“Gaily bedight
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.”

– Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe

Businesses don’t have to journey long to find Eldorado of marketing. Most companies start right by establishing a Web site. However, some don’t make the most of having a Web site or build it without considering the requirements for building successful Web sites.

Some build Web sites more like elaborate brochures touting the company’s many qualities and competencies. A few companies, like Amazon.com, and retail giant L.L. Bean, have turned these online retail brochures into success stories. Many try to replicate this success with uneven results.

Web pages tend to require prospects to find them. Then, if the customers find them, they forget about it when they need something.

A few businesses counter these problems by complementing direct email offers with their Web sites. For example, a reader visits Amazon.com to look at the latest fiction releases. Later, the reader starts receiving emails Amazon announcing new releases of fiction, and some accompanied with a discount. These emails contain links taking the reader to the Web page.

Mining Internet for Prospects

Almost three-quarters of American adults are online with half of those having a high speed internet connection at home according to Pew Internet. They still use the Internet for two primary purposes, email (93 percent) and research to find information or driving directions (over 85 percent).

A JupiterResearch report indicates that over 40 percent of email users say that email compelled them to make at least one online or offline purchase. The report also emphasizes the importance of delivering relevant information in emails. Combine email marketing efforts with social networking to have the greatest impact. JupiterResearch also reports over half of business professionals with decision making power say that advertisers have the best chance of reaching them by internet and email.

A successful online marketing plan takes advantage of all online marketing tools including emails and social network sites. A newsletter should contain links to the company’s blogs, RSS feeds and social network identities and vice versa.

A Return Path study states that 85 percent of business people sign up for emails. Furthermore, marketers can reach them on the go as an Exact Target study in 2007 reports one-third of business professionals read emails on mobile devices on a regular basis. In 2007, Wall Street Journal writes that 81 percent of American executives subscribe to business-related email newsletters for product and business information.

What do all of these numbers say? Email and Internet are important marketing tools.

Compel Readers to Read the Newsletter

Business professionals get over 50 emails a day with plenty surpassing the 100 emails mark. When opening their email, they have three thoughts in mind:

• Which do I read?
• Which I save to read later?
• Which do I delete without opening?

Rule number one: send your newsletter to people who want it, so encourage readers to opt-in to your newsletter.

Rule number two: provide value in your newsletter so they continue subscribing, opening, reading, and acting on your emails.

Most marketers want to thump the company’s chest by talking about great new products or amazing services, touting recent awards, or announcing new hires or mergers. However, the better strategy focuses on the newsletter’s content.

Pull rather than to push with your content by offering articles that explore issues, open dialogue, and solve problems your readers face. Do you care about Company ABC blowing its horn? Americans receive too much email, so they trash anything smacking of a pitch.

Keep your newsletter in the “read and saved” by making sure your content meets the following criteria:

• Relevant: The content speaks to the customer’s interests and not your company’s.
• Anticipated: Distribute on a regular basis so people expect your newsletter to arrive around a specific time, but don’t publish so often they tire of hearing from you.
• Monitored: One of the best online marketing channels benefits is reporting. Monitor how readers are looking at your newsletter and alter it to conform to their interests.

Email newsletters with timely, interesting articles have a greater likelihood of readers forwarding them to others, which increases the number of readers with time. Everyone who reads the newsletter and decides to opt-in to a company’s turns into a qualified lead. Business to business newsletters remain an Eldorado in a Web 2.0 world.

As the Edgar Allan Poe poem ends with one modification…

Down the Valley of the Shadow,
“‘Ride, boldly ride,’
The marketer replied-
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’”

Yvonne Russell rustles up a great discussion about email subject lines. Though email has become a standard tool in our communications box, I still see subject lines (or lack thereof) that could easily send a person’s email into the spam or junk folder. So here’s a list of bad subject lines (or good if you don’t want the person to read the email):

