Distinguishing Your Content: Blog vs. eNewsletter

If your content program is working right, the number of followers who are hanging on every word of your blog posts should be growing month in and month out. By providing expert insights, delivering tips to customers and prospects alike on ways to enhance their business and educating readers about new trends and products – and all without shamelessly promoting your own amazing self – you should be moving the needle on increasing your base of followers. (And if not, let’s talk. You may not be as amazing as you think.)

Growing the ranks of your fan base is only half the battle. You also should be providing incentives for those followers to take their relationship with you to another level. That typically comes in the form of an offer. Perhaps you have commissioned some industry research that they would find of interest or have authored a white paper that in just nine pages is the perfect antidote to their slumping sales. Or maybe you’ve put together an ebook that succinctly captures your company philosophy. You know, like we have here. (Remind me again about shameless promotion.)

Whatever it is, the point is that, in exchange for them giving you their email address, you are happy to share some of your deeper insights. And that growing roster of emails then becomes your email newsletter list, giving you the chance to reach out to your customers and best prospects in yet another platform. That’s exciting (at least in the world we live in), but it raises an important question: how should you differentiate the content you are writing on your blog with the content in your enewsletter? While there is no precise answer to this question, here are some of our thoughts on the matter.

The focus of blog content should be on showcasing your expertise. By and large, the greatest value of your blog is to establish credibility, especially with an audience that really doesn’t know you that well, if at all. And so you should be writing about the topics that demonstrate that you know more about them than Siri or even some competitor. Your blog posts should provide value to the reader, and while you can slip in an occasional nod as to why your company happens to excel at exactly the topic at hand, for the most part, keep your blog focused on your industry insights and tips. Remember, you are still in the courting phase of this relationship, and you don’t want to come on too strong.

When it comes to topics for your enewsletter, you have a bit more latitude. After all, your relationship with your enews reader is deeper than the one with the blogosphere, so the value quotient in your enews articles need not be quite as high as in your blog. That said, we are big believers that your enewsletter must continue to provide value to the reader. Too many companies use their enewsletters as a forum for exclusively singing their own praises. We think it’s fine to do so – yes, we love recounting some of our own successes in the Press Box – but there’s a limit. You must ensure that, for the most part, the subject of your articles is on a par with the value you are providing in your blog.

Alert subscribers to our Press Box will notice that our enewsletter has evolved considerably in that direction. Our “Run Down” section contains news that is mostly (if not totally) unrelated to our day-to-day work at Hodges. It contains curated content that we think is interesting in the world of digital marketing/PR and provides valuable insights or new information related to our industry. Think of the “Run Down” as Next Draft for public relations. (And if you aren’t subscribing already to Dave Pell’s Next Draft, a daily and witty aggregation of the day’s most important news, you should.)

Given the relationship you have with your enews subscriber – after all, they have already expressed an interest in what you are doing – your enewsletter can extend the value proposition you have with your readers. Your tone can be more informal, if you’d like, and your subject matter can touch on issues that have less to do with strategy and tactics and more to do with your culture and brand – in other words, to help give life to what goes on inside your walls. We’re partial to celebrating our staff’s accomplishments and milestones in the Press Box, and we think it’s also an appropriate forum for showcasing some of our recent work. Chances are, readers can apply some of these successes to their own businesses, and that’s both good for them and us.

So, in sum, blog content and enews content can have a great deal in common: a focus on showcasing your expertise, a platform for conveying important insights, a vehicle for enhancing credibility. Both forms of communications must be ever mindful that there should be inherent value to the reader. But enewsletters can also provide a forum for giving readers a bit more of the behind-the-scenes culture and case work that shapes exactly who you are. That’s worth doing, not only in words, but in your visual storytelling as well.