Aim to impress and engage your email newsletter subscribers every time you arrive in their inbox

Your email newsletter is likely only one of a dozen email newsletters your readers get every day. That’s why first impressions count every time you send an email newsletter.

Most importantly, the first items your reader will notice are:

The from line: Who is this email from?
The subject line: What is the content of this email about?
The preview pane: Does the newsletter represent exactly what you’ve described above?

Here are three checklists for these three most important “first impression” features of your email newsletter.

From Line:

• The email newsletter from line clearly identifies the sender.
• The email newsletter from line is instantly recognizable to subscribers.
• The email newsletter contains both a display and an actual from address.
• The email newsletter from addresses are consistent from send to send.

Subject Line:

• The email newsletter subject line is engaging and benefit-oriented.
• The email newsletter subject line features something unique in the current issue.
• The email newsletter subject line places the most important information first, so that it’s not missed by readers
• The email newsletter subject line doesn’t sound “spammy.”

Preview Pane:

• The email newsletter preview pane includes a recognizable logo (or in the case of a text newsletter, a brand or company name) in a prominent position.
• The email newsletter preview pane includes a strong, benefit-oriented headline or title to help pull readers in.
• The email newsletter preview pane includes a link to view the email online.
• The email newsletter preview pane would engage the reader and pull them in even if the images were blocked.

Does your email newsletter follow all of the above rules?

If you’re a product-driven online publisher, you know there are numerous strategies for making money with email. The fun (and higher profits) comes with testing, tweaking and fine-tuning.

You can test the email sponsorship model versus the pay-per-click advertising model. Which is more profitable?

You can carry multiple advertisers who pay different amounts based on the position of their ads. Which produces more revenue per thousand subscribers?

Or you can test basic template design. Where should the featured product be introduced? Does an in-line text ad beat a banner ad? Or does a product review generate greater response?

Should you link into the sales letter landing page, or straight into the data collection page? Should you offer the reader an opportunity to “Read more” or “Buy now”?

Any experienced direct marketer, working with an online newsletter editor, can think of 10 variations of the email newsletter template to test. And because we’re all so new at this, typically five or seven out of 10 changes will produce an improvement!

The key to incremental improvement is having a formal test plan and using the right tools to track and measure your results.

We recently re-recorded the Mequoda Pro Online Training Program entitled, “Email Newsletter Marketing — Testing to Maximize Email Revenue and Profit.”

This Mequoda Pro Online Seminar along with our Mequoda Email Performance Report, Email Circulation Calculator, and Email Lifetime Calculator are four of the many benefits of Mequoda Pro membership.

For one all-inclusive price, you can get instant-access to our Email Newsletter Marketing online training program, the Mequoda Email Performance Report, Email Circulation Calculator, Email Lifetime Calculator, ten more business-building sessions, and an ever-growing collection of reports and spreadsheet tools you can use to manage your own business.

Join Mequoda Pro today!

Your email newsletter should provide benefit-oriented content that engages the reader

Successful and well-read email newsletters promote two-way communication and community-building with things like surveys, polls, links to discussion boards and ways to provide feedback to/communicate with the editor(s).

There should be a balance between editorial and promotional content—60%/40% is the rule. The newsletter should be a manageable length to read online, usually 2 to 3 printed pages.

Content and Tools of Engagement Checklist

• The email newsletter provides benefit-oriented content that is written in an engaging manner.
• The email newsletter includes engagement tools for readers, things like surveys, polls, links to discussion boards and ways to provide feedback to or communication with the editors.
• The email newsletter follows the 60/40 rule, with at least 60% of the content being editorial and no more than 40% being promotional.
• The email newsletter is a manageable length to read online—2 to 3 printed pages.

Case Study: Wine Spectator’s Sips & Tips

The editorial content in Wine Spectator’s Sips & Tips email newsletter is superb. There’s no question that readers, even those who aren’t paying subscribers, get value. There are links to free online tools (like the Wine Spectator reviews database) as well as articles and videos. At 64% editorial, 27% promotional, 9% housekeeping, it follows the 60/40 rule very well.

My favorite engagement tool, of all those I’ve encountered, is here – it’s the “What am I Tasting” challenge (screenshot below). Wine Spectator provides a “tasting note,” basically a description of what you would taste if you were sipping a wine. You are then challenged to guess “What you’re tasting” from a list of multiple choice answers.

“What Am I Tasting” Engagement Tool

The screenshot is from the Website; the link to it should be more prominent in the email newsletter – this has real viral possibilities for their target audience. It would be even better if you could challenge folks you know to a friendly competition.

How are you using email newsletters to interact with your audience? Let us know in the comments.

A valuable conference should reach three goals: #1 instructional sessions, #2 actionable take-aways and #3 great attendees.

We’ve got #1 and #2 covered, come to the Mequoda Summit and be a part of #3!

If you think of a conference as a “training”, how do your expectations shift?

When most people think of a conference, they think of multiple tracks, networking, and the hope that they’ll get a few take-aways from each session.

