What Is A Newsletter? Here's Everything You Need to Know
Newsletters have a terrible reputation, owing to all the shitty content that customers receive.
But done right, newsletters can provide tremendous value to your business. People who get good, relevant emails regularly are far more likely to buy from you. In addition, because it's your marketing, it's much more likely that your brand will outshine the rest.
Get this; an email newsletter has a much higher customer engagement rate than any other content marketing model - 40 times more than organic search and social, and a ROI of $36 for every $1.
It's no wonder 81% of your fellow marketers use newsletters to distribute content.
What Is A Newsletter?
Scenario: you are a die-hard video game fan and can't wait for the next one. Frantic online searches have become your norm, hoping to find an awesome game lying in wait. Then bam! You receive an email from your favorite gaming company informing you of the upcoming new game launch, the event's location, and some other important info.
Thanks to that email – newsletter - you can rest from the unsuccessful searches and uneventful waiting.
A newsletter is a super engaging email you regularly send your existing customers, updating them of your brand's upcoming/latest products and services, events, invaluable industry data and news, and promotional material.
After developing your email list, deploy newsletters to unleash the power of email marketing and foster close-knit relationships with your existing and potential subscribers. This way, there are high chances of turning these customers into leads and purchasers.
Newsletters Best Practices
Considering the time and effort you put into your email campaigns, you cannot afford to fail.
Similarly, you cannot afford to overlook certain best principles that can make your newsletter effective, namely:
1. Know Thy Audience
Who is your target audience?
What particular products and services are they looking for?
These types of questions will help you develop your target audience by segmenting your subscriber list based on their unique features.
From there, develop newsletters with super-personalized pieces of content and send them to each segment. Knowing your audience will also help you determine the newsletter’s relevance.
After all, you wouldn't mind making a whopping 760% increase in revenue, would you?
2. Update Your Subscriber List
An updated subscriber list ensures you get the most out of your newsletter campaign.
If after reactivating customers dormant for three months or more doesn't work, they have to go. Maintaining a healthy and updated list is paramount for your success.
3. Your Newsletter Design matters
Design goes beyond fonts and colors to include:
- A powerful, captivating, and engaging email subject line to trigger the customer to open the email
- Enough whitespace
- Watch out for grammatical errors
- Use headers where possible
- The right amount of color contrast
- Readable font
- Clear and visible CTAs above the fold
- Alt text for any images
- Include your brand's logo, and social media links (better for increased engagement)
- Optimize for mobile device users
- A neat overall email organization
4. Visuals
Visual content helps capture your target audience's imagination and attention and deliver your message in a way text can't. Furthermore, visuals transmit information faster than words and improve understanding by up to 400%.
Ninety percent of the information the brain processes is visual. You can never go wrong with including images, infographics, videos, memes, and charts, among others.
However, ensure to use the visuals sparingly for improved engagement.
5. Test, Analyze, then Test Again.
Success isn't guaranteed your first try; it's a process.
Customers are an unpredictable lot. It is challenging to know fully what content your customers want in their newsletters.
That's where A/B testing comes in. Your customers' feedback gives you a glimpse of their preferences. And since customers in a single segment don't have a perfect match on their tastes, A/B tests enable you to know what content works best for which segment.
Why Send Newsletters?
Why send your customers newsletters exactly? It is because every other brand is doing it, and you'd rather not be the black sheep? You are in uncharted territory, and you are testing the waters? Or maybe you want to stay top of mind?
Whether a marketer or an entrepreneur, you should know the importance of newsletters to your brand:
1. Regular Contact and Updates
Sending your existing customers on a regular basis is a great way to keep them updated regarding:
- News about upcoming deliverables and launching
- Great promotional content and exclusive offers
- Surveys and polls
- Giveaways and gifts
- Brand's news, such as rebranding, managerial and executive restructuring, financial info, among others
- Exclusive behind the scenes product development
While you can send this information via other media, loyalty dictates you should be the first source of such information.
