Just as Thor thought that every problem in the world could be solved by hitting it with a big hammer, those who think newsletters are a good idea tend to suggest that they solve most of your email marketing problems. Whilst out of the two, the latter has more evidence to support it, the fact is that for the best of all possible worlds newsletters should work with email marketing campaigns.
There are some accepted truths. Whilst these are as challengeable as any received wisdom, they are a good basis from which to start. We all know that you should only have one major purpose for your newsletter, the most popular being to harvest leads or to gain subscribers to your email marketing list. This does not mean that everything else should be ignored.
Subscribers to your newsletters are already sympathetic to your company. If you send them news, technical details or explanations of life, there must be a certain trust, and that’s the biggest hurdle over. Further, they will know you only do what you say you will do. They are the definition of a target for subscribing to your email marketing list.
One thing you must not do is betray their trust. You cannot, for instance, have a newsletter which focuses on your upcoming email marketing campaign. However, you can prepare the ground. We are not talking about salting the battlefield so much as preparing them for your special offer.
If, for instance, the newsletter is mainly B2B, then an article on how to present a business case could precede an email marketing campaign for something that will revolutionise their business. Mention the campaign in your newsletter and that by signing up to your email marketing list they will have access to special offers.
The design of marketing emails was covered recently and all the factors go for newsletters as well. Just as you target your campaigns, you should do the same for your newsletters. The vocabulary you use for campaigns should be the same for those with similar metrics in newsletters. If the use of mild jargon massages their ego in newsletters, it will work in an email marketing campaign.
The much hyped suggestion of having click-throughs for further information is much hyped for a number of reasons. It gets the reader used to clicking on things, stops the newsletter being death by information and gives you metrics.
There are an awful lot of newsletters out there and some are so generic that there is little to show who produced it. Leaving your subscriber bewildered as to source is no help in generating trust. A distinctive title might help, ‘The Newsletter’ is just not trying. There’s one I receive which calls itself ‘The [Acme] Magazine’ and is shown in the Subject Line.
Don’t betray subscribers to your newsletter. Give them something they look forward to, will read, and might even select off a newsagent’s shelves. They will accept a certain amount of advertising and fishing for leads. Just by not overdoing it you will stand out from the crowd.
