HTML Preview How To Create An E-Business Newsletter page number 1.
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How to Create an E-Newsletter: From Beginning to Send
Establish a Foundation for Success
Step 1: Set Your Goals
Before you do any of the other steps in this how-to manual, you need to determine
what you and your group want to achieve by sending out an e-newsletter. What is its
overall purpose? What are your specific, measurable goals? What does success look
like?
Here are some typical goals for higher-education e-newsletters:
Influence/improve perceptions of your university/school/dept.
Demonstrate the value of the school.
Raise awareness about an imminent or current effort, change, or issue that
requires action on the part of the reader or may affect public perceptions.
Increase alumni memberships and interaction.
Increase corporate investment and partnerships.
Increase commercialization of research discoveries.
Increase donations.
Increase event registrations.
Step 2: How to Measure Success
Your goal-setting process is not complete until you determine what success looks like
for your e-newsletter. That means setting benchmarks for your goals. For example, if
you want to use the e-newsletter to help increase event registrations, what
percentage increase would be considered a success? The other success
measurements you should use are discussed in the Close the Loop section below.
Step 3: Determine Your Target Audience
Now it’s time to decide who should receive your e-newsletter. What is the scope of
your audience? Is it narrowly focused on a particular segment, such as engineers? Or
does it address a wide range of readers, such as business leaders, alumni, faculty,
and hiring prospects? Developing an e-newsletter for a focused audience can be a
great choice for a small department with relatively modest goals. But it isn’t usually
the best choice for bigger departments that need to reach more people. Here are
more details to help you make your decision between targeting a focused audience
or a broad audience.
Considerations for a focused audience:
Pros: Better overall e-newsletter performance, subscriber satisfaction, and
advancement toward meeting your goals. Industry data* on e-newsletter
performance have shown that:
The smaller your subscriber base is, the higher your open rates will be.
The more targeted your content is, the more likely your readers will be to
engage with it and be satisfied with the e-newsletter.
Higher levels of engagement and satisfaction lead to increased likelihood of
readers responding to your calls to action and, as a result, helping you
achieve your goals.
* Source: MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007