It’s Monday morning, the sun is shining here in Penticton and I’m in “bullet point” mode, so here is a list of things you need to consider for your small business e-newsletter now that I’ve convinced you to start one:

• Create a catchy title that clearly identifies what your customer is going to get and make it relevant to your industry.  For example, a client of ours is a Dog Care Service so we’ve developed a newsletter called “Pads” – it’s cute (like dogs!) and conjures up an image of “from the street”.
• Make sure your company name, logo and contact information is provided somewhere on the newsletter…after all you aren’t going to all the trouble to create a newsletter just for the sake of it!
• Give it a personality.  Depending on the nature of your business, there is no reason why you cannot infuse a little “you” into your newsletter – it will make your message more authentic, thus generating trust from your customer.
• Create a reason for customers to want to keep coming back to you.  In other words, you must offer information/tips/tricks etc. that directly benefits your readers. Information that hopefully they cannot get anywhere else.  This will clearly position you and/ore your as an authority in your field.
• Have at least 1 or 2 350-500 word “meaty articles” and make sure you have catchy titles for them.  Consumers are immediately attracted to titles that have some kind of “number of benefits” to them or “how to”.  For example “5 new healthy cookie recipes for your pooch”  or…”how to stop your dog from barking” (I need that article!)
• Have a section that showcases popular clients. As awful as this may sound, people LOVE reading about themselves!  We are showcasing some of our client’s doggie clients in her newsletter with adorable pics and a few fun facts about them.  By profiling clients, your newsletter immediately becomes viral as our egos propel us to forward the newsletter to friends, family or clients so they too can see the article.
• Include a Q&A section.  Ask the experts style questions always engage the reader to get involved with your newsletter and further underscores your position as an expert in your field.  When first starting out, plant a question or two, to get the ball rolling.
• If your industry has books frequently written about it, you may want to consider highlighting some with a brief book review.  You might even want to do a cross promotion with online book sellers like Chapters, or even a local bookstore (in fact…go local…there are lots of great bookstores in the Okanagan that could use our support!)

Well, this wasn’t exactly bullet point was it?! I’m going to make another latte now.  Stay tuned for Part II of e-newsletter components tomorrow.

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