By Debbie Gregory.

Is sending a regular newsletter at the top of your marketing to-do list? No?

Regardless of what type of business you have, in order to keep customers coming in your door, ordering on your site, or calling, you need to stay in their minds and in front of their faces. Your past customers are or were interested in what you do.  They care about what you have to say, and they care about how your business can impact their lives.

Email is the easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to keep your business popping into their heads when they need your services. A good email newsletter can help you by:

• Generating leads
• Keeping your customers close
• Keeping you in their mind when they need your products and/or services
• Opening a dialogue
• Offering more for your customers
• Gaining a loyal following

The challenge is getting the customer to actually open and read the newsletter. So how can you ensure that they do? Below are three “golden rules” to follow that will greatly improve your newsletter’s impact:

1.) Grab Them with A Great Headline

Leave out boring email subject lines such as “ABC Company Newsletter” and be a bit more creative. Take something from the newsletter content and make a fun title out of it. You need to make the reader WANT to open and read the email.  You need to engage their interest.

2.) K.I.S.S. (Keep It Short & Sweet or also known as Keep it Simple Stupid)

Newsletters are a place to grab attention to direct the customer to perform an action such as to call you, click a link, buy from your catalog, etc. Keep the actual newsletter content short and the send the customer (via link) to the longer article on your blog or product page on your site. Make sure that the tone is tailored to your audience and that you include colorful and high-quality visuals.  Additionally, make sure you educate a bit (without being too pushy).

3.) Quality NOT Quantity

It doesn’t matter how many people you have on your list, if only 1% is actually looking at the newsletter. Make sure that your content is compelling and tailored for the audience you are sending it to. It is better to have 10 people who truly read the newsletter and click your links than 1,000 that trash it without even opening it. Also, be sure that you aren’t OVER emailing people.

Try to think about how much email you personally receive and look at the types of emails you click on, which ones you read, the links you click to read or learn more about something. Think about what entices you to read and click and apply similar methods to your emails.

In today’s hyper-connected world it can be difficult to engage and have users stop for a moment and pay attention to your marketing message. Follow these “golden rules” and you will definitely see better results from your newsletter campaigns.