Newsletters Customers Want to Receive

Now that we have discussed best practices of a profitable newsletter and setting up a powerful eBay Store newsletter, let's put some profit optimizing into it, OK?

As I've said before, you can send newsletters to a huge client list, but if you don't understand some underlying basics about how your readers are responding, you are simply wasting a lot of time.

Before we get to some more of those areas, let's do a quick overview of a few of the benefits of utilizing an eBay Store newsletter:

Number of newsletters

Consistency is the key to sending out newsletters. With 5,000 newsletters a month included with your eBay Store subscription, you can send out a newsletter every seven days.

Types of newsletters

There are basically three types of newsletters: those you write and send manually, those you write that are sent automatically for you (called autoresponders) and those that are sent by eBay for you.

• Your newsletters: These are newsletters you create yourself. Remember, your customers have requested more information from you—they have opted in to participate in your marketing. But don't just pitch to them; allow them to experience the world you're selling. Write recipes if you sell home goods. Provide patterns if you sell crafts.
• Autoresponders: Set this up once and reap the continuous rewards of engaged customers. This allows you to communicate with your newly signed-up potential customers without having to do anything. Remember not to leave money on the table with this one.
• eBay newsletters: Just say no. When you set up a promotional sale via eBay Stores, the sales page has a section at the bottom that asks if you would like to send a notification of the sale to your readers. This box is checked "yes" by default. Please unmark this. If you let eBay control this newsletter, then your reader receives a newsletter that looks like everyone else's—same title, same body, same everything. How do you think a potential buyer is going to perceive an impersonal automated newsletter? How would you?

You have the basics, now let's fine tune your profits and get your customers engaged with your business.

Aren't your customers worthy of more?

When you first start with a newsletter in your eBay Store, it's titled "General Interest." This means when your customers go to sign up for your newsletter—you know, the one that benefits you—they are being greeted with a nondescript, blah, beige, boring nonenticement title.

You can have up to five different newsletters to which customers can subscribe. For most of you, one is going to be plenty. However, sometimes having a second or third one makes sense. (Remember, you will need to be consistently communicating with any customers who are signed up, whether you have one newsletter or five). In one case, a shoe seller had two newsletters. The first was titled, "Deals on all of our Shoes." The second was for a niche marketplace they had targeted and was called "Deals for Nike Shoes only."

First, change "General Interest" to something more enticing:

• Go to Manage My Store.
• Under Store Marketing, click Mailing List.
• Under Mailing List, you will see a newsletter list called General Interest. Click the Edit button to the far right to change this.
• Choose a name that will allow your customers to know what they are signing up for—and that will entice them.
• Click Save.

You can add another newsletter subscription in the same area by clicking the Mailing List button.

Do they even know you have a newsletter?

Don't make your buyers work at participating with you. Allow them to easily see their marketing choices and entice them to join. You can do this a number of ways on eBay:

1. Promo Boxes: A while back, I wrote an article all about promotional boxes. There are so many uses for them. But one of the must-do rules of your promotional boxes is to create one above the fold for your newsletter sign-ups.
   
   Creating a promotional box is quite easy, and you can follow the instructions at the link provided above. Yet, I rarely see eBay sellers utilize the value of one of their two above-the-fold promotional boxes for anything except their products. Wouldn't you rather sell to a customer over and over again via your newsletter rather than just once via a product in a promotional box?


2. Listing Frame: Make sure you have a link to your newsletter sign-up in the listing frame that is included in all of your listings. To do this:
   • Go to Manage My Store.
   • Click on Listing Frame under Store Marketing.
   • Scroll down to the "Customize your store listing" header.
   • Ensure the box next to "Link to Sign up for Store newsletter" is marked.
   • Click Apply at the bottom to save your changes.

Put yourself in your buyer's shoes

You are a buyer. So, think like one when you want to be a successful seller. What do you like about receiving newsletters? What do you dislike about them? What causes you to unsubscribe?

Here's some food for thought: 46 percent of people unsubscribe from newsletters because the content isn't relevant to them. What in your newsletter is relevant to your customers besides your pitch? Could you include timely articles about your products? What about a list of the top 10 ways to use one of your products? Have customers sent in photos or videos of themselves using your product? If so, include these.

Remember, your customers are very busy. How can you add value to their world, instead of just being another newsletter interruption, or noise in their inbox? What will make them want to open your newsletter, and not hit the Delete or Unsubscribe button? What will get them excited enough to share with their friends and also purchase your products?

Are you starting to see why newsletters can be profitable, but that you really have to know how to use the power of them? I'm starting to see some great newsletters show up as we have gone through this series! Nice job.

Next month, I'll show you how to utilize an outside newsletter service for your blog, Web sites and Facebook. In the meantime, you can learn more in-depth information about newsletters by checking out NewslettersWorthGold.com.