Email newsletters, or e-zines. We all subscribe to one or two or ten. Some are good, some are awful. Some I can’t live without and read faithfully. (Two of them, actually). Some get a quick glance from me before I discard them. And some of them are so useless that they are forwarded automatically to my trash folder without even hitting my inbox (because I can’t remember my password to unsubscribe).

What separates the two that I read from the half dozen or so that I’ve forgotten about because they do pass go and do not collect $200?

In a word, value.

The two that I read faithfully are rich in value. I save them. I blog about them. I talk about them. I forward them to friends. And I do all of these things because they have something relevant to say. They communicate great ideas that are important to my business. They don’t just talk about something, they give step-by-step implementation ideas. They don’t just have a short blurb and linkout, but an entire article, plus a question and answer section and a quiz, and lots of other stuff, too. And embedded in those e-zines are ads for the service provider who is distributing the newsletter. I don’t mind that because the content is so valuable that I’m willing to buy from them.

So what about the other newsletters? There are some that I skim and discard. Those are hit-and-miss (usually miss). They might aim to provide value but fall short and usually just talk at me with marketing messages that are disguised as value messages. They provide little value.

And the ones that are on “auto-trash”? They have headlines like: “Don’t forget to buy our new gadget!” and basically communicate a sales message without even trying to provide value.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate someone who tries to sell me something. But the newsletters who are on the latter “trash folder” list forget that a huge element of sales is communicating the benefit of your product or service to the prospect. Well, I’m the prospect and they are not communicating benefits; they are simply asking me to buy over and over and over again.

Do you have an e-zine?

If you don’t have an e-zine, you might want to consider it as a way to communicate with your prospects. It can be a powerful medium that helps you to keep your name at the forefront of their minds. Maybe they won’t buy today or tomorrow, but your ongoing communication will make it more likely that they will buy at some point. Check out email distribution sites like ConstantContact.com or StreamSend.com.

If you do have an e-zine, take a hard look at it. Are you delivering the value that people want? Or is your newsletter on auto-trash? Try adding a new feature or two to communicate value. Take a poll and ask your audience what they want to see in your newsletter. Look at other newsletters that are doing a great job and emulate their high-value approach. And, before you hit “send” on each and every newsletter, ask yourself this important question: “What is the value that my readers will get from this issue?”. If you can answer it clearly, press send. If you can’t answer it clearly, rewrite!

photo credit: AForestFrolic