Sending out a regular e-newsletter is a highly effective way of targeting customers to encourage both repeat and new business. Once you’ve had a template designed, you can send out as many branded newsletters as you like to hundreds or even thousands of recipients – at very little cost. Send your e-newsletter to all your customers, everyone you meet at networking/ industry events, and everyone who requests a copy via your website (but make sure you have their permission first!).

As with all digital marketing, content is key and the e-newsletter should be seen as another element of your overall campaign, not an isolated object. It should interact with other e-marketing drives, possibly by featuring highlights from your blog or website. There is a dual benefit in this, as it not only makes your e-newsletter interesting to read, it also drives traffic to your website and reminds your target customer base of who you are and what you do.

That’s not to say the more traditional content of newsletters should be forgotten; an editor’s note, company news and special offer announcements are typical of this form of digital marketing and they all have a role to play. Where possible, they should be backed up by a call to action, whether that’s to visit your website, call you or to reply to the e-mail newsletter.

These are all generic points, which so far could be applied to any aspect of your digital marketing, so what sets an e-newsletter apart? The answer is in its aims. An e-newsletter’s real value is in encouraging repeat and long-term custom by providing a non-intrusive reminder of your brand to those who have previously expressed an interest.

E-newsletters are not quick-fix marketing opportunities (although e-commerce retailers can generate handsome returns by publicising their special offers in their e-newsletters), but are excellent tools in an ongoing digital marketing strategy. Therefore you should view your e-newsletter as a long-term investment, sent out on a regular basis to familiarise your customers and contacts with your brand and its values.

Write My Site offers a full e-newsletter management service, encompassing design, content, distribution and reporting. Tariffs are listed here.

We’re starting to come round to the idea of Twitter. Much as we love our “no fads, no bandwagons” policy here at Write My Site, we’ve got to admit that Twitter has been paying dividends for us recently. After several weeks of posting about chocolate, last night’s TV and anything else that seemed like a suitable distraction from work we finally got our collective act together and started posting links to this copywriting blog, as well as engaging in dialogue with other business users. And guess what? We made some money! And then we made some more money. And now Twitter’s generating a steady stream of revenue for us – not bad for a free service.

But many businesses are quite understandably suspicious of Twitter, and are reluctant to use it as a marketing tool. Not only is the web-based version still pretty embryonic structurally, Twitter etiquette is still in its infancy too. There’s no established code of conduct in terms of the appropriate way(s) to promote your service using the tool and there’s no telling what which Twitter-based campaign will work, and which will go horribly, horribly wrong.

Even Wendy Tan-White, whose web hosting company Moonfruit recently enjoyed a huge publicity coup via the site, admits that she was unsure whether her strategy would work. The company gave away 10 Macbook Pro laptops for the most creative tweets using the hashtag #moonfruit, and the campaign shot to the top of Twitter’s trending lists, with people drawing pictures, making videos, and even singing songs about the brand.

“I really love the medium and it felt like it could work” says Tan-White, “But it could have gone the other way - we could have been vilified for spamming.” This is exactly what happened when UK furniture retailer Habitat hijacked popular hashtag topics to gain attention, and merely succeeded in winding up users, creating a huge backlash when an “overenthusiastic intern” linked the brand to the post-election protests in Iran.

Habitat probably won’t be Tweeting again for a while, but Twitter still holds massive potential for creative and innovative digital marketing campaigns, and I can certainly say that Write My Site can’t wait to see what happens next!