When it comes to electronic newsletters, JOHN HARRIS shares some of the recipes for success he's learned from eating his own dogfood.

I start this week’s column with a plea to the publishers of the Stellar Women electronic newsletter – please remove me from your subscriber list.
I received my first copy of the first edition of Stellar Women on Monday at 10.13am – the second copy arrived at 10.17am and the third copy at 10.20am. A straggler copy turned up at 12.43pm.

While I appreciated the attention of Stellar Women, I want to stop receiving it for several reasons. Firstly, I hadn’t subscribed to it in the first place, secondly, I’m not a member of its target audience and thirdly, my inbox is already flooded with newsletters and spam emails.

When I clicked the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of the e-newsletter, a hyperlink whisked me to the http://www.stellarwomen.com.au/ website which reported my email address was not recognised.
When I repeated the process a few hours later, it seemed to work – I hope.

Despite my departure, Stellar Women is an attractive-looking HTML newsletter that integrates nicely with its website. The multiple copies I received were probably a teething problem, so I wish it success.

Electronic newsletters provide a useful way to communicate with customers, prospects or other communities of interest.

I eat my own dogfood here because I’ve published an e-newsletter since 1997. It comes out weekly with a photo, three headlines and intros and hyperlinks to the full stories on my website.

It’s a pretty modest offering, as I was informed by a guy selling e-newsletter software who called last week to explain how he could fix it up for me.
My problem is I don’t think it’s broken. Subscribers like it because it’s quick and simple to read and it arrives as regular as wonky clockwork.  Subscribers who don’t like it simply unsubscribe.

The key to success with an e-newsletter is not just graphic design – in fact that can easily get in the way of clear communication.  It’s a simple idea delivered well and observing a few ground rules.

Firstly, obey the Spam Act 2003, which bans sending commercial electronic messages without the consent of the recipient via email, SMS, MMS or instant message. That means you need people to actively subscribe rather than assuming they want to receive your newsletter.

Secondly, make it easy for them to unsubscribe with a button and clear instructions on your newsletter. Without it, all you’re doing is annoying unhappy recipients.

Thirdly, make your content relevant. What matters to a reader is what you’re doing that can make their life easier, whether it’s a new product, a useful tip or an example of success through a case study.

A final tip is to include the name and email address of the recipient in the e-newsletter text. This solves the problem of receiving Unsubscribe notes from people you have no record of, a common occurrence after email to a departed employee is “aliased” (automatically forwarded) to his or her replacement.

John Harris is managing director of Impress Media Australia. Email jharris@impress.com.au.

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