Why do I Need a Web Site for the Newsletter?

You may be wondering what a web site has to do with a newsletter, and why a web site is even necessary for an email newsletter. Good questions. The complete answers will take just a bit of explanation. In the days of paper newsletters, the newsletter paper copy of the newsletter was the beginning and the end of the newsletter. Once the document was mailed, all you could hope for was that the mail got delivered to the right address, and that the person you were sending to was still at that address. After that, you could only hope for some kind of response, and could only follow up by sending another newsletter or a phone call... both of which were (and still are) very expensive options. Today's email newsletter takes a different slant, and leverages today's electronic connections. When an email newsletter is sent, it is typical to include only the header and first few lines of each article. This allows the recipient to quickly scan the contentent and decide which articles are of interest. Once they select an article, they click the link in the email and their web browser opens, displaying the full article and the destination web site. How is this different from a paper newsletter? Aside from the obvious differences in costs (printing and mailing, versus sending an email), the email newsletter and associated web site overcome the biggest problems of paper newsletters: delivery and feedback. Your newsletter subscribers have already requested that you send your newsletter to them and will receive your publication in their daily email. More importantly, the service you use to send your newsletter will automatically track how many recipients actually receive, view, and read your articles. When they read the full article on your web site, you will be able to view statistics showing which articles are most popular and how many people read them. You can use this information to plan your subsequent newsletter issues, changing editorial course to better match your readers' preferences. And of course there are all the other benefits of having a web site, however what your email newsletter adds to the web site is a stream of visitors... something that web sites that don't have a newsletter spend lots of time and money developing. One more thing The typical paper newsletter goes into the trash pretty quickly after it's been received (whether it's been read or not). That means that all the information contained in the newsletter, not to mention all the effort that went in to creating it, is gone forever. Your web site acts as an archive of your previous articles. Your readers can search for articles that may be of interest to them. And if the web site is set up properly, articles that are likely to be of interest to the reader are automatically listed while they are reading.

Scott Koegler About the author: YourCompanyNewsletter is dedicated to delivering editorial services to your organization. I am ready to work with you whether you are in need of short term help creating your newsletter, or need ongoing assistance with continuing projects. Read More >>

 

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