Publishing Your Own Newsletter: Part 11
The eleventh of a multi-part series: Before sending out your newsletter, test, test, and then test some more. Alexis Gutzman outlines some common mistakes and how to correct them.
The eleventh of a multi-part series: Before sending out your newsletter, test, test, and then test some more. Alexis Gutzman outlines some common mistakes and how to correct them.
It’s time to begin wrapping up this series on publishing your own newsletter. This week, we’ll talk about the boring, but necessary, testing, and the resources that are out there for newsletter publishers. Next, I’ll discuss getting sponsorships for your newsletter.
Test or Fail
Every newsletter you send is a test of your professionalism, and a reflection on the competence of you organization. Just like this column. The fact that the first 249 columns I wrote had no grammatical errors (actually, readers tell me there was one) doesn’t make it okay for this column to have an error. First-time readers don’t care about my track record (or that of my editors). They would read this, think I’m careless, and click away.
The same goes for your newsletter.
When it comes to testing your newsletter, think of every single issue as a pass/fail exam. If you value your readers’ time, then don’t waste it by sending out any of the following:
Resources
My favorite newsletter about newsletters is Janet Roberts’ List-Universe.com. It’s daily, and a great example of what a newsletter should be: a spoonful of relevant information about a narrow topic. ClickZ also has many useful columns on newsletter publishing. It’s definitely worth subscribing, if you haven’t already.
Alexis D. Gutzman is an author, speaker, and consultant on e-business and e-commerce topics. She’s the producer of The Online Marketing Report. Her most recent book, The E-commerce Arsenal: 12 Technologies You Need to Prevail in the Digital Arena, was named one of the 30 best business books of this year. For up-to-date information about her research and speaking engagements, visit The Alexis Gutzman Group’s Web site.