1. [blank]: Many people scan their inbox by reviewing the subject lines. Seeing nothing in the subject line doesn’t make always them more curious. Instead, they skip it because they figure it’s not important or it’s spam. Sure, they might recognize the sender’s name, but they might not look in that column first.
2. Hi, Hey, Hello, How are you?: Spammy spammy spammy. Even a catch up email needs a better subject line. Capture the main subject of the email. If it’s small talk and catch up, then use “Catch up” or “Checking in.”
3. Today: But I might not see the email until tomorrow and then I’ll be confused. This applies to “tomorrow,” “Tuesday,” “Next week.”
4. [First line of message]: Some people start their email in the subject line and finish it in the first line of the email. It doesn’t work well because they still have to look at the body of the email. Put the main point of the email for later scanning. People save emails and scan them by looking at the subject line. Who wants to open every email until finding the right one?
5. [Name of newsletter or company]: Actually, it’s good to start a newsletter or company email with the name because many people set filters to send such emails into the right folders. Don’t stop there, though. Add the topic of the email after the name (you can filter by the first part) so if someone recalls an email covering ABC and wants to find it — it’ll be in the subject line.
6. FW: Re: [Old subject line]: After a couple of back and forths about one topic, an email conversation can easily take on a new direction. I’m guilty of this when I get absorbed in the discussion, but then I catch myself and change the subject line. I don’t think it’s necessary to write “Re: [New topic] Was [old topic].”
7. Check this out, I think you’ll like this or some variation: I had to break this habit. When I find a web site to share with someone, I would put this in. But now, it’s turned into a spammy line. Instead, put the topic of the resource.

Anything else? Add yours.

When you or a kid signs up to play a sport for a season or to take music lessons during the school year, do you quit after a couple of lessons because you’re not good enough? Of course not! Most of us know it takes months (even years) of practice to get better at something.

My son would disagree. He expects to be good at something NOW or forget about it. I took up tennis three years ago because I longed to play a sport again and there weren’t any volleyball or softball leagues to be had. I was embarrassed by my play for at least a year, but I kept at it.

You see, I grew up playing sports. That was my thing. I lucked out that I turned out to be a good player in several team sports. Sports gave me confidence and made me feel like a normal person — not a inferior deaf person. To boot, I was good. So my team appreciated my efforts. It was nice to feel wanted.

Newsletters and Sports

What does this have to do with newsletters? People give up “before the season is over” and fold their newsletters. They take time to get going and once they do, they strengthen your relationship with your clients and to-be clients. They trust you more with each tidbit you give them in every issue.

My little meryl’s notes newsletter doesn’t have many readers for a newsletter that’s five years old. In the beginning of its life, it didn’t come out on a regular basis. Now, it goes out every one to two months. I don’t work hard to promote it. I focus on client newsletter’s instead and theirs grow to five or six figures.

Making the Time

Whenever we talk to a new or a “we hope to land soon” client, we take care to stress the relational aspect of newsletter marketing. In fact, we go lengths to tell people that it takes time to build a list, time to develop trust, and time for people to feel comfortable enough to make the contact to initiate a purchase.

We say this because we believe it. Wholeheartedly and without reservation. We also believe this is the only way to be effective. (Well, another way is to have tens of millions of dollars of VC and ….. wait, that didn’t work well, eh?)

We take the time to advise people how to start newsletters, get the list rolling, and begin building the relationships with prospects and customers and, over time, they reap the rewards.

Since we spend lots of time doing this, you’d think we are calm folks, sipping cafe lattes while waiting patiently (yeah, right) for our brilliant marketing strategy to work. Right? Unfortunately for our poor stomachs, the answer is a resounding, “nope!”

Patience, My Dear

Hey, finding new clients today is a rough ride. The end rewards of newsletter marketing are great after taking the time to get the ball rolling to see the effects. We like to say, “It’s like a locomotive. It can take a while to get rolling, but once it does, it pulls a lot of weight.”

The knee-jerk response to moments of slow sales, or prospective sales, is to renege on the principles behind newsletter marketing and hunt for prospects rather than maintain the farming system put into place. Occasionally, we become tempted to throw our own advice out the window and, in a knee-jerk reaction, hunt rather than farm.

