Vacation Home Owner Newsletters

I am in the process of writing the July COHR Newsletter for publication to all the vacation home owners registered on COHR. I thought I would pause a while to consider the general topic of newsletters.

I receive a lot of newsletters from a variety of sources on a variety of different topics and they vary widely in their quality and ability to attract my interest.

So what makes a good newsletter ?

1. A good newsletter is targeted to the right audience :

Even if the newsletter is well-written and with good content, if the topics are not of interest to me, then I am not going to read it. Hence, make sure that your subscriber list contains only people who are interested in the topic at hand. All those registered for the COHR Newsletter are either vacation rental home owners, or owners of vacation rentals sites : hence, as long as my content is relevant to this group, my newsletter has at least a fighting chance to be read.

2. A good newsletter has original content :

It can be hard to keep coming up with original content, but if you want people to read the newsletter, there has to be some NEW element to the NEWsletter! I always include at least one feature article in the COHR Newsletters.

Examples include
On How Many Vacation Rental Sites Should You List ? , Comparing Visitor Traffic on Vacation Rental Web Sites or Vacation Rentals by Owner sites, Are they Profitable ? All of these are of interest to the vacation rental home owner and all are written personally by me based upons original ideas, analysis or research.

3. A good newsletter is short and easy to read :

I try to keep my COHR Newsletters to one page, using links to the additional content, such as feature articles. Even then, I fully expect that many readers will just scan and stop or click on something that looks interesting.

4. A good newsletter is a rare thing :

Don't try to publish newsletters too often. People will be too busy to read them or may even consider them to be spam ! I try to publish my COHR Newsletters about every two months. Depending on your topic, you may be able to do more frequently, but follow the general rule that less is more.

5. Keep in mind your reason for sending the newsletter :

If you objective is simply to educate, that's fine.

If your objective is to enhance your reputation as an expert in your field, then the quality of your content is key : this is one of the reasons why I always include a feature article. For the next issue, the feature article is on the topic of Free Vacation Rental Listings Sites , giving readers useful information on how to select the right free sites and what they can expect from the various types of free vacation rentals sites.

If your objective is to provide up to date information on services or products that you offer, make sure that the information is presented clearly and concisely, with links for more information.

6. Finally, don't forget to also publish your newsletters on your web site : many people may come back to them at a future date, and they can add useful content to your web site. Check out the COHR Newsletters as an example !


Regards,

Kevin