While running an online organization, direct association with the customers is not possible and so newsletters have emerged as the channel through which the interaction is done. Newsletters for many websites help build bonds with their respective subscriber base. And it is indeed interesting to note how efficiently that serves to communicate and enlighten about the website's product. Many newsletter programs like that of 123Greetings.com, about.com, imediaconnection.com are circulated with a similar objective. The driving force is the need to impart some information in the best possible way. So the newsletters function as a marketing tool in parallel; but primarily they are the personification of the website, with a voice and a heart.



Newsletters have a big dream to fulfill. Functioning as a marketing tool, mainly communicating with the users, newsletters may be promotional or relationship-based. Company offers and services are promoted in promotional newsletters and most newsletters fall in this category. However in relationship-based newsletters, the focus is mainly on establishing a one to one relationship with the customer, understanding their need in subscribing to that and thereby planning the content. The promotional factor is almost non-existent or negligible here in this case. While some like the 123Greetings.com newsletters fall somewhere in between and are keener on building bonds, imediaconnection.com and others seem to be quite thoughtfully consummate in arousing the desired interest of the users to the site.

Most of these newsletters are purposely kept free and aim at establishing a relationship with the subscribers, which further culminates into a long-lasting trust between that particular website and its subscribers. But building bonds is not easy. Removing only a price tag or a membership fee would only make for 20% of the task. The rest is, of course, to be taken care of by content and the way it's presented. Too much cluttered newsletters with complicated lay-out and distracting advertisements would score low by all odds, no matter how brilliantly gripping the content is. And a nicely laid-out newsletter with wrong spellings, grammar or unattractive language bears just the same risk of landing in the ‘trash' folder. So if it is to build bonds and keep it going, a newsletter must keep its promises—both in terms of copy and layout. The simpler it is, the better. Only then the product reaches the consumer and the need's addressed.