2. Turbo-Boost Brand Awareness
Unlike advertisements that only provide limited information, newsletters contain a wide range of information enough to motivate customers to want to get to know your brand better. The more they know your brand, the more trust they have in you.
Provided your newsletter has an extraordinary design, such as a captivating storyline and attention-grabbing images, you will keep your customers glued to the newsletters. Top it all with your brand's values and mission, and they'll be keepers.
3. Provide Information and Knowledge
A newsletter provides a fantastic avenue to convey vital information and knowledge about your products and services. Customers feel comfortable using products they are aware of and have enough information.
Blow your customers' minds by including fantastic designs and visuals, and embed links for further understanding and resources.
4. Conduct Marketing and Advertising
Talking about many ways of eating kiwi fruit.
Of the many different types of content, newsletters are a fantastic way to advertise and market your deliverables. Include all the necessary information, offers, and promotional content to capture the audiences' undivided attention.
Now, who doesn't love a good deal and offer?
Place an offer in the newsletter, and no customer will resist the need to go through the whole email. Some will share the email, helping you grow your contact list and leads.
5. Nurture Relationships
Since your customers favor branded emails regularly – weekly newsletters, biweekly, monthly newsletters, or quarterly - you can't afford to fail them.
Maintaining regular and consistent communication and providing valuable info builds trust between customers and your brand.
Go a step further and encourage your customers to provide feedback and contributions. This is an assurance your brand is listening, further cementing your relationship.
6. Better Service Delivery
When you analyze your customers' data and contributions, you'll understand their tastes and preferences. This data can is important to boost personalization and research marketing trends.
This data collection is a continuous process that should help your brand offer better products and services in line with your customers' preferences.
7. Voice of Authority
Every brand wants to be on the ultimate pedestal. A place where customers seek the only products and services that can solve their problems.
Well, a newsletter is among the greatest ways to establish your brand as the voice of authority in your industry.
Your newsletter's content carries valuable info your customers and potential leads need. It's the 'precious,' the ace your brand needs to establish as the industry guru.
Provided you distribute awe-inspiring content for your target market and industry news, then that pedestal is all yours.
8. Boost Website Traffic
Well-designed newsletter content has several links and a clear call to action (CTA).
Say you have a new blog or E-Book coming out. By placing several links and a clear CTA in your newsletter, you are directing your customers where to go to access the new products, in this case, your website.
The more traffic you get, the more customers understand your deliverables and more ka-ching!
Measure the Success of Your Newsletter
"Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in day out"- Robert Collier
How do you know your newsletters are making a difference?
1. Open Rate
This engagement metric indicates the total number of customers who opened your newsletter measured as a percentage.
If your newsletters have low open rates, some areas you should check include deliverability and correct your subject development tactics.
2. Click-To-Open Rate (CTR)
This engagement performance indicator measures the number of subscribers who click on the CTA included in the newsletter. A clear, attention-grabbing, and multiple CTAs effectively boost your newsletters' clickthrough rate.
3. Subscriber Growth Rate
This list health metric indicates the increase of your email subscribers measured as a percentage. You calculate this rate by considering new subscribers and subtracting the unsubscribes.
A higher rate translates to more customers and prospects being aware of your brand via various channels.
4. Unsubscribe Rate
This represents the number of customers who opted out of your mailing list, measured as a percentage.
A higher unsubscribe rate means you need to rethink your email newsletter campaign. While the content therein might be interesting, your customers aren't getting the value they'd hoped, resulting in an unsubscription.
5. Bounce Rate
This metric indicates how many emails didn't get to their intended and rightful destinations.
Looking for an Effective Newsletter? We Got You
Now you have vital information regarding newsletters and why they should be a massive part of your email marketing campaigns.
However, how you develop and design your newsletter is as important as the campaign itself. All the more reason for the right newsletter writer to take over.
If you want a 'gem' that will wow your target customers and keep them wanting your deliverables,check out our content writing services, or contact us today!. We’ll tell you how our professional, skilled freelance writers will develop content to nurture and convert leads for your brand.
