When I wrote my first article on e-newsletters in 2003, I had just completed two email newsletter projects that were as different as night and day.  One was an online newsletter that indexed about a dozen articles each day and the other was a bi-weekly email newsletter that carried mainly product information.  The technology in 2003 was changing rapidly as the popularity of email was soaring.

In 2003, I identified five best practices as most important for an email newsletter or e-newsletter:  1) permission-based subscribers, 2) strong list management software, 3) welcome letters for new subscribers, 4) distinctive style and 5) the right format.  Most of what I said in that old article remains valid today, but some updates are needed for new technology today.

As Michael Katz, e-newsletter on e-newsletters, writes “you should encourage people to steal your newsletter” because that is what will build your reputation and if they give you a link, you are getting the bonus of free advertisement.  Michael runs Blue Penguin Development and is one of the best resources around on e-newsletters.  His bi-weekly e-newsletter is a gem.  http://www.bluepenguindevelopment.com/

So my e-newsletter best practices for 2010 are:

1. Think digital not analog. Content today, if is generated on a Web site or blog, is in digital format and is ready to be distributed in multiple formats.  Produce the content in a way that allows one to morph the content easily into other media or formats.  A blog entry about Drupal; that is quickly made into a code example in your weekly e-newsletter; that morphs into a podcast on how to set up restricted areas via Drupal taxonomy. The blog entry allows comments from readers that can refine your own ideas as well as providing topical RSS feeds. You morph the content three more times, once for your Webcast to Drupal programmers and once again as you add another section to your ebook on Drupal Taxonomy for Dummies.   Finally, you drop a short tweet on Twitter to let all your followers know about the blog or ebook.
2. Quality e-newsletters require top vendor support.  I have been working with CoolerEmail.com for many years.  I have watched as the features of the service have grown exponentially to support customer needs.  The e-newsletter manager needs a top-notch list management vendor that is simple to use but strong on maintaining lists.  Not even the most technically savvy person can manage a list with a couple of thousand subscribers unless you have the top tools provided by a mainstream vendor.
3. Know the e-newsletter’s purpose.   Good e-newsletters reinforce branding and customer loyalty.  E-newsletters are not good at selling products.  Showing customers new products that inevitable claim to be better, work easier, save money – just seems self defeating.
4. Let the reader tailor the e-newsletter to their needs.  The New York Times was the first e-newsletter as far as I know to allow the user to subscribe and select the categories of news desired.  An alternative is to offer a group of e-newsletters that offer different content categories that match reader preferences.
5. Offer a link to HTML format.  Many corporate email systems reduce an email to txt and attach graphics images as a way to better scan and remove any malicious scripting that might be in the email.  This process can pretty much smash a good looking e-newsletter.  Best practice is to post a hyperlink back to a Web site copy of the enewsletter.
6. Keep it short.  If you have video or audio components to the newsletter, rather than send those through email servers, it is better to leave those elements on the Web site and use teasers and hyperlinks back to your site for that content.
7. Set a graphic look and usability style that matches readership.  Web pages and emails with large areas of text are hard to read on a monitor and most viewers only  scan the headlines. Readers are drawn into stories with interesting graphics or photos.  Text base e-newsletters face a real challenge in holding readership. Best practice is to provide hyperlinks back to material on the Web site to provide a better viewer experience. Many vendors offer “smart” email newsletters systems that detect the type of email available to users or offers viewer a style based on their email reader preference.  The best vendor systems generate e-newsletters in a CSS style that is “liquid” and adjusts the layout to match the viewer’s email reader window.
8. Email Subject line should grab attention. Do not use e-newsletter name and issue date as the subject line.  The subject line should offer a subject-verb teaser that draws the viewer to open the e-newsletter. Open rates have declined each year since e-newsletters became popular and are now between 10 to 30 percent.  According to Michael Katz (E-newsletter on E-newsletters) you should send your newsletter on days that match when your readers are likely to have time to view.   The worse days are Tuesday and Wednesday and the best day is Friday according to Katz.
9. Use statistics.  Know what is working and what is not.  A good list manager will tell you when readers are not getting the email, when they are not opening the email and what they are viewing in the e-newsletter.  Update and clean your e-newsletter list for hard bounces.  On the other hand know what is working.  If an article shows great popularity (clickthrus), then follow up with similar topics or articles.  Good list management software should be able to show you what hyperlinks in an e-newsletter worked.