Are Small Business Newsletters on the Decline?
Many businesses disperse news by publishing newsletters (e-news, online versions, and print ones). These keep their customers and employees up to date on products and services, as well as entertaining them. Newsletters, of various types, have long been considered a viable way to promote and to gather a loyal following.
However, author and frugal promotion specialist, Carolyn Howard-Johnson speculates, in her latest newsletter, Sharing with Writers, that newsletters are on the decline for a variety of reasons.
Possibly blogging is supplanting newsletters, even those delivered to one’s e-mail, she mentions. Also, there’s the likelihood that people don’t have time for reading newsletters, or feel they don’t. Some newsletters may be getting too fancy, Carolyn also suggests.
She invites you to give her suggestions regarding why you might not be reading so many newsletters.
Do you feel newsletters aren’t so valuable as a promotional and informational tool as they once were? This is something I hadn’t thought about until I read Carolyn’s newsletter.
However, I realize the time factor has entered into my reading of those I subscribe to or consequently have unsubscribed from. With family, an outside the home job, writing/blogging commitments, and helping my husband with a home based business, I find little time for reading except what is connected with my research. I try to squeeze in some reading at lunch time, when I’m riding in a car or flying in a plane, or just before I go to sleep. Usually those aren’t times I’m at the computer.
In a subsequent post, I’ll discuss what attracts me to the newsletters I do read.
What about you?
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3 Comments
Mary Emma, I don’t find the people who take my newsletter are dropping, but I do find that my subscriber list isn’t growing as quickly. And I keep hearing people say that blogs are supplanting letters. The thing is, they work in tandem so well! One can be used effectively to promote the other and to offer different benefits to readers.
Thanks so much for your interest in small business. Wondering if any of your readers are retailers? If so they might be interested in my retailing-focused Twitter account, http://www.twitter.com/frugalretailing.
Best,
Carolyn
Thanks, Carolyn, for stopping by and explaining the newsletter topic further. I personally am finding I don’t have so much time, with a busy writing/retailing/teaching schedule, to read my e-mail and online newsletters. So I either skip, delete, or unsubscribe regarding many of them. I also don’t subscribe to as many print publications either or don’t renew when mine expire.
I’m wondering if others are finding the same challenges.
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