All of information I’ve described above would not cost much to procure – probably just a matter of a few phone calls, a couple of hours surfing net, and a day or two of someone’s time putting it all together.

Obviously you need to be careful not to use other organizations’ copyright material without permission, but in my experience organizations aren’t all that possessive about their stuff and will cheerfully grant you permission provided that you credit them appropriately. After all, their material isn’t much use if no-one’s allowed to see it.

What a difference this type of content makes to an organization’s external newsletter! You instantly gain respect or your readers, because you’re giving them something tangible without asking them for anything in return. And this can only reflect in one way on your business relationship with them.

Online tips

I’m not quite sure what difference is between e-zines and online newsletters. I think it could be one of those instances whereby everyone has a slightly different idea of what this particular type of communication should do and be called. If you ask that question of three different online comms experts you’ll get three very plausible and totally different answers. As usual I try to find common denominator and in this case, it’s this: in much same way as its paper-based ancestor, onlinezine (how about that for a new word) is a regular piece of one-way communication that supplies its audience with news and updates about you, your organization and your activities.

The online version will be taken much more seriously by its readers if in addition to necessary reminders about your products and services, you also include some genuinely useful and interesting information. However online version, in keeping with most other online descendants of offline media, must be much shorter and far more condensed.

One of primary uses of onlinezines is to “drive traffic to website.” Now in itself this is relatively harmless and provided that everything is done right, it usually works. And then once you’ve got visitors hooked into all your superb content on website you have a captive audience to whom you can sell your own stuff if it’s a company-only site or your advertisers’ stuff if it’s a more open-ended one. Or at least that’s theory.

However as you would expect some organizations get this hideously wrong, and in my view most vivid example of it is online newsletter that comprises little more than a list of URLs with filepaths length of a several soccer pitches. Nothing, but nothing is more irritating to someone like me than an enticing e-newsletter with grabby headlines plus a few words leading into topic and then … nothing. Just a fancy URL which even if you do click on it usually doesn’t connect with page you want on website anyway.

If you’re in a position to choose how an online newsletter is put together and you want to get best possible results from it, please, please remember to put enough into it so there’s something “in it for them.” Of course if you have a website you’ll want to drive traffic to it. But create a realistic balance.

Don’t be so naïve as to think you can force people to click on to your website by dangling a carrot just out of their reach. If they’re anything like me they’ll feel resentful and antagonized by it and will resolve never to visit your site even if dragged there by wild horses.

My own personal preference is standalone variety of online newsletter that makes clicking through to website merely an optional extra. But I know that in a business context this is not as commercially attractive.

So probably next best thing is online newsletters that supply audience with a summary or shortened version of content so they get key points, and refer them to website for further details. That’s an acceptable balance that will encourage people to click through to site if they have a genuine interest plus time to spare, and if they haven’t time at least they’ll remember you and your summaries fondly and be more inclined to click through to site next time.