Hyperlinking: Using the Web for what it does best
As you publish your newsletter each month, you should be looking for opportunities to hyperlink. Michael Katz explains why.
To reinforce your position as an authority.
As a professional service provider, it’s in your best interest to establish and continually reestablish yourself as an expert in whatever it is you do. When you tell your readers about people, places and resources of interest and value to them, they will come to view you as somebody who is plugged in and well informed.
To add a three-dimensional element to your newsletter.
Even the best print publication on the planet can’t give readers instant access to additional information and resources within the context of the articles themselves. You can. If you mention a book - hyperlink! If you talk about a company - hyperlink!! If you reference something you said in one of your own past newsletters - hyperlink!!!
To give readers an opportunity to interact.
Although not quite the same level of interaction as sending a comment-filled e-mail back to you, clicking on links involves readers more than just reading and (I believe) strengthens their connection with you and your publication.
To get a sense of what happens to your newsletter after you throw it over the wall.
If you outsource the delivery of your newsletter to an e-mail vendor you will get “click stats†- data showing which links were clicked, when they were clicked, and who clicked them. Leaps and bounds beyond what a print publisher will ever know, and extremely valuable to you in shaping content and gauging interest.
That said, a couple of thoughts on how to hyperlink effectively:
First, don’t go nuts. You’re not trying to be an encyclopedia; you’re playing the role of the informed expert. Use your knowledge of useful, interesting and relevant resources to round out what you say in the body of the newsletter.
Second, wherever possible, link directly to the piece of information in question. If you mention an article for example, don’t simply take your readers to the web site of the person who wrote it — link all the way to the article itself.
Michael J. Katz is Founder and Chief Penguin of Blue Penguin Development, Inc., a Boston consulting firm that specializes in the development of effective electronic newsletters.