As business owners, most of us realize the importance of being “top-of-mind” in our customers’ eyes, and we use e-mail newsletters to tell them about new products or information they may not be aware of. Many businesses that use e-mail newsletters to market to their customers however, miss a huge opportunity to help their own online marketing efforts.

E-mail Newsletters Can Help Your Web Site

Online marketing is often referred to as “search engine optimization” or “SEO” or “internet marketing”. The idea is to get your Web site so it shows up in Google’s index of results on the search engine results page or “SERP”. But can an offline tool like e-mail newsletters help your online marketing? The short answer is “Yes!”, and it’s actually quite easy.

Each of us has a pile of expert information in our heads about our respective businesses. It’s kind of like the TV commercial showing the digital camera with all those pictures trapped inside - this valuable information is just clamoring to get out. Many people write newsletters to educate their customers about their industry and how they can help them. This is great, but once someone reads - then deletes - that e-mail, it ceases to exist and have any value.

Repurpose Your Content

An excellent strategy is to take that same e-mail content and repurpose it into different forms for the Internet. Once you’ve taken the effort to write your newsletter, it doesn’t take much more energy to turn it into:

• A post in your blog
• An online press release for Google News
• An article for an online article repository
• A short video on YouTube

With just a little extra effort, you can repurpose your information into a slightly different form that has many potential audiences. In addition, each of these tools will give you an opportunity to extend the longevity of your content by creating online content that people will find through the search engines. The more you do this, the more you’ll be rewarded with top placement on the search engines, often with multiple positions, rather than just one! In addition, you’ll build links to your own Web site naturally, which are extremely valuable for search engine placement.

I Love FREE!

The best news about all this, is that most of these tools are 100% free! With just a little bit of effort, you or your assistant can create multiple streams of marketing messages that different people will find when they’re searching for your services. Since they don’t cost you anything, you just can’t lose.

If you’re just not sure where to start, I highly recommend that you get a copy of David Meerman Scott’s best seller, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR”. It’s readily available on Amazon.com and other book retailers. Then pick one tool and start small. Be consistent and put your information out on a regular schedule. You’ll start to see more traffic to your site, and hopefully, more phone calls!