Newsletter marketing enables you to keep the conversation going with customers and potential customers. Your brand has a lot to gain by cranking out newsletters, but in order for this outreach to be effective, you need to ensure you are making the most of your efforts. I already covered some tips to get started with email marketing. Here are more tips to elevate your newsletter marketing.
1. Be Consistent
Follow through on any promises you make in your content. If you indicate you will reach out again next week, next month or whenever, do it. For instance, if your newsletter provides a sneak peek of a new product that you plan to launch soon and you indicate you will send another newsletter on the day the product drops, you need to send that newsletter. Failure to do so can be disappointing for your readers, particularly the ones who are looking forward to the new product. This can negatively impact the relationship between your brand and your clients.
Simplify this process by writing or scheduling follow-up emails or newsletters right away. Keeping to the new product example, you can have the newsletter announcing the product launch ready to go weeks ahead of time. As the launch date draws near there will likely be a bunch of last-minute details that need your attention, so having the newsletter ready is one less thing for you to do in the busy lead up period. You can also outsource your writing needs so you can work on issues that require your attention. Having the newsletter ready means you can focus on these details and keep your word to your subscribers.
2. Segment Your Subscriber List
Instead of one large subscriber list, break that list apart into more targeted groups. Depending on the nature of your business, you can segment your newsletter marketing subscriber list into existing customers and leads, or retail and wholesale or anything else that makes sense. You can have as many lists as you want and users can be on multiple lists or moved between lists as necessary.
Sometimes it may be appropriate to reach out to all of your subscribers at once. However, segmented lists enable you to craft more relevant and specific outreach designed to inspire and engage specific individuals.
3. Check the Metrics
Looking over the metrics or analytics isn’t fun or exciting, but if you want to effectively communicate with your audience, you need to evaluate the data. Reviewing the analytics enables you to identify what is working (i.e. what you should keep doing). As well as what isn’t working (i.e. what you need to change right away). The major analytics are:
- Open Rate: this is simply a percentage of how many subscribers opened your newsletter. Low numbers can be an indication that the headline wasn’t enticing or maybe the timing wasn’t ideal.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): this measures the percentage of users who clicked a link in your newsletter. A low CTR means the links were not interesting or engaging for readers. You want a high CTR because this directs users to your site, which is what content marketing is all about, and it helps close sales.
Other analytic data may be collected and available, depending on the newsletter marketing service you use. You may be able to track open rates in specific areas or what links people clicked. There is value in all of the analytic data. The value may not be immediate or as useful as some of the other metrics, but review everything to gain a better understanding of how your subscribers engage with your content.
Analyze Unsubscribe Rates
Despite your best efforts, users will unsubscribe from your newsletter marketing efforts. People may have excellent reasons for unsubscribing, but do your best to get to the bottom of these reasons. Again, depending on the newsletter marketing service you use, data may have been collected when users unsubscribed. Use this unsubscription information to look for trends and try to identify anything you can fix or resolve to prevent, or at least reduce the instances of targeted users from unsubscribing.
Elevate Your Outreach
Newsletter marketing lets you convey curated information directly to the most ideal audience. Make the most of your efforts by putting these tips to use and increasing the effectiveness of your newsletters. Do you need help with your newsletters or your content marketing strategy? Let me know what’s going on, we can figure out a plan and next steps and then we can get to work elevating your brand.
