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I used to hate to sign up for e-newsletters. I tried several from online new
aggregators and IT publishing sites, but they would just inundate me with
machine produced material that was simply a recap of what they published since
the last time they sent the newsletter out. I'd read it once or twice and get
bored. Three weeks later I'd kill it. I have also received several from firms
that evidently had me in their lead list, though I am not sure why. These were
uniformly horrible. Nothing of interest to me. They were like meeting a person
at a cocktail party who answers a simple, polite question with a 10 minute
soliloquy about themselves, but never returns the 'And you...?"
Then I came across a much better way to do it. First of all, don't make the
newsletter about just your business. Believe me, your business may fascinate
you. But for the general public, the additional warehouse space that you
just purchased is probably not going to turn many heads. The people who
work for you are probably great people, too. But I don't really
want to know about their hobbies, frankly.
Make the newsletter about things that people in your general audience care
about. If you are in the technology world, a few pointers to articles about how
technology changes society would be interesting. If your into financial
management there is really no end to interesting articles about how people
manage money today.
Let's take a difficult case, like networking equipment. The nuts and bolts of
networks are not what a casual reader wants to read. But it would be interesting
to hear about how people are using networking in their lives, who is using
networking, the difference that networking makes. There are plenty of good
stories about these subjects online.
Personally, I also appreciate a short review of a book. Even if I have no
intention of reading it, it is interesting to find out why someone else
thought it was good, or not.
Collect your material as the part of your everyday life. Keep it in your
favorites file, if the source is online. When you have 5 or 6 good pieces then
start putting together your newsletter. We also sprinkle in 2 or 3 little bits
about SightLines Consulting, news and event stuff. Once the newsletter template
has been constructed, it's time to put together the campaign.
NetSuite's NetCRM is great for email campaigns. We simply create a query for
all of the companies and contacts that we want to hit, then create the
marketing campaign with our newsletter template and let it fly. Later that week
I can go back and find out who has read the letter, who clicked through it and
who may have responded to it.
It's also really important to follow the rules of the road for email. Don't
use it like spam, and give your prospects and customers the opportunity to
unsubscribe. It is a great way of putting your firm in front of long term
prospects and keeping some freshness in the conversation. Of course, once you
have a newsletter make sure that visitors to your website can opt in easily. | 
