What is a newsletter and why would I want one?
Newsletters are bulletins/periodicals that are distributed to members of a business, society or organization. Newsletters are great for keeping in touch with customers. Newsletters are also very useful for businesses that offer niche products or services because it reminds customers that the company exists. Newsletters also capture customers email addresses for marketing purposes. Businesses can use email lists to send out promotional information as well as newsletters.
How is newsletter different from an RSS email subscription?
An RSS Email subscription is tool to help readers get blogs through the mail. These are very useful for people who work 9 to 5 jobs because many of those people do not have access to a standard RSS feed. Newsletters are fundamentally different than RSS email subscriptions because what can be sent does not need to be tied to a specific blog post. Newsletters let business owners send out whatever they want whenever they want. This makes it possible to send out special promotions to existing customers.
Is your business ready to create a newsletter?
Newsletters are a real commitment for a business. Sites should not solicit email addresses for a newsletter if the business is not ready to deliver one. People are likely to unsubscribe from an newsletter list if they have not heard from the company for a long time. Potential customers can forget why they subscribed for the newsletter in the first place. Nobody is impressed if the first newsletter is delivered months after subscribing. Newsletters can be very effective for businesses, but only if they are committed to maintaining them.
What is the effect of a newsletter on SEO?
Newsletters push a website up in search results. The trick to using a newsletter to improve SEO is creating an archive for the blog. Each article in the newsletter can become a separate entry on a company’s site. One of the most important things a search engine looks for when it evaluates a site is the total number of pages on that site. An electronic newsletter kills two birds with one stone; it helps a business keep in contact with customers and also improve search engine ranking.
How will I deliver the newsletter?
This is a question of how time a business is willing to put into the process. One option is to hire a professional company. Companies like Mailchimp.com will help you manage your contact list and deliver your email for you. People who are willing to invest more time into the process can save money by taking care of some aspects of the project themselves. Software like Aweber help companies manage the process inhouse. Companies that use web management platforms like WordPress can utilize custom plugins to obtain email addresses and send out newsletters.
