What You Might Not Know about Starting an eNewsletter
If you're considering starting a newsletter, there are a whole lot of little details that will be important to its success. Our clients are often surprised… and glad that they don’t have to figure it all out themselves. Here are just a few of the things you’ll need to consider.
Return address:
Regulations require a physical address to be included in commercial email. This is not something you can avoid. Most bulk emailing applications will prevent you from sending even test messages without an address.
Sign-Up Form:
Most applications will produce a snippet of html code that is your sign-up form. You need to think about where you’ll put it. I recommend you put it on a web page of its own. Remember that you will be putting links to that page in your newsletter and other places. When people arrive there, don't make them hunt for your form.
Subscribe process:
When creating the code for your sign-up form, you’ll make choices about what information to collect when people subscribe. Some fields can be 'required' and some 'optional'. The more info you ask for, the less likely people will be to subscribe. Don’t ask for information that you aren’t going to use. I recommend you only ask for an email address. The more info you ask for, the less likely people will be to subscribe - it's worth repeating.
Unsubscribe process:
Regulations require commercial email to include instructions to unsubscribe. Make it really easy for people to unsubscribe. And when someone unsubscribes, you want to make sure that you don’t accidentally send them anymore of whatever they unsubscribed from. Many applications have functionality to prevent you from doing that - which is a big benefit of using those applications.
Return address:
Regulations require a physical address to be included in commercial email. This is not something you can avoid. Most bulk emailing applications will prevent you from sending even test messages without an address.
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| example of sign-up form |
Most applications will produce a snippet of html code that is your sign-up form. You need to think about where you’ll put it. I recommend you put it on a web page of its own. Remember that you will be putting links to that page in your newsletter and other places. When people arrive there, don't make them hunt for your form.
Subscribe process:
When creating the code for your sign-up form, you’ll make choices about what information to collect when people subscribe. Some fields can be 'required' and some 'optional'. The more info you ask for, the less likely people will be to subscribe. Don’t ask for information that you aren’t going to use. I recommend you only ask for an email address. The more info you ask for, the less likely people will be to subscribe - it's worth repeating.
Unsubscribe process:
Regulations require commercial email to include instructions to unsubscribe. Make it really easy for people to unsubscribe. And when someone unsubscribes, you want to make sure that you don’t accidentally send them anymore of whatever they unsubscribed from. Many applications have functionality to prevent you from doing that - which is a big benefit of using those applications.
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