What is your email newsletter strategy?
The strategy you apply to your email newsletter depends on the nature of your business goals.
- If you’re a blogger, for instance, you probably want your subscribers to receive an email prompting them to read each new blog post you publish. Your goal is to increase readership and engagement.
- If you’re a small-business owner, your might want to let your subscribers know about sales, new offerings, or other special promotions. The goal here is to drive sales while minimizing advertising costs.
- Start by defining what you want to happen (Goals), and then plan how to reach them (Strategy).
- The five key components of a successful strategy are:
1. Know the legal rules
Many countries — including the U.S. — have email newsletter laws/guidelines you need to comply with. These aren’t too scary. They’re basically designed to prevent companies from buying email lists and filling people’s inboxes with unsolicited spam emails or advertisements they can’t opt out of receiving.
Campaign Monitor provides an excellent overview of current U.S. laws and guidelines regarding email newsletters.
2. Simplify the subscribing process
First of all, you’ll want to make it easy for people to subscribe to your newsletter. Ensure your email subscribe forms are prominently positioned in your blog’s sidebar, at the end of blog articles, or even consider using pop-up subscribe forms.
3. Spice up your newsletter with branding
Don’t be dry and boring. Brand your newsletter. For instance, if you have a recipe or cooking blog, your call to action to subscribe to your newsletter might be something like this: “Get our latest and greatest recipes delivered fresh to your inbox.”
If you have a hot sauce business, it might be this: “Sign up to be the first to know about smoking hot sales, cooking tips, and delicious new sauces.”
4. Provide value, not spam
People who subscribe to your newsletter are going to want to get what they signed up for, not a bunch of unsolicited spam. Make sure you’re only sending out the valuable information they asked to receive, whether that’s a link to your newest blog post or a 20% off coupon.
5. Measure (and improve) your outcomes
The service you use to send your email newsletters should provide helpful metrics to measure the performance of your email marketing campaigns. Is your email list growing? What are your open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates?