Youve probably heard this educational philosophy:
Tell me, and Ill forget.
Show me, and I may not remember.
Involve me, and Ill understand.
Almost the same could apply to newsletters, except interaction in a newsletter is more than just about teaching and learning. For newsletter publishers, its a great way to take a pulse on readers concerns and interests.
Often, the more successful college professors are those who interact with students rather than do all the talking. Students know the professor cares about their input and they help control the direction of the class.
Newsletters involving readers give them the chance to share problems and get answers, share expertise and get their name in lights and help give the newsletter direction based on the interests.
Three newsletter experts agree interaction is key
In explaining why Jonathan Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management includes interaction in his newsletters, he says, I enjoy it and it helps develop relationships with people who are potential clients and / or referral sources and / or purchasers of my for-sale materials.
Ken Farrish, president and bottle washer of BCBuilding.info, says, As my hair gets grayer and thinner, I more fully realize that my readers know a lot better than I do on what they do and dont want. It is a very effective and low cost way for me to learn what items and issues I can cover in future newsletters, and also what improvements I can make to my offering and processes.
Christopher Knight, an email list marketing expert with Email Universe, says, Reader interaction builds more reader interaction, just like the law of motion that states what is in motion stays in motion. What is not in motion is not in motion. If readers are interactingmore readers will interact with the hopes of having their interaction published. All readers (even if they dont admit it) have an emotional need to be heard or recognized and acknowledged.
It is clear from these experts that interaction is valuable for keeping readers attention and helping define newsletter content. Here are five ways to persuade reader involvement:
For this article, readers were invited to share their experiences with reader interaction in newsletters. Gotta walk the talk! Bernstein gives readers three ways to interact with his newsletter:
He gives another great benefit of interaction: accessibility. When readers feel they can reach the company behind the newsletter, they believe people are behind the company; this helps build relationships.
Ken Farrish asks for content tips and improvement suggestions, publishes subscriber testimonials and invites readers to submit a personal story.
Acknowledging people by name, publishing survey results, publishing their testimonials and personal stories that link to the issues topic have worked well. The recommend it form and business-related surveys have not worked well, says Ken.
Christopher Knight says, What has worked well is selecting only the best of the submitted comments and giving a comment or analysis on each. This adds value to all readers. What has not worked well is posting every single reader comment. Readers are busy and dont have time to read every comment made.
Maintaining interaction action
Professional Services Journal and The Remediator Security Digest provide several ways for readers to get involved. Readers can submit and respond to the question of the month in the Best Advice column. Also included is a reader survey requesting feedback about the newsletter. The survey has a few questions where the reader quickly chooses a multiple-choice answer. A couple of them are open-ended questions to give readers a chance to share their thoughts. All questions are optional.
Most of the time, readers complete the quick-to-answer questions. However, many readers take the time to share their thoughts. To help encourage readers to respond to the survey and the Best Advice questions, the publisher entices them with a prize. When people complete the survey, their names are entered in a drawing for the prize. Two people win every month: one for the survey and one for the Best Advice response.
Joan Stewarts The Publicity Hound, which covers getting publicity, also uses the Best Advice approach called Help This Hound. Readers write in with publicity challenges and others respond. The questions have covered how to get media attention for: a honeymoon registry, a new free weekly Hispanic newspaper and a new high-rise condo targeting a specific market.
With a name like Hound in the newsletter name, it opens the door for a lot of creativity. Stewart adds a reader-submitted Hound Joke of the Week at the end of every issue. Who says a newsletter has to be dry Not us! Woof!
When seeing a big fat zero
Publishers are happy to open the door for readers to speak their minds and get involved. Unfortunately, some have to shut the door after a few zilches. Its embarrassing for the publisher to find an empty box, no or low responses. What to do
Weve had to deal with this. It isnt an easy situation. After it happens the first time, take a look at the interaction and see if it can be improved. Try again. Maybe it is too specific. Too broad. Takes too much work.
Gauge the results from the second test and make a decision from there. A few issues ago, we had a column called Copy Court and people loved the creativity. We invited readers to find examples of poor copy on the Internet and submit them. Then, we presented it in the next issue for readers to comment on it.
After a few attempts, I nixed the column. What was the problem It required too much work on the readers part. I shouldve known this when I started writing the first article and went searching for an example of lousy copy. It took a lot of my time.
Make sure the interaction isnt a time zapper
Good interaction should take little of the readers time. The Best Advice style columns work well because theyre based on readers experiences, something they can write right up. No research. No looking for anything.
This is not to say all contests and questions fail when readers have to expend more energy to get the answers. Ive played in a few contests that have taken a few hours of my time simply for the challenge and the fun of it.
If there are few responses for a Best Advice column, I work them in, plus I contact experts on the topic and ask them a few questions, which I add to the column to give it more meat. On occasions when the experts arent forthcoming, I quote articles on a similar topic giving full credit to the authors.