Dealing with Slow Results

Here is how to cope with such moments and get our minds back into gear, where we can pay attention, once again, to our own logic:

• Look at the number of new subscribers: Nothing makes you feel better than to look at the number of new subscribers. It gives you a warm fuzzy knowing that people respond to the message and choose to opt-in to the newsletter. We think that every new reader is also a potential client and colleague.
• Look for reading patterns: Next to new subscribers, nothing gets us juiced like checking out how people are reading the newsletters. This tells us that we have done our jobs properly and people do find the newsletters valuable. (We give each other high-fives here.)
• Look at the statistics for our Web site: In the final analysis, the only stat that matters is new orders or new service requests. But farmers know that “you reap what you sow.’”We look at the total number of visits to our Web sites, see if people are visiting the “right page” (the page with our free offer), which other pages they look at, and which continents from which they come.
• Plan a strategy of attack for the next round: Two things we never lack are ideas and energy. We have them both in good supply, we constantly put our ideas out there, and suggest new ways to bring clients on board. This helps lots because — at a minimum — it distracts us and gets us working on something. Always a good thing.
• Review our current client list: We love this because it confirms that things works and more good things will come.

Tasks like these are the keys to building and maintaining your trust in the newsletter marketing philosophy. It’s not quick and easy. It’s not a marriage proposal on the first date. But, over time and through repeat contact, it does work and we build and deepen our relationships.

Lesson: When you believe something is true, and you advise others to act in accordance with that truth, make sure you walk the talk.

So I keep on practicing tennis and my son sees that. I can only hope my actions will help him realize it takes lots of practice to succeed. All of my teams have come in last place. However, when I played in a progressive league over the summer (in the end, it’s individuals who win), I came in second!

I tell my son about my teams’ losses and wins focusing on the fun I had and putting my skills to work. It paid off and I’m confident that I will see more winning seasons just like you’ll see wins from your newsletter.

• 42 HTML email design resources: Trying to get a newsletter to look the same in all email clients is a lost cause (more in this post) — but you can at least make them appear decent.
• Community Mottos and Nicknames. Sure, most of us know Philly is the City of Brotherly Love, but did you know Fort Worth (my hometown) is “Where the West Begins” and “Cowtown”? Believe it or not, few of us wear cowboy boots and hats.
• Profiling Your Target Market: Shame on me… this place targets a broader audience than it should, but I’m OK with it and I hope you are, too.
• Wordle: Word clouds [Link: OnlineMarketerBlog]
• Making an Arguement for Misspelling. Yes, that’s how the Times spells argument — in jest, of course.
• Freelance Writing Success: Your Way or Mine?
• We Tell Stories: Six authors, six stories, six weeks.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Fly over the mountains. Watch out… people who get dizzy easily (me) might not want to do it for more than a few seconds. Let your cursor do the piloting.
• How elderly people see television remotes: At least, for the next 20 or so years. By then, us elderly folk will be pros and unafraid. Instead, we’ll be afraid of anything that’s not battery- or electric-powered.
• Cake decorators who follow instructions … literally. [Link: GoodExperience]
• Daddy is smart… hires a tiny art director. [Link: GoodExperience]
• In honor of school starting — Not on the Test. Lyrics.
• Gadgets on Discover.

I started the tradition of sending a holiday letter in 1997 or maybe before, but I have no proof. Originally, I sent cards and write a short note. Since I enjoyed reading letters from others, I thought I’d do the same and the annual letter began.

Took the lazy way out this year and didn’t bother with handwritten notes and printed address labels instead of printing addresses directly on the envelopes. I’ve got to address 200 invitations by the end of the year for a big family event coming in ’07. At least, a non-handwritten letter is better than no letter, right?

After I printed 25 copies of the letter, I found a typo in the first sentence! I just mailed my letters yesterday. I wrote, “In spit of …” instead of “In spite of…” Awful! Instead of wasting paper and ink, I just added the “e.” Hey, I did do a little handwriting after all.

The media has been reporting on annual letters and newsletters whether people like them or get annoyed with the brag-fest. I like receiving them because they tell me what’s going on in my friends’ lives. I try to stick to honesty when writing the letter and make sure the letter doesn’t sound like the showing off or bragging. But I do include photos of the kids in every letter. That won’t go away. So holiday letters… good or bad?