Welcome to part 2 of the 3 part series on creating effective email marketing newsletters for your Internet marketing campaigns.  As we discussed in part 1, creating and collecting content is probably one of the most difficult parts of putting together your company’s newsletter.  But now that you have all of the juicy little tidbits, it is time to put this delicious information in a format that your customers are going to want to open, read, and hopefully forward to a friend or colleague.

You should think of your email marketing newsletters as you would the parts of a book.

Think of your email newsletter as a book, but all on one page.  You will need:

• Cover – the newsletter’s header
• Table of contents – quick access bullet-points
• Preface – your intro
• Chapters – the content of the newsletter

Head Linkshaper Christopher Woods discusses the importance of integration in marketing campaigns and why it’s important for the people of your firm to “fly together.”

I have been enjoying a book that I have been reading, “Flawless Execution” by James D. Murphy.  Murphy spent 8 years flying F-15 Fighter Jets for the United States Air Force.  In this book, Murphy discusses how pilots must perform flawlessly in order to accomplish their mission successfully.  This same philosophy is so very true in business today, especially in the economic times we are facing.

Basically, to ensure business success and growth, everyone from the C.E.O. down must all be focused on the same goal and be working in one accord in order to succeed.  This is especially true in marketing.  Too many times I have seen a business develop one strategy for their print campaigns, a second strategy for the Internet campaigns, and even a third for their telemarketing campaigns.  Not only does this end up confusing the consumer, it ends up confusing the company as a whole.

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For a while, I sat here just staring at a blank computer screen where I planned to write my very first blog post for the Linkshape web site.  I had a plan and I even had a name in mind for my topic:  “Shaping Up.”  (I just love making a play on words.)  But I’m just sitting here and I suddently realize I’ve run into the hardest part about blogging.  I knew that I wanted this first post to explain to you, dear reader, why our little Internet marketing start-up company was doing a blog in the first place.  So, I’ll just start writing.

You see, small businesses and especially start-up companies in particular have some unique marketing challenges to face early on.  We Linkshapers are no different.  Within our company’s S.W.O.T. analysis is the following weakness in big, bold type:

“Poor brand awareness”

This is both expected and understandable.  After all, we’re a small Internet marketing and web site design company entering into a highly competitive industry; one in which there’s already some big names who have spent years building their brands.  To overcome this weakness, we know we’ll need to play up our strengths, differentiate ourselves, and quickly build credibility with potential clients (like you).

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