In fact when we were at a conference recently, someone said, “if I get just ONE great take-away, I’ll be happy.”

This is especially true for publishers who attend events that aren’t focused specifically for them as publishers.

Consider how much you spend to attend a conference. $500? $1000? $2000? How much are you getting from your investment? $2000 for just one great take-away?

On more than one occasion, we’ve seen past Summit attendees at other conferences that tell us the Mequoda Summit is the best event they attend all year.

We’re really proud of that.

After all, it’s not just a conference, it’s really an intense two-day workshop. That’s not just fancy copywriting either.

Last year one publisher took so many notes and emailed so many new ideas to his staff during the Summit, that he’s signed up eight people to join him in Boston this year.

In fact, we have tons of Mequoda Summit “regulars” that bring new staff with them every time they come.

So join us at the Mequoda Summit in Boston on October 7-9th and save the rest of your budget for all of the great new strategies and takeaways you’ll want to start working on as soon as you’re back in the office.

After all, what other conference can you attend, where every session offers a take-home tool to use in your own publishing business?

Here are the tools attendees will receive when they attend the Mequoda Summit in Boston this year:

1. Sample Online Market Audit
2. Sample Keyword Benchmark Study
3. Website Template Inventory Checklist
4. Article Release Guideline Checklist
5. Sample Inbound Link Report
6. Sample Email Performance Report
7. Multivariate Testing Checklist
8. Digital Product Pyramid
9. Social Media Metrics Report
10. Online Editor Job Description
11. Sample Key Metric Dashboard
12. Sample Online Business Plan and Model

All of these tools can be customized and adapted to your own business. We also have a bonus SEO workshop on day three that will teach you how to build your own keyword universe and start applying within your editorial strategy.

We know budgets are tight this year. So even more than ever, our goal is to give you the ONE event you MUST attend.

That’s why we’ve even created the Mequoda Reader Survey this year so that you can tell us EXACTLY what you want to learn from the Mequoda Summit. Don’t be shy, take the survey.

When you’re done, register for the Mequoda Summit. Our first early-bird deal will expire soon, and the more people you send, the more money you will save.

See you in Boston! Any questions on what the Summit will cover and whether it’s relevant to your business? Email them along to us and we’ll let you know.

Take the Mequoda Reader Survey and let us know what topics interest you most

As a research company, we’re constantly looking to not only find the latest best practices in our industry, but we’re also always listening and soliciting feedback for hot topics and relevant case studies.

That’s why today we have a “reader survey” that asks what topics YOU are most interested in learning about. Is it social media? Membership websites? Email marketing? Something else?

Let us know! It will only take you a couple minutes and you’ll have our eternal gratitude.

Take the Mequoda Reader Survey.

Conducting user surveys is one of the best ways to got an overall consensus on what your audience is thinking about. Different types of surveys that might be relevant to your own business might be:

• New product surveys - What topics should we create a book about?
• New media surveys - Is our audience interested in video?
• Membership pricing - How much would our audience be willing to pay?

In our case, we’re very interested in what you have to say about the following topics so that we can cater our upcoming Mequoda Summit to your interests. It’s not only invaluable to our agenda, but it also helps shape the topics we write about on the Mequoda Daily as well.

When reaching out to your audience, we recommend gathering information from as many sources as possible:

• Your email list
• Your daily blog readers
• Your Twitter followers
• Your LinkedIn network

Be especially careful not to make your reach too broad though, as there’s a difference in getting tons of feedback, and tons of targeted feedback.

So, do us a huge favor so that we might serve you the type of content that you would like to be served, and take our Mequoda Reader Survey.

All our Google Adsense tips, packaged in a new FREE white paper: Web Advertising Tips for Google Adsense

We put together a nice little 14 page white paper today that includes a bunch of Google Adsense articles, tips and best practices from the Mequoda Daily blog.

Here are a few bits of repurposed content from the white paper Web Advertising Tips for Google Adsense that we packaged together for you so that you can download it to your computer or print it out to keep at your desk.

Is Google AdSense right for you?

Size, in terms of traffic or the number of site pages, doesn’t really matter as to whether a publisher can, or should, become a Google AdSense partner. Quality content is the defining feature. In fact, the program is a great opportunity for publishers with quality content, but limited or light traffic and/or few site pages. In this tip we give you a brief overview of the Google Adsense program and how it’s useful for publishers.

How to Get Banned by Google AdSense

If you are a publisher using Google AdSense, you may or may not know how easy it is to tick off the Google Gods. We’d all like to think we’re honest business people, and we’d never click on our own ads, but you might be unaware of some of the lesser known rules laid out by Google. In this tip we showed you the best ways to get your Google AdSense account suspended.

Google AdSense Design Tips

According to Google, certain locations on your website tend to be more successful than others. In this tip we went over the different “heat maps” that Google uses to show Adsense publishers where the best ad-slots are on any given page.

With these tips (and a bit more), we put together a new white paper called Web Advertising Tips for Google Adsense. Download it today, it’s free!