Blog posts discussing: newsletters

As a small business owner it is imperative to keep your company name in front of your current and potential clients. In fact, in marketing there is a rule called the “seven times factor”, which states a customer must see your product or company name at least seven times before they will even consider buying from you. This means it’s up to you to get your name out there without alienating your prospective clients. Email newsletters or E-zines (as they are commonly called) are a great way to start!

There are many benefits to using email newsletters as part of your marketing campaign. The top 10 are:

Builds Relationships: It’s clear that building a relationship with your clients is of paramount importance in these high tech times. The more technology plays a part in marketing the more important it becomes for you clients to feel you are a “real person”
Informative: Keep your readers/clients up to date on your latest business information.
Convenient: Your newsletters go directly to the client’s main information source. Their email inbox.
Timely: Clients receive information about your customer just as it happens, no delay.
Viral: People can forward your newsletters to others, getting your name/products in front of even more eyes.
Low Cost: The cost of sending an email newsletter in minuscule. It is a fraction of what it would be to send a newsletter with first class stamps.
Targeted Audience: It is crucial that you are targeting your marketing efforts to maximize your sales. An email newsletter is particularly targeted because your subscribers have opted-in, they have asked you to send them more information.
Tracking: With programs such as Constant Contact, AWeber, Mail Chimp, you can track any number of variables, from how many people are opening your newsletters to how many are clicking on links, and which links they are clicking on.
Customer Retention: Most businesses don’t lose customers because of pricing, but because customers don’t feel important. Staying in touch with customers via email newsletters will give you the personal touch needed to make your customers feel important and remain loyal to your business.
Immediacy: The speed of email is a wonderful asset. You can decide to have a “one day sale”, send out a special newsletter and have a successful sale, all in the same day.

Newsletters are an extremely valuable piece of the marketing puzzle. We produce successful newsletters for many of our clients!

So you have outwitted the SPAM Filters and the IT virus protection systems of the world . . . your newsletter got through. Now, you just have to make sure that the viewer actually opens your email – and reads it! Most email users subscribe to more than one email newsletter, but many do not actually read them.

Various factors determine your “open rate”. They are:

The “From Line” makes a difference. This may be the name of your company, or the name of an individual contact (like you – the owner, or your chief business development or sales person). You should test various From Lines, so that you can measure the relative open rates for each.
The Subject Line does matter. Curiosity beats familiarity. For example, instead of a Subject Line like “ABC Company November E-News,” a Subject Line that mentions a newsworthy item will get more attention and higher open success rate. Try not to make your subject lines general or vague. They should persuade, intrigue, or promote specific benefits.
Valuable, meaningful content is key. Make sure your content speaks to the needs of your customers – both current and potential. Provide nuggets of information, but do not give away your business. How do you know what your customers want to read about? Ask them, using a survey in the newsletter! As far as copy goes, you can position your newsletter three different ways: 1) towards a specific product, service, or application; 2) educating by delivering information that positions you or your company as an “expert”; or by 3) conveying any type of update or news related to you or your company.

In addition to the above suggestions for increasing the open rates of your newsletter, provide the opportunity for readers to share your newsletter with their friends and colleagues. Do this by using a click-through button or a forwarding function. This is an excellent source of free marketing and nothing speaks to your credibility like referrals. Don’t forget to also include several social media share buttons so readers can easily share your content with their Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn networks.

Once your newsletter has been executed, consider archiving it on your website or blog. Past newsletters can be a valuable resource for your clients. You can allow access to your past newsletters to clients only (having them in a private, client-specific area of your site), or leave them open to all (this is what I would recommend).

In order to keep your readers “coming back for more,” be sure to reference the subject of your next newsletter at the bottom of the current one. This means that you might need to draft an editorial calendar for the year, which is easy to do. Develop twelve subjects that you would want to share with your customers (perhaps your business is seasonal – if so, this should be easy for you to do). Also, try including a call to action in your newsletter, such as a “click here” or “vote yes or no.” This will allow you to keep your customers engaged, and test the success of the newsletter’s effectiveness as each month progresses.

In order to further the success of your open rate, programs like Constant Contact are very helpful. Not only do these programs let you see the “success rate” of your campaign (which, by the way, if you can get 33% of your readers to open your email, you have succeeded!), but they let you see which links they clicked through to, or if they visited your website in tandem with reading your e-newsletter.

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Great Tool for Email Marketing – Newsletters