsletter can soon develop into a database of thousands of people receiving your e-mail missives. 

A Few Do's and Don'ts

Do review the intention and content of your e-mail newsletter: It needs to provide useful information - not a pure brag for your product. 

Do learn how to send it in the simplest format so that your readers, who have a wide variety of e-mail software and computers, will hopefully receive it in an easy to read style. Though HTML-formatted mails are gaining in popularity, If you want to ensure everyone sees the message as you intend, simple ASCII text within the body of an e-mail is still best. 

Do keep it short. Lengthy points should be digested, with a URL pointing to further information. 

Do ensure that you include easy unsubscribe information in each of your e-mail newsletters. 

Don't send attachments or special formatting, such as RTF or HTML files, unless you know that this is what your entire audience can and wants to receive. 

Don't send unsolicited e-mail (spam). You could permanently damage your reputation. It takes a little more work, but you can build your own mailing list of people who want to receive your information.

Don't send an e-mail newsletter out too often. Once a month is a good starting point. You can increase the frequency once a demand has been created.

Building a Mailing List

So, how do you start building a mailing list? 

Begin collecting e-mail addresses immediately, even if you haven't put together the format for the e-mail newsletter. Only include in your list of recipients those who have given you permission to email them, otherwise your mails will be considered 'spam' and this will harm your reputation.

Add a subscribe feature to your site and invite people to sign in, asking them if they wish to receive your e-mail newsletter. You can also add an offer to subscribe to your mailing list to existing forms on your site. Ask existing customers if you can add them to your mailing list. 

Assure all subscribers that you will not pass on their e-mail address to a third party.

Distributing Your Newsletter

If the list is manageable (say a couple of hundred addresses) you can do it yourself. Just remember that it is very bad form to use the 'cc:' feature to more than 5 people. Using cc: for your lists violates your promise to keep subscribers e-mail addresses private, as all on the list can see the addresses! Investigate the 'bcc:' feature on e-mail software, which prevents recipients from seeing the other addresses. 

As your list grows you will have to investigate services and software suited to maintaining mailing lists, which includes the task of adding and deleting e-mail addresses to ensure the list is up to date. (A later article is planned to review some of these. Ed). There are also companies who can create, write and maintain the e-mail newsletter and handle the distribution.

Part II >>

Denise Cox
http://www.esearch.ie

Denise edits a useful ezine called "The Business of E-mail" available at that site.