Building a relationship with your customers is important for any business. A newsletter is an easy e-mail marketing strategy that can not only establish a better connection with your potential audience, but it can also have a great impact on your bottom line.
The key is planning out a successful campaign that walks the line between educational and promotional. The focus of any company’s newsletter is to spear brand awareness. To be successful in your e-mail marketing strategy, you need to create your newsletter with the following tips in mind.
1. Research your Audience
Before you even create your marketing campaign, decide what your focus should be.
Who is your core audience? Find out what they want to know, see, and what subjects are most important to them. To guarantee a click-through, you want to send out something your customers want to read. It can also be disastrous if you select a subject matter than doesn’t fit your company. There’s no quicker way to alienate your readers. Tailor your content to your customers.
2. Decide on a Design
Design is important, especially when it comes to newsletters. You don’t want too many ideas jammed into one small page. Choose a focus, a niche, and come up with core elements that will post with every letter. Gather the most important pieces from your research and make model your future newsletters after the initial design. Keep the topics consistent and linked:
- Stories
- Blogs
- News
- Facts
Whatever you decide on, stick to what your readers want.
3. Be the Expert
To spread your brand, it’s important to establish your company as the go-to for your subject matter. Your newsletter should be the place for your customers to get the latest news. Whether you want to storm the market with interesting stories, funny, yet hot takes, or quirky facts, find an idea that your brand can be the expert in.
4. Create Valuable Content
Content creation is very important to the success of a newsletter or any type of e-mail marketing. Your mailer should have something that brings value to the reader. Make it worth their time to click in and subscribe. Your newsletter should be something they’re excited to open. Again, market research is important. Keep answering those glaring questions your customer base wants to be answered!
5. Keep it Consistent
Careful time management is a recipe for success, and keeping a steady schedule is essential for email marketing. Frequency doesn’t matter; weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, whatever content schedule you want to keep, make sure it’s consistent. Aside from promotions, your readers will expect prompt delivery, and not keeping to a clear schedule can lose your audience.
6. Connect with Your Readers
Having a personal connection with your readers can make all the difference in the world. With newsletters, your company can balance the brand and the real world. People like to connect with a brand or brand story they can relate to. Be different and establish that human connection.
7. Keep the Balance
In the same vein, while you are running a business, keep in mind that newsletters are intended for a core audience. While this tactic is email marketing, you don’t want to force sales onto your readers. Balance the content between the educational and promotional.
8. Get Creative
E-mail marketing is a time for creative minds to shine. Come up with fun, intriguing ideas and campaigns to draw your readers in. These niche ideas and fun themes can make your company seem more human, which is great for connecting with your intended market. Keep your content in line with somethings you may want to promote. Also, make sure your titles stand out – without being too “clickbaity.”
9. Pick the Main Focus
While you are constructing your newsletter, it can be hard to organize your ideas. Many different ideas are good, but you really should have one focal point. Whether you want to select a different main focus for each newsletter, or consistently stick with one main idea overarching, make that idea center stage. All the other, smaller sections can support the main focus.
For instance, dog kennel’s main focus can be German Shepherds. While the main theme focuses on this dog breed, the supporting sections can offer training tips, breeder suggestions, and have news stories involving the breed. All aspects of the newsletter focus on the main subject and offer supporting information.
10. Visually Appeal
If you want people to read your newsletter, it must look good. Visual design is key to keeping readership. Your newsletter should be a quick, easy read and it should be simple to follow. No one wants to read a disorganized mess. Put the thought in your newsletters accessibility and always make improvements.
11. Keep Trying New Things
If you want to see success for your newsletter, keep trying new things. See what works, what doesn’t, and watch your newsletter evolve overtime. While consistency is important, you don’t want to let things get stagnant. Find a formula that works, but never stop innovating.
Keep Things Simple
Newsletters don’t have to be complicated. They are a creative way to build a larger core audience, establish brand authority, and to promote anything new you may have happening in your company. The key components of a successful email marketing strategy are consistency, creativity, and accessibility. Work toward what’s a fit for your brand and your audience.
