At one of our client marketing review meetings recently our client asked – are newsletters really useful anymore?  Do people really read them and are they good for our business?

My response?  A resounding yes!

Agreed, gone are the days of the printed newsletter, and also thankfully gone are those newsletters that were full only of blatant self-promotion.  E-newsletters need to be well crafted, full of useful and relevant information and sent to the right people.  They are not a medium for lengthy and multiple information, but snippets of information with links to longer articles that people can read if they choose to.

Once you include eNewsletters in your marketing toolbox, there are a few important rules you need to adhere to:

 

–          Make sure you send the newsletter regularly

–          Build the right reader audience

–          Keep them regularly reading it.

Making it Regular

Here at Appletree we use the Just Add Content, for our own newsletter Scribbles, and for all our clients newsletters.  We agree topics with our clients in advance (usually 3 months), topics which are related to the rest of their current marketing activity. This service allows us to build bespoke templates, branded to our client?s specification; add content and images; and schedule the eNewsletter to go out when we choose.

The Right Reader Audience

There are 2 main groups of people you want reading your eNewsletter on a regular basis: Customers and prospects.

Even with all the best interests, your customers and prospects are not going to rush and sign up to your newsletter, unless you put it right in front of them.  Here are a few tips I gave our client during the meeting when talking about how we can increase their audience even more (the right audience):

Include a hyperlink to your newsletter subscription in your email signatures.  This ideally should be on your website.  Include a line about why they should subscribe in the signature: “sign up to our monthly newsletter for useful tips and advice about xxx”

Take a sign-up sheet to the next exhibition you have a presence at.  When people come to the stand to talk, actually ask them if you can add their name to the list, and then write it down yourself.  Asking people to fill out forms, giving even just a name and email address can put people off from actually doing it these days.

Make the subscription form a prominent feature of your website.  Include past issues to demonstrate the information you include in your newsletters – this is really good for SEO too.  Make sure the sign-up box is at the top of the web page and only asks for a name and email address.  Add this function to every page on your website – your home page is not the only ‘door’ people come onto your site through.

Spread the Word

Make the most of the tools available today that are perfect for spreading the word: Social Media.  This is by far the easiest way to put your newsletter (and therefore your company) in front of people on a regular basis.

Once your newsletter is published, use it as an update on LinkedIn and Twitter. It’s a really easy update to send out every week, with a link straight to the newsletter on your website.  Include a line about the focus of the newsletter.  People can and do share these posts with their network too, so your newsletter can become visible to people you’d never be able to reach otherwise.

So, will our client continue to use an eNewsletter?  Yes!  Because they know that, as part of the managed marketing we provide for them, we will regularly produce a useful newsletter to the right audience for them.

Sign up to our newsletter Scribbles, we’ve got over 1,000 subscribers, and an open rate on average of 63% so are doing something right!