Are e-newsletters worth the time and effort?
This is one of the questions clients often ask about their marketing activity.
My answer? Yes, when they are implemented in a structured and strategic way.
Email marketing can be a valuable strategy to speak to clients, colleagues and potential customers directly – using both targeted messaging and information-focused content.
It builds relationships and can generate enquiries for your service or product.
Building an email subscription list gives you direct access to people who are so interested in what you do, they’ve made the effort to sign-up.
When is an e-newsletter worth doing?
Before you commit to another regular marketing task, give the newsletter a clear job. Keeping in touch with existing clients is a different aim from encouraging people to enquire about a new service. Both can be useful, but you’ll need to judge the results accordingly.
Ask yourself:
Who has chosen to hear from me, and what would be useful to them?
What do I want this newsletter to help my business achieve?
Do I have something worth sharing, or am I creating an email because the calendar says I should?
How much time can I give to writing, checking and sending it?
What response would tell me that it’s doing its job?
You may already have most of the material: an answer to a client’s question, a useful blogpost or an upcoming event. Start with what will help the reader and choose a frequency you can maintain.
how do you implement in an e-newsletter?
An e-newsletter provides a platform to send multiple pieces of content that resonate with your subscribers. You can do this:
at the end of a campaign by sharing your expertise – blogposts, vlogposts, webinar recordings etc.
at the start of a campaign to highlight upcoming events you’re speaking/exhibiting at or webinars you’re running.
to share community news, curated content or company updates, outside of a campaign etc.
Ensure it’s personalised and worthy of a read - remember, you’re building a relationship with that one person opening your email, clicking through and reading your content.
How often should you send an e-newsletter?
How often you send your e-newsletter is ruled by how much content you produce and your internal resources to create the mailer. Could be once a fortnight, once a month, once every two months. Keep it consistent though – people will expect to receive it.
Utilise the data your e-newsletter produces
Once you’ve sent your e-newsletter, look at what people clicked on. What piqued their interest? What type of content was it? What do they have time for? You then have data to help support your next campaign-based activities.
You can also explore how they interacted with the mailer. Did they click on a button, a text-based link or an image? This gives you data to help support the design of your e-newsletter.
Is the time you spend paying off?
Keep a simple record of the time spent and the responses each newsletter generates. Look for replies, relevant website visits, event bookings or enquiries, depending on its purpose. Where you can, ask new enquiries how they found you; the newsletter may have helped someone decide to contact you after several other interactions.
Review a run of newsletters before drawing conclusions. If the response is weak, review the audience, subject matter, and next step before increasing how often you send. For help with the email itself, read how to get someone to open, read and act on your marketing emails.
With that in mind, how could you implement an e-newsletter in your organisation? Get in touch if you need some help.