I’ve stored an advert to subscribe to an email marketing list for a little over nine months. It was in an enewsletter, with a hotlink to a landing page for ‘regular offers of products, often at a reduced price’. Whilst I didn’t expect to be offered anything I particularly wanted, I thought I’d give it a go. I felt a bit of pressure given how helpful the enewsletter had been.

Each November/December I go through my desktop and laptops to rid them of the junk that sort of piles up without me doing anything. I recommend it. It’s hard work the first time, but it gets easier each year. Before you move anything from your download folder to somewhere to save it permanently, the thought goes through your mind that it will be causing your extra work in a few months.

I’ve particular folders for various enewsletters I subscribe to. I had signed up for the particular one I mentioned when I’d bought new video editing software. It promised useful hints and advice, including various tricks and shortcuts. More to the point, it delivered. While some content is often bland, or meant for beginners, I’ve kept 18 of the weekly publications, now precisely filed and so easily found. 

The point of enewsletters is that a subscriber should find something useful, interesting, funny or relatable in most. The fact that I’ve kept 18 out of nearly 10 months of subscription, so a little under 50%, shows that they’ve cracked it as far as content goes.

They are brief. The one I reread had about 4000 words in three articles. After the first, which explained a particular sub routine, there was the advert for subscribing to the email marketing list. It was just a hotlinked box. It doesn’t seem designed to leap out at you. Rather, it was a sort of apologetic cough. ‘Sorry to bother you, but . . .’

The content of the newsletters is meant to be saved. There was a series of four which explained the process of picture-in-picture, and the way to induce subtle movement. It was the lead article in the first, the second in the second, and then the fourth in the remaining two. To get to all but the first article, I had to pass these little calls to action.

If such a system will fit your business model and products, then it is most effective. What would you give to have 18 adverts on the computers of those who have already shown an interest in your products? There are mentions of various items, some of which were on offer if the reader wished to ‘click through below’.

As I pointed out earlier, I’ve subscribed to the email marketing list. Not only that, I’ve also bought a rather nifty bit of audio editing software which has lots of facilities. I expect I’ll be saving a fair few enewsletters in the coming months, each with its call to action. I’ll probably continue forwarding them to friends keen on video editing.