E-Newsletter Basics Still Work
Kevin O'Keefe, whom I admire and respect, has raised doubts about my Oct. 4 post "Who Says E-Newsletters Don't Work?" Kevin, for one, apparently thinks they don't work.
Kevin's comments are marked in brackets.
>>Larry, I am surprised you would inflate the open rate on your email newsletters as a way to show their effectiveness. <<
I didn't "inflate" the open rate on the newsletter. I just reported what the counter code recorded. I would have no reason to exaggerate my stats. That would be dishonest.
>>Open rates for email newsletters can be bogus. The open rate is generally tracked through the use of a tiny invisible graphic that sits on the publisher's server. When a recipient opens the publisher's email, the tiny invisible graphic is downloaded, and each download is detected and marked as an open.<<
The hidden counter code in the Professional Marketing e-newsletter is actually contained on a Web page -- so that a recipient must actually click on a link, taking them to the Web page, before the visit is counted. It is very common for people to forward my e-newsletter, otherwise why would there be more unique visitors than I have subscribers? The total visits are even higher, because after people read one article, they click on a second link on the Web page to read another article.<<
>>Email recipients generally use use the preview feature of their email client. In preview mode, the email will go ahead and grab the invisible tracking graphic and therefore register as having been "opened." The recipient, however, might never have really opened your email, or even glanced at it. The same thing happens when the email newsletter is forwarded.<<
I doubt that the open rates are bogus. Most people have the preview feature of their email turned off as a security measure, because they don't want to inadvertently accept a virus. Based on the responses I get to the newsletter, I'm certain that the numbers are genuine.
>>Email newsletters still play some role in law firm marketing but their role is declining. Large firms using blogs & RSS say the blogs cost less and are having far greater impact than their previous email newsletters.<<
To the contrary, there are articles that say that email newsletters are better than blogs as a marketing technique. See "Why Ezines Still Beat Blogs" dated June 6, 2005 by Christopher Knight at http://emailuniverse.com/ezine-tips/?Why-Ezines-Still-Beat-Blogs&id=1287 .
>>...when was the last time you saw people writing articles on the net referencing someones newsletters?<<
This month's cover story of Law Office Computing is "Read All About It - Effective e-newsletters take the marketing lead." So e-newsletters are still a hot topic. Besides, I still use Listserv technology, one of the oldest communications tools on the Internet, and it is incredibly effective. Just because tool isn't new doesn't mean it doesn't work. Often, just doing the basics is the best approach.
Not saying that they do not work Larry. When I speak and write, I tell folks that email newlsetters play a role but a diminishing one.
I am still not one to buy the open rate of 124% and it's kind of silly to say email newsletters are better than blogs based on an article written by a guy who sells newsletters - guess you could say the same for me.
Maybe it's better to say that blogs play such a different role than email newsletters with 80% of journalists having used blogs as a source and 40% at least once a week, blog content being readily available via search engines and RSS feeds by keyword and key phrase and people going around the net talking about the content of one's blog.
And even email newsletter experts advise getting the newsletter content onto RSS. Without doing so the content does not get picked up by the blog search engines & aggregators.
Email newsletters can still play a role for firms but as you know and speak about magazines as widely accepted as Inc.define blogs as indispensable marketing tool.
The reason is what blogs can do so quickly. You have a great reputation Larry that you have built up through resources likeyour listserv, your portal and the newsletter. Neither my company or I had much of a name in early 2004. By virtue of my blog alone I have built a profitable business and developed a reputation as a reliable trusted authority on Internet marketing & blogs. Could I have done that through an email newsletter? No.
Let me chime in here briefly - Larry and Kevin are both online marketing pioneers so I shall limit myself to what we know empirically at eLawMarketing from working with our law firm clients. In a nutshell, our experiences show that law firms should be using BOTH email newsletters and blogs (and firms that only use one or the other are missing out on business opportunities).
More specifically, we find that email newsletters are the most effective tool when communicating with EXISTING clients. Existing clients anticipate - indeed, may even expect - email alerts from their attorneys on legal topics of importance that could affect their businesses.
HTML email can also be highly personalized, which can help a firm tailor its message to the interests of individual clients.
Finally, HTML email remains the only online marketing tool that returns detailed market intelligence to law firms at the individual client level - you can literally identify which clients are interested in which topics.
In contrast, we find that blogs are most effective when attempting to reach PROSPECTIVE clients or the media. These folks don't want to get unsolicited emails from law firms or attorneys they don't know. They'd rather subscribe anonymously to RSS feeds and then decide if the information provided warrants followup with the attorney to inquire about a new legal issue.
In short, firms should adopt a holistic approach and use both email newsletters and blogs to cover all of their target markets most effectively. Which is why we offer both services.
Note: many services now allow users to export their emails as RSS feeds as well. This is the best of both worlds.
Note 2: Kevin is correct that open rates on emails are less meaningful nowadays - but clickthrough rates remain critical data to measure client interests - and the metric Larry is capturing - visits to a web page - is also critical to determine how effective an email is at driving site traffic.