Turning Clicks Into Customers
By Debbie Weil
69pp. Washington, DC: WordBiz.com, Inc. $49.
There is no shortage of people offering online marketing advice. Every downsized dot-comer is scurrying about trying to figure out where they went wrong while at the same time flinging words of wisdom to others who may just be entering the Internet marketing maelstrom. Standing head and shoulders above such dubious counsel are the opinions of professionals who have been in the online marketing trenches for years.
In "Turning Clicks Into Customers", Debbie Weil gives us the benefit of her vast experience and quick wit to set forth an invaluable treatise about online copywriting. Not merely a rehash of stale ad agency tactics, Weil has assembled an up-to-the-minute gem that covers everything from copywriting for search engines to copy for text ads and e-mails. This is invaluable advice that can be put to use immediately, and well it should.
Of particular interest is Weil's section on e-newsletters. The growth of e-mail newsletters has been exponential. Penn Media, the 800-pound gorilla of online newsletters, has over 62 million subscribers to their various newsletter offerings. That's a lot of news and a lot of exposure.
Overall, newsletters fall under the rubric of Customer Relationship Management or CRM. While CRM newsletters are indeed marketing vehicles, the best ones contain information of perceived value about a pertinent topic. As a customer communications tool, e-newsletters are unparalleled. They can be distributed at a very low cost, they drive subscribers back to Web sites to learn more about a particular topic, and, of course, they can generate revenues through paid advertising.
Naturally, free enterprise being what it is, nobody should actually expect to get a "free" newsletter that's really free. After all, these newsletters are designed as vehicles to establish and maintain customer relationships. Invariably, there's going to be some advertising thrown in for good measure. As Weil succinctly puts it: "Be honest here. If your e-pub is primarily a promotional update on what's new with your products and services, then a promo blurb followed by a link back to your Web site may be most appropriate."
Newsletters often have other advantages. If the news is particularly memorable, the newsletter is often forwarded to other people by the recipient, thereby garnering additional exposures to the advertisements. Moreover, some e-newsletters are printed and saved, guaranteeing additional exposure.
The potential drawback to e-newsletters is that it does limit creative options. Many e-mail newsletters are text only and the advertising space available is limited to a certain number of lines and characters. But an all-text ad that is saved and forwarded is often preferred to a highly styled HTML e-mail ad that gets deleted before you can say spam.
Finally, e-mail newsletters provide marketers with targeted exposure on a regular basis. While consumers may understandably become annoyed with frequent e-mail ads, a weekly newsletter they've asked to receive faces no such resistance. Indeed, a weekly or even daily e-newsletter is often welcomed by the recipient. The key is to provide subscribers with genuine value and not simply a transparent advertising vehicle.
Web content sites are particularly enthusiastic about HTML newsletters because they create an opportunity to extend the site's reach from the Web to the more private (and potentially personalized) space of the e-mail box. HTML newsletters also create new advertising opportunities, drive traffic to the site and strengthen the relationship between the site and visitors. Instead of waiting for prospects and customers to visit their sites, marketers can "push" the site to them. HTML allows advertisers to present their brand right in the e-mail. With HTML messages, advertisers will also know whether and when a message was opened. But as Weil wisely reminds us, "You'll probably want to stick with HMTL 'lite,' avoiding heavy graphics and other fancy visual elements. That way your readers can still print out your HTML e-newsletter and read it offline."
Given all these wonderful things about newsletters, it's surprising that more companies aren't using them - or at least using them well. As with any other form of marketing, the quality of the output is directly proportional to the quality of the input. In other words, garbage in, garbage out.
Thankfully, we now have Weil's pithy words to guide us. By carefully reading Weil's superlative advice, marketers should be able to make their copy both enjoyable to read and profitable. The best of both worlds.
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