John Simms is an Internet Marketer for Eiledon Solutions, a web design and web site development company based in Cape Town, South Africa. Visit us for more info and get a Free Quote Online.

You've worked hard to gain your customers' business and want to explore ways to strengthen your relationship with them while informing them of important news and information. One proven method of maintaining regular contact with existing and potential customers is by distributing a company newsletter. But wait! Before you begin developing your first issue, don't make the common mistake of thinking your newsletter is another opportunity to "sell" more products and services. Newsletters are NOT ads; what's more, if you make the mistake of treating your newsletter like an advertisement you will not only turn off many of your valued customers, you will risk destroying that coveted trust that you've worked so hard to develop.

Think of your newsletter as an intangible agreement you make with your customers. They're living up their end of the agreement by opening your newsletter and scanning it for information that is relevant to them; your end of the agreement is to deliver content that your customers will find engaging, relevant and pertinent to their needs. If they enjoy the read, if they learn something new, if they're left with a positive feeling, then your newsletter has succeeded in boosting their perception of your company and they will likely purchase more products and services from your organization in the future.

The trick to writing effective newsletter content is to stick to what you know best and share your knowledge and experience with your customers. Don't assume that your customers will know what you consider basic information - it's amazing how much knowledge and experience business owners simply take for granted. Think of your newsletter as an opportunity to share your expertise and teach what you have learned about your products and your industry. When assembling the content, ask yourself if the information you are assembling will be helpful, interesting and useful to your customers in some way.

INCOMPAS can assist you in writing and producing your own effective newsletter content, or we can edit your existing newsletter and offer constructive advice on how to strengthen your editorial product. To get you started, we've developed a step-by-step guide to assist you in producing a winning newsletter.

Step-by-Step Plan for Developing Durable Newsletter Content

1) Be in tune with your audience - Always put yourself in your readers' shoes by thinking about what matters to them. What are their most frequently asked questions when it comes to your products and services? Ask your customers about what issues matter most to them. Hold a brainstorm session with your colleagues and talk to your sales, administrative and technical staff - the front line for your customers; ask them what they think is on your customers' minds.

2) Build a solid foundation - Decide how many pages your newsletter will be and think carefully about how often you can realistically produce an issue. Develop a budget, and be realistic about the time and expense required to assemble, write, design, edit and distribute each issue of a newsletter. Assemble the team you will require to help you develop and maintain a quality newsletter. Ideally, you will have an editor in place to manage and deliver polished content and a designer to establish and maintain a distinct, refined look.

3) Establish an editorial calendar - Plan your issues in advance, develop an editorial calendar and decide on a production schedule. Give your contributors plenty of lead time and clearly written writers guidelines, including word count expectations and photo requirements. Because you will likely depend on volunteers to contribute to your newsletter, realize that the only person who will respect imposed deadlines will be you. Allow plenty of time in your production schedule to allow for unexpected delays.

4) Develop centralized themes - Start by grouping your newsletter content around a central theme that will tie all articles together. Working to a theme will help you focus your content and will help your readers better relate to your company, products and services. When structuring your newsletter, start with one or two short feature articles (such as a customer testimonial or case study, or an article examining a current, newsworthy issue) and follow with regular departments reporting product, company and industry news, and providing seasonal advice, tips & tricks, frequently asked questions (faqs), training, trends, etc. Ask a leader in your organization to write a column each issue, and place this column in a prominent position in your newsletter, preferably immediately following your "lead" feature. Once you establish a newsletter structure, follow it every issue to give your readers a greater feeling of continuity and brand recognition. Don't forget to leave space for a linking Table of Contents or a box explaining what's inside.

5) Focus on content first - Don't let fancy graphics and colourful images distract you from delivering engaging, relevant content. Develop the content first and ensure the newsletter's design supports and highlights your message. When writing, remember that newsletter articles should be short and direct; place all of your most important information in the first sentence or paragraph if you can. If an article requires a more in-depth approach, write a short newsletter introduction and summary highlighting the main points of the story, and provide a link to a more detailed article in your web site. This option will enable you to populate your newsletter with a variety of quick-read articles, drive traffic to your site while allowing anyone interested to read on for more information, and build on the trusted relationship that you have established by delivering a relevant, interesting and entertaining newsletter.

6) Use active voice - Don't get lost in passive land! Keep your sentence structure short, snappy and active. Passive voice can be tricky to spot; watch your word order, since a passive construction presents the object first and the subject last. For example, "ABC Corporation designed the new widgets to improve efficiency" is a more effective than "The new widgets were designed by ABC Corporation in an effort to improve efficiency." Also when writing, always ask yourself, 'who cares?' and 'why is this information important to my audience/customers?' Place contact and other support information in sidebars, giving your readers quick visual reference points.

