eNewsletter Marketing Planning

eNewsletter Marketing Starts with Planning: Lesson #1

Planning is the essential first step in using an enewsletter for marketing just as it is in developing any form of marketing communication or plan.

In enewsletter marketing lesson #1, I’ll briefly set out how a plan can help a small business or a larger company create a successful email campaign.

A client who operates 26 apartment buildings in the greater Pasadena, California area, Barbera Properties, enjoys a low vacancy rate in any given month – less than 2% vacancies and often less than 1% vacancies for over 500 units.

He wanted to drive more traffic to his web site which I helped him achieve through re-writing his web pages, web articles and social media.

I recommended he send out a regular enewsletter.

First, determine your goal

.

I saw his overall goal was building community. He sees the tenants as partners in his operation and he wanted to also connect them with local businesses.

Because of this, I wrote the content in 3 parts: • quick intro from the company founder to the readers, • a spotlight on a local business with a discount,

• and a community-based activity that featured a non-profit organization.

There was also a brief interview running in the sidebar with a local insurance salesman.

The goal of your enewsletter determines the layout, the content, the images, and the call to action

.

Are you sending out factual announcements to customers – or are you trying to persuade them to do business with you – or forward the enewsletter?

I asked a photographer I know,

Samuel Whitworth from Whitworth Photography

, who had taken some custom shots around Pasadena to upload a few of the images into the enewsletter.

He used Photoshop to edit in a custom photo with a template image. This created a banner that was used as the header. We also used custom photos in the body of the enewsletter and in the sidebar.

We also had to determine how often to send out the enewsletter. This is not an exact science. Should it be once a month, once a week, or twice a month?

Again, what’s the purpose for sending it out? A typical landlord who has several dozen tenants could simply send out an announcement-style enewsletter once a month. But for my client, he was wanting to build community and even connect tenants who had their own home-based businesses get some exposure.

I knew more than a dozen businesses to highlight in addition the ones he and his staff knew as well. Once a week would be too often but I felt once a month would be too much lag time. We wanted each enewsletter to also have discounts offered to readers so there would be something of value to them.

We settled on twice a month.

The enewsletter is going to soon head out into inboxes, so we’ll be waiting for the response.

Planning your enewsletter doesn’t have to be an exhaustive process

but laying out a basic plan is essential to guide the development and filter through the opinions of decision-makers involved in the process.