Are you writing your e-newsletter for your customers or your Mum?

Have you ever received a letter meant for someone else and opened it by mistake? As soon as you start reading it, you realise it's not meant for you. The first clue is that it is addressed to someone else. Usually we stop reading at this point, but if we carried on out of curiosity, we'd find references to people, places and things that are meaningless to us. The letter has no useful purpose for us because it wasn't intended for us. The information is irrelevant.

Yet that is exactly what many businesses do with their e-newsletters.  They send information out that's not relevant or interesting to their readers.

Why would any business owner do this?

We get excited about our business especially if it has grown out of a passion or hobby.  All the minutiae and ins and outs are endlessly fascinating to us.  We want to share it with the world.  Your Mum will listen avidly.  Unfortunately your customers or potential customers may not be so enthusiastic. Finding lots of new customers like your mum is going to be an uphill struggle so you're better off finding out what excites or concerns your existing customers.

What can you put in your e-newsletter?

Coming up with topics for our e-newsletters can be a struggle.  The first thing to think about is what will interest, entertain, or surprise your readers. Using our own judgement is risky.  We are coming at it from a completely different perspective. If you don't know what your customers care about, you need to ask them. 

How can you find out what topics will interest your readers?

As an e-newsletter is often about educating, engaging or establishing long term relationships you can think a little more laterally.  For instance if you sell honey, do a quick brainstorm for topics connected with honey.  Go as wide as you want.  You might come up with a list like this:-

• honey recipes
• medicinal uses of honey
• history of honey making
• using honey in cosmetics
• how bees make honey
• current reports on bee populations
• bee keeping societies
• bee keeping
• where to buy honey
• qualities of different honey
• your bees
• swarming bees
• poems about bees
• songs about honey/bees
• bees in literature
• bees around the world
• bee images
• bee videos

To find out what interests your customers you could do a quick phone survey.  Pick one or two good customers and ask them. Don't assume – ask. If they want honey recipes or bee cartoons, go out and find some.

Without understanding who your readers are and what makes them tick, you can waste valuable resources producing e-newsletters that only your Mum will want to read.

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