7) Write an attention-grabbing subject line - When distributing your newsletter by e-mail, your subject line should tie directly to a specific headline article in your newsletter, and - most importantly - it must stand out distinctively amidst the multitude of subject lines in your recipients' Inboxes. Your subject line should also give your readers a clear idea of the main theme and subject matter of your newsletter.

8) Provide opt-in options - Manage subscriber expectations right from the start by explaining to your readers the editorial focus and purpose of your newsletter, as well as the value your readers can expect to receive by receiving and reading it. Provide a link to back issues to give people an idea of the general nature of your newsletter, and give them options to unsubscribe from receiving your newsletter electronically or in print form. Follow the standard rules that dictate distribution of responsible permissions-based e-mail practices.

9) Read up on your competition - Reading newsletters produced by your competitors and other industry participants will help you generate new ideas, and stay abreast of what people in your industry are talking about. If your competitor covers a topic of great importance to your industry, it is perfectly acceptable for you to cover that topic as well; for best results, wait a few issues and approach the issue from a completely different perspective.

10) Seek reader feedback - First, talk to your customers about the articles you're developing and ask their permission to publish their comments in your article. Watch to see how people scan your newsletter. Talk with a new sampling of readers after each issue, and conduct regular formal readership surveys. Monitor click-through rates and use web analytics to help you track reader response to the articles you present, and use this information to guide you as you develop future issues. Don't be afraid to get a little controversial. Establish a strong editorial voice and an open forum, and get people talking by inviting your readers into the dialogue.

Mel-Lynda Andersen is a Communications Strategist and a principal of INCOMPAS Communications. INCOMPAS offers strategic, innovative approaches to communications and marketing initiatives to a broad spectrum of private and public sector organizations from initial concept and abstract idea through to completion. Subscribe to INCOMPAS's newsletter, eNEWS, for more original articles. © INCOMPAS. www.incompas.com

What are Content Management Systems (CMS) / Backend Systems?

Although Content Management Systems may vary slightly among industry definitions, a common usage for a Content Management System is to add new content (information, articles, photos, music) to a web site. Dependent upon the complexity of the System, a CMS may additionally offer web page content removal and modification functionality. The true benefit of using such technology for a small to medium sized business owner is reduced maintenance time (as a well designed system should make adding content extremely easy) and the elimination of a web designer for basic site maintenance. Due to the empowerment offered by Content Management Systems to average computer users, the popularity of these systems are beginning to grow. Some industries in which Content Management Systems can prove to be very helpful are the Automotive, Information, Real Estate, and Retail industries. Of the industries mentioned, the experiences with my company Simplesoft Solutions, has lead me to work closely with both Automotive and Real Estate businesses in providing CMS-based value added web solutions. Looking first at the automotive industry, a CMS can prove to be very helpful in inventory maintenance. Using a CMS, a car dealer may access a web based form to add, modify and delete inventory. When designed properly, the complexity of the system, in this particular case, the computer languages, HTML, Javascript, VBScript and SQL are all offloaded from the responsibility of the user to the system's program. Now, rather than requiring knowledge of all the previously mentioned programming languages, a user with basic computer knowledge may update the dealership's online inventory by inputting data descriptive of the car. Such data as the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), the year the car was manufactured, the manufacturer of the car can be inputted into the system and a completely functional webpage can be created using this data all in a matter of minutes. No knowledge of programming is required for the end user, and more importantly, there is no time wasted waiting for a web designer to modify the automotive inventory. The second industry in which I have found Content Management Systems to be particularly useful to clients is the real estate industry. Due to frequent turnover and regular additions to a realtor's portfolio of properties; realtors with personal web sites often find themselves interacting with web designers on a day by day basis. For realtors, a Content Management System can offer a quick and effective solution to maintaining an online portfolio of properties. For instance, a custom template may be created for the layout of each listing. Using a CMS in conjunction with this template, a realtor may add properties to their personal web site's properties section by simply entering such data as the MLS, Address and Photographs into the system. The result may be a clean and effective property listing in the user's portfolio, all in a matter of minutes.

What are the Benefits of a CMS? Clearly the benefits of a CMS are the reduced costs of maintenance for the business owner, the reduce time associated with site updates and most importantly, the empowerment of the business owner to control their web site.

What are the Costs of a CMS? Content Management Systems may not be effective for every industry. Industry web sites which offer a consistent presentation of information are perfect candidates for a CMS. However, industry web sites with greater diversity in information presentation, find Content Management System's much less practical. For instance, a CMS can offer great help to a sneaker business operating in the online retail (e-tail) sector, as the content of a sneaker store's inventory is rather consistent; all sneaker pages should list the sneaker's available sizes, colors, brand, and images. On the other hand a CMS is not as helpful to a Nutrition Consultant's testimonial section which displays a diversity of weight loss cases.

