Considering an Electronic Newsletter?

Many marketers are discounting the value of printed newsletters. After all, you can post newsletter information on the web quickly and easily, so why bother with a printed newsletter?

With more and more companies cutting their printed advertising budgets and increasing their presence on the web, many company newsletters have been scrapped. Unfortunately, these companies are losing a great source of customer interest and loyalty. As more and more newsletters are moved to cyberspace, printing a professional, content rich newsletter will allow your small business to stand out from the crowd. Web newsletters may be less expensive to produce, but printed newsletters have several advantages over their web counterparts.

First, studies have indicated that the amount of spam and unwanted email is becoming overwhelming for the average consumer. Busy lifestyles and time constraints lead more and more people to push the delete button on web based newsletters, even if they initiated the newsletter subscription. There is simply too much information in their inbox for them to process.

Secondly, the way consumers read and review web content is very different than the way they process printed information. Research has shown that web based articles and newsletters are quickly scanned for information, not read completely. Most of your content will be scanned over.

Finally, web based newsletters are not retained and referred to like printed materials. Even if the information that you include in your electronic newsletter is useful and interesting, it will most likely be deleted as soon as it is scanned.

In the age of the internet, a printed newsletter can be read, enjoyed and retained by your customers. Including an offer or useful information will increase your newsletters “shelf life” and give you an edge over your electronic newsletter competitors.