With the rise of social media and internet marketing, newsletters have become a popular way to reach out to your customers and potential new leads. Building a loyal and engaged email subscriber base is essential for any business or organization looking to grow and succeed in today's digital world. Newsletters are a great way to communicate with your audience, share valuable information, and promote your products or services. However, growing your newsletter subscriber list can be a challenging task, especially if you're just starting out. So how do you make your newsletter subscription effective? In this blog we will discuss some proven tactics to help you grow your mailing list and your business:
Importance of Newsletters
The goal of a newsletter is to build relationships with customers and grow your business. When done well, it can increase your exposure and drive traffic to your website or e-commerce store. Email marketing continues to be an effective strategy for businesses today. According to Marketing Sherpa, email marketing has an ROI of 4300% for businesses. Newsletters keep your audience engaged with your brand and provide another opportunity for you to share relevant content with them.
You also want to provide value in your newsletter so your audience will want to read it. Newsletters help you build trust and grow your brand awareness by keeping your customers engaged while promoting your products and services.
Are you getting regular subscribers to your newsletter?
Being able to track your newsletter progress is a key piece to success. You can use tools such as Mailchimp to help you track your subscribers and get a better understanding of how to improve your newsletter campaign. Mailchimp is an email marketing platform that allows you to easily create, send and track emails that help you build relationships with your subscribers. In an ideal situation, people come to your site, read your content and are so impressed they sign up for your newsletter to receive more brand-related content right into their inboxes. The ability to create great content on your website not only will improve your organic visibility, but is also the best way to convince a user to sign up for your newsletter.
Once people have signed up for your newsletter, you obviously want to keep them subscribed. Many people receive more emails than they care to sift through these days, so make sure your media's message is clear. You will want an engaging tagline to bring people in, then eye-catching content to keep them reading. There is nothing better and more beneficial than well-written original content. In order to ensure you are providing the best possible content, you need to do targeted keyword research based on products/services, and customer segments and blog content will help you create engaging content.
Content strategies to power your newsletter subscriptions
There are many tactics that can be taken to capture newsletter subscribers on the website. Users will be more inclined to provide their email addresses if they will get something in return. Therefore, strategies such as offering a lead magnet, which is also referred to as an “opt-in bribe.” This basically just means offering your website users something in exchange for signing up for your newsletter. Another known way to gain more new subscribers is by using a well-timed pop-up. Whether we like them or not, they work. Popups have been proven to increase conversion rates by 2100% when used the right way.
A great email marketing strategy starts with quality content that is relevant to your target audience. But how can you come up with ideas for content for your newsletter? Here are some content marketing tips for creating a successful newsletter. Firstly, you want to identify your customers' pain points and create content that solves them. It is also always worth including personalized customer experiences and unique perspectives on your product/service or industry. Last, but definitely not least - you want to create a sense of exclusivity by creating "gated content" that is only accessible to subscribers. This is the main way to capture and keep newsletter subscribers.
Newsletter best practices
There are do’s and don’ts to everything. When it comes to newsletters, the main don’t is to not purchase contact lists. This will end up hurting your campaigns rather than helping them by getting you flagged. There are many more helpful tactics you can use to ensure your newsletters follow the proper guidelines. Here are some best practices you can use to optimize your newsletter:
- Add an engaging subject line to get readers to open your email.
- Test different headlines to see what gets the best results.
- Keep the email short and sweet to avoid overwhelming your readers with too much information. An ideal length would be to try to keep your emails to fewer than 400 words
- Use a clear call to action to encourage your readers to take action after reading your email. For example, add links to your website and social profiles to make it easy for readers to learn more about your company.
- Send the newsletter out at different times of the day to determine which time works best for you.
- Take advantage of built-in analytics to see how each of your newsletters is performing so that you can improve it over time.
Ensuring you follow newsletter best practices will help you not only boost your campaigns but also keep your users engaged and wanting more.
Newsletters summed up
Email newsletters are both a great way to communicate valuable information to your customers about your products and services, as well as move them further down your cycle. However, growing your newsletter subscriber list is an ongoing process that requires effort, patience, and creativity. Getting users to sign up for your newsletter is only half the battle. Once you’ve brought people in, you need to keep them there. By implementing the tactics we have discussed in this blog, you can increase your chances of success and build a loyal and engaged email audience. Focus on delivering value and building trust with your subscribers, and you'll see your email list grow over time.
Following proper content strategies like the ones listed above will assist you in not only keeping people subscribed to your newsletter, but also engaged in the content you are providing. For help creating the most effective newsletter campaign, contact us today!
FAQs
How should I build my newsletter subscriber’s list?
- There are many tactics that can be used to help build a newsletter subscriber base. Strategies such as offering consumers a lead magnet tend to be more effective at building your newsletter subscribers.
How often should I send a newsletter to my subscribers?
- Typically, the ideal frequency to send out newsletters is no more than two a week and at least once a month. More and more consumers want to receive emails from brands, so sending out a weekly newsletter is what most audiences tend to respond to.
How long should a newsletter be?
- Constant Contact exclaims that the ideal length of a newsletter is about 20 lines of text or around 200 words. Studies show that newsletters shouldn’t be much longer than 400 words to get the best return from it. They claim around 200 words of results is the highest click-through rate for businesses.