For further information on web design and development issues, please visit Simplesoft Solutions at www.simplesoftsolutions.com

Anthony Santora is an Information Technology enthusiast. He currently has a Masters of Science in Information Systems from the Stevens Institutes of Technology and is the founder of Simplesoft Solutions (www.simplesoftsolutions.com ), a web design and web development company located in New Jersey.

As a web business owner you will be well aware that content for your web site is good. The more content the better, but of course it must be relevant and of high quality. If you know anything about search engine optimisation you know that Google loves content. The problem most webmasters face is how to get the content without writing it yourself, which takes time, or without spending money to pay someone else to do it.

I recently faced this problem. I wanted some fresh content for one of my sites, but beyond sales pages and basic features such as contact information I really didn't have the experience with the subject matter to produce good content. To get around this problem I came up with a method to attain good quality content, for free, which I could use for my web business site. It's not the easiest method, but to get good content you sometimes have to work a little harder. This is how I did it.

Step 1: Think about your customers needs.

Before chasing content you have to think what sort of content your customers want and what needs they have. Obviously you want people coming to your business site that are interested in what you offer so think about what other things complimentary information they might be interested in. For example if you are running a web site that sells tennis racquets then you should fill your site with quality articles on how to improve your tennis game.

If you can provide valuable free content then your traffic will increase but it's important to make sure it's the right kind of traffic. By providing content that attracts your target market you have the best chance of converting those prospects into customers.

Step 2: Locate the best articles based on customer needs.

Now that you have a good idea what sort of content your potential customers would be interested in you need to get out there and find the best articles to meet this need. Thankfully it's Google's job to do this so all you need to do is think like someone that would be searching for content in this area and pump it into Google. The search results at the top should be the best and most relevant content on the subject matter you are looking for. If it's not then you might need to adjust your search terms until you find some good articles.

The ideal situation is to find a hobbyist fan, someone that writes articles for fun to indulge in their hobby and happens to be an expert too so they write good stuff. You can usually spot these types of web sites because they are not professional, after all they are not trying to run a business, they just want to help others out while they enjoy their hobby. So continuing the tennis example you should hopefully find a few mad keen tennis fans or trainers that have written up some good content.

A note on PageRank:

Try and pick the articles that have a high PageRank, at least a 4 or more is best. The first page or two of results on Google should bring in those types of sites. If you don't know what PageRank is read about it. When a page has a high PageRank and shows up in the first few results in Google you can assume the content is of a high standard. If in doubt, sit down and read the article, you should be able to judge for yourself if it provides something of quality.

Step 3: Ask for permission to publish the content.

This is the tricky part. Write out an email template to send to the author of the article explaining who you are and what you want to do with the article. Be sure to be completely honest and tell them that your site is commercial although you will not be selling or making any direct money from the article. Make sure you state that the article will be clearly sourced with a link back to the author's homepage. Here is an example from an email I used: <pre>******

Dear INSERT AUTHOR NAME,

My name is INSERT YOUR NAME and I am the owner of an INSERT YOUR BUSINESS located in INSERT YOUR CITY, COUNTRY AND URL. We are looking for resources to add to a new online library that we are developing. I came across your INSERT ARTICLE NAME and I believe it would be perfect for our library. In fact I think it could be one of the main features, if you are willing to share it. We will of course list you as the author and link directly back to your web site.

The library will be completely free to use and we are presently putting together a collection of quality articles to help our visitors with INSERT YOUR SUBJECT AREA (E.G. TENNIS GAME). We do not intend to make direct profits from the library, it is intended to add value to our web site and hopefully indirectly increase the sales of our INSERT WHAT YOUR BUSINESS DOES. The business is a commercial enterprise. If you have any questions regarding my business or intentions please contact me.

******</pre>

Be certain to sign it off personally and make yourself available for any questions. I also request a response from the author regardless of their decision so you can be certain the email made it through. You have to ensure the author has some potential value from allowing his/her article to be re-published. In this case it can be fame and traffic back to his/her web site.

This technique will not always work. Every single author may reject you, some may never respond. Your business may operate in an industry where there just isn't any good individual authors writing good content that isn't in some way linked to a commercial enterprise. To get around this you can offer to buy the content if you have the available funds, but I advise against paying much unless the article really is top class and not distributed anywhere else.

I sent out about ten emails and four authors agreed to have their articles published. This provided me with thousands of words of quality free content. Best of all these articles are probably only published in a handful of places, perhaps only on my site and the author's site. It was definitely worth the time and effort I put in and I recommend you give it a try too, you may be surprised at how generous people can be.

By Yaro Starak
www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

<strong><em>Do you want to profit from your own successful home based Internet business?</em></strong>

Learn from Yaro Starak, a young entrepreneur from Australia. Get your free articles and audio now - visit his Internet Business Blog.