With everything happening in Social Media these days, it’s easy to forget about proven tools for website engagement and audience interaction. If you don’t already have an eNewsletter in your quiver, it may be time to start one—and if you do, maybe there are ways to make it more effective.

eNewsletters build readership and revenue because they:

• Cost far less in time and money than a print version.
• Get you in front of your audience on a more frequent basis than biweekly or monthly publications.
• Target audience segments. It’s easy to create alerts to deliver articles on companies, industries or topics.
• Increase revenue with advertising and sponsorships.
• Test new products. eNewsletters are an inexpensive and low risk method of testing new products.
• Drive people to your site and encourage interaction.
• Highlight new site features. eNewsletters deliver more than articles; include events, blogs and other content to boost awareness.
• Tailor content to deliver what your readers want. By tracking clicks and other behavior, you’ll get feedback on the content readers read first and value most.
• Work well with social media to increase your brand awareness and visibility, because eNewsletters are easy to share.
• Encourage social interaction and purchasing by reaching people who are already interested in your content.
• Engage readers. Stand out from the inbox crowd by incorporating multimedia, polls and forms that provide a varied user experience.

The most effective enewsletters follow a simple formula that allows you to do what you do best: provide quality content. 

Useful + Engaging + Simple + Authentic

Your eNewletter should provide useful information that directly relates to the needs of your audience. Give them ideas and tools that help them excel personally and professionally.

Use an engaging tone that propels the reader and keeps it interesting.

Don’t overwhelm your readers with too much information. Give them one or two take-away nuggets that will stick with them and entice them to come back for more.

Use your eNewsletter as a platform for showing the true voice of your company. As with social media, people are looking for that connection to you. They want to know who you are.

Of course, you’ll want a content management system that makes it easy to accomplish your eNewsletter goals.  If you spend several hours creating each edition, you’ll be less inclined to test or make changes.  You’ll want to use tools that streamline steps and allow you to focus on content, not delivery:

• Manage multiple eNewsletters from one toolset.
• Create new eNewsletters without programming or tech support.
• Easily insert images and video.
• Insert website articles and other content automatically, without cutting, pasting or reformatting.
• Preview each issue to see how content, ads and your email template looks in various browsers.
• Send to specific lists or list segments to support A/B Testing.
• Review reporting and analytics to improve deliverability, layout and content.

Sure, there are a lot of new tricks at your fingertips, but why not utilize the full potential of the tricks that are already tucked up your sleeve?