When it comes to low response rates on polls and feedback, share the results in percentages. Thats what Ken Farrish does. This method is noticeable in many newsletters.
Its easy to let your ego deflate when the response rate is poor. Look at the data in a different light like Ken does. He says, If I get very low response rates to specific items or requests, I now look at this as valuable data, rather than ego deflation. It shows that the issue / item is not really that important to my readers. I keep track of all response numbers to various surveys and questions to help me plan future ezine topics and / or content.
Reap the rewards of engaging your readers
Interacting with readers is rewarding. Ive gotten to know a few and regularly communicate with them. Ive also gotten to know the editors behind the newsletters. Occasionally, I get a note from a reader who expresses genuine surprise that I responded to her submission along with a thanks.
Even if you never gain business or referrals from a newsletter, the opportunity to meet persons is priceless. Who knows Maybe one person will eventually introduce you to a future client. You can never meet too many people. Letting your readers know there is a real person behind the newsletter is a big step in cultivating the relationship.
is the Content Maven behind , eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesnt wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.
Companies have been focused on using the Internet to market goods and services to the consumer. Many see this as the major revenue stream on the net. But there is an undiscovered El Dorado, a goldmine of opportunity that very few have begun to mine.
Traditionally, companies have tried to capitalize on the Internet by establishing a Web page where consumers can research and buy products or services on-line. These Web sites are elaborate brochures touting the companys many qualities and competencies. A few companies, like Amazon.com, and retail giant L.L. Bean, have turned these online retail brochures into huge success stories. Many companies have tried to replicate this success, with uneven results, stumbling because of a few inherent problems with the Web page.
Web pages are static. They require a potential customer to find them, and once found, to bookmark the page and forget about it.
Some have managed to mitigate these problems with direct email offers. For instance, I periodically logged on to Amazon.com to look at the latest fiction releases. Some time last year, emails from Amazon began arriving in my inbox. These emails announced new releases of fiction, and in some cases offered a discount. Links took me directly to the Web page. In some cases, I have bought books that I might never have bought, or might have bought from elsewhere. I am not alone.
The Motivation to Go Online
More than half of American adults are online. They use the Internet for two primary purposes, email and product research. Almost half of Americans now use email and more than one-third use the Internet to search for product and service information before making online purchases.
Not surprisingly, marketers have been quick to try to capitalize on this effective sales channel. Opt-In News, published by Keaton Communications, recently reported that 54.2 percent of advertisers used emails to promote their products at the end of 2001, making direct email marketing the most used retail channel on the Internet. Almost 60 percent of email marketing campaigns in 2001 were focused on retail.
The report also revealed where the undiscovered gold I previously mentioned will be found. Amazingly, only 20 percent of these companies used email newsletters, and so capitalized on the first use, but failed to make use of the second reason people log online. Email newsletters fuse the two main purposes for which people go, email and research, and its more effective than simple email offers, which often come across as SPAM.
But there is an even larger undiscovered mother lode. Consumers are only a portion, and a minority portion at that, of the users surfing the Internet. Nearly 80 percent of the managers and professionals in the nation use the Internet at work. 70 percent of sales, marketing, technical support and administrative workers use the Internet in their jobs. Again, the two biggest uses were email first, and research second.
Leading the Reader to Read the Newsletter
Given this, it might seem astonishing that the marketers havent begun mining the B2B gold with email newsletters. The reason is that most marketers use the form poorly.
The average businessperson now gets over 50 emails a day. When they open their in-box they have three thoughts in mind which do I read, which I save to read later, and which do I delete without opening
Therefore, the first rule is to only send your newsletter to people who want it. Encourage people in your database to opt-in to receiving your newsletter. This brings us to the second cardinal rule, the newsletter must provide value if they are to continue receiving it, opening it, reading it, and most importantly, acting on it.
Most marketers simply want to beat the company drum, talk about new products or services, tout recent awards, new hires, or promising mergers. But the better strategy is to focus the content of the newsletter on the reader. It is better to pull than to push with your content, better to provide articles that explore issues, engage dialogue, solve problems common to your readers than it is to simply blow your own horn. Americans are so snowed under with advertising that we have effective filters. Anything smacking of a pitch will be screened, the message lost.
Marketers can keep their newsletter in the read and saved column by making sure their content meets the following criteria:
Relevant the content speaks to the customers interests and not your own.
Anticipated Distribute on a regular basis so people expect your newsletter to arrive on a certain day, but dont publish so often they become fatigues with you.
Monitored One of the best benefits provided by online marketing channels is the reporting. Monitor how readers are looking at your newsletter and alter it to conform to their interests.
Email newsletters with timely, interesting articles are more apt to get forwarded, increasing the number of readers with time. Everyone who reads the newsletter and decides to opt-in to a companys list is a qualified lead. B2B newsletters are the latest undiscovered gold in the virtual world.
is the Content Maven behind , eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesnt wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.