A short time ago, I made the decision to remove myself from an industry newsletter that I had subscribed to for over five years. It was in the franchising industry, and the company is one which I had once highly valued, and considered it one of the top companies for information in this sector. Why did I remove myself from this list you ask? Because the commentary, and the articles were so dummied down that they were no longer of any value.
Sure, I received the e-mail every single day without fail. But then something interesting happened about six months ago, and that was the introduction of social networking. The e-mail newsletter had all sorts of buttons that I could re-Tweet this, post that on Facebook, and interactively use the e-mail newsletter's information for the benefit of that company, rather than the benefit of myself. In other words they were trying to get me to push their information in a viral way through the Internet using my own credibility, and through my contacts.
However, the content had dummied itself down so badly, that I wouldn't send that to anyone I know in the industry. In fact I don't even believe the information in the newsletter would be valuable to someone who doesn't know a thing about franchising and is only interested in starting a business of their own. Now then, I'm not going to mention this e-mail newsletter by name because there are so many in the franchising industry, which are doing the same thing now. And it's not just the franchising sector either. I've been noticing the same thing in several other industries, with their newsletters as well.
You see, I'm in a unique situation because I take about 75 different online newsletters, which I receive every day from a number of industries. And I've seen a migration to crappy content for the sake of volume, and maintaining a daily routine. The reality is; as an industry expert that sort of information doesn't interest me. Secondly, I am worried for those who are getting into the industry that they are reading such garbage, purported by a company with a once stellar reputation.
I'd say you should let this be a lesson to your company. Don't just put out is useless information for the sake of completing your daily e-mail newsletter and filling it with content. Make sure you are sending out valuable information, and don't assume that every user which receives your e-mail cares about teenage style social networking. Now then, I presented this article as a comment and a question. That question was; are online industry newsletters dummying down with social networking content at a fifth grade reading level?
Yes they are, and I believe this is a mistake. Apparently, they think that the social networks with hundreds of millions of subscribers are their chance to break into a new customer base. Maybe that is one way to do it, but it doesn't make sense to alienate your loyal users in trade for hundreds of millions of potential users that aren't going to buy anything anyway. If you can't do better than that with your online newsletter, then maybe you shouldn't have one. After all, the Internet is already flooded with them. It's time to stand above the rest, not go snorkeling in a cesspool.
One option might be to have two online newsletters, one for teenagers and first-graders, and one for industry professionals, those that will be in the industry for some time in the future, and have been for many years the prior. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Six Great Ezine Content Ideas
0 comments:
Post a Comment