Newsletters need to have meaningful content for the readers that will make them look out for the next issue. If all that they get is company propaganda they may not be interested in the newsletter after a while. So what can companies do to prevent this.

#1 Avoid the temptation of presenting only company information in the newsletter. Readers can after all come to our website and read all about us, including product datasheets, product announcements, customer wins and corporate overview.

#2 Prioritize content that is of personal interest to readers and may even have nothing to do with company products and services. It could be about managing personal finance, planning for vacation, upcoming events in the city or even hobbies. Customers like companies that know their customers.

Newsletters need not be all about news. In fact no news is good news. It puts the focus on the readers and their interests.

Send us your own favorites!

One way to reduce this anxiety is to constantly reassure the customer. It could be an advertisement that shows how peoples’ lives improve significantly after purchasing the product or it could be a follow up call from customer care asking about satisfaction levels with the product.  It could even be a training session organized for new customers. The same friend was thrilled after she attended a baking class organized by the company that had sold her a state-of-the-art microwave oven a few years ago.

This is a good marketing practice, but quite often companies forget to do it. Even companies that do practice it during good times tend to ignore it during crises, when customers need to be reassured the most.

I bank with at least 5 banks, who had been somewhat prompt in following up with me during the first few days of my relationship with them. But not one of them of them has reached out to me, during these tough times, to reassure me at a personal level why I should not be worried, or even if I should be worried, why I am in good hands to tide through the crisis. Today, all my opinions (and fears) about the sustainability of banks that I bank with are based on reports in the media which should set the alarm bells ringing for them. In fact, I have now stopped making new deposits with any of the banks.

In case you have not had a reason or chance to reach out to your customer in a while, this might be the time to get in touch with them. Reassure them, tell them all the good things that you have been doing for them, and of course, about the not so good things happening around us and why they should be cautious but not worried!

I subscribe to a large number of newsletters and am subject to a whole lot of unsolicited mail as well. As a marketer, unless something is outright offensive or from someone who has ticked me off in the past, I tend to read okay, maybe not read, but glance quickly through, mails from known commercial sources. Which brings me to the topic of this post.

Earlier this morning I received an unsolicited email from you, with the subject “Get complementary domestic return tickets when you buy Overseas return tickets.” I have been your customer for eight or nine years now. And it is only recently that you have begun emailing me — what I can best term as — flyers. In essence, you have re-purposed the flyer you produced for snail mail (which I received along with my monthly bill in hardcopy)  into an ALL image email. Of course my mail client blocks the image, and what I see is this.

Notice, the creative folks at your agency have divided the image into four segments for faster loading, however no one seems to have bothered defining any ALT text, so there’s no way for me to know what this email is about, or whether I want to open it. Unless of course they felt that the subject is so compelling that I’d bother loading the image or clicking through “If you are unable to view this email please click here.” I will admit, I did load the images to view your email to me, but was not happy about it.

Last week it was a health insurance pitch and today it was this promotion with Air India. The kicker that drove me write this open letter was at the very bottom of your email, almost an afterthought which read,

Firstly I can’t unsubscribe, by just clicking a link that says Unsubscribe! I actually have to email you with REMOVE as my subject – guess I can do that. But you will take approximately two to three weeks to unsubscribe me! I had to read this thrice to make sure that I had read this right. If the whole point of emailing me is to leverage the power of this medium, clearly that doesn’t run all the way back to your database and unsubscribing me immediately!

In summary,

What worked
Sender’s name was recognizable “American Express” &
Subject told me something about what the mail was about

What didn’t work
- Using physical mailer as an all-image email content
- no ALT text usage
- non-intuitive & slow unsubscribe option