Number One Tip on Making Email Newsletters Work
His number tip to make Email Newsletters work?
1. Slow and steady wins the race. For most newsletters, publications once a month is plenty–more often and recipients start tuning you out; less often and they never tune you in.
I once had a client who had a newsletter list comprised of some of the best and brightest in her field. However, she didn’t treat her list with the respect it deserved. Her mailings were sporadic at best and she refused to use a Marketer’s Choice type of newsletter delivery service. (Their main product is their shopping cart, the email newsletter software comes with the "autoresponder" package.
Keeping your marketing message out of JUNK status
Whether it’s on the web or via the US Postal Service, keeping your marketing messages OUT of the junk mail pile (or blocked by spam blocking software) is ESSENTIAL to direct marketing success.
We’re going to deal with email newsletter delivery in this post.
With an email delivered message, you first have to start by ensuring visitors "opt in" to receive email from you.
To do this, you’re going to need more than just your average, ordinary contact form. You’re going to need special software that will ensure that visitors who sign up for your newsletter really do want the newsletter AND the software also allows you to easily send those messages.
I used to install this type of software on client’s web hosting accounts so they wouldn’t have to pay the $29 per month to a service like Marketer’s Choice. As my business grew, it got to the point where I wasn’t able to baby sit every single client’s newsletter software installations. Frequent updates to the software (to not only comply with Can Spam, but also to stay one step ahead of the bad guys on the web…) truly made it more trouble than it was worth for my less than tech savvy clients. Which is why I began encouraging clients to sign up with Marketer’s Choice. It’s truly a set it and forget it email newsletter delivery option that can grow with your business. Start with the Autoresponder Package and move up as you begin to offer digital downloads and other products.
Once you’ve signed up for a newsletter delivery service, (There are others…. constant contact and aweber are two that come to mind.) then it’s time to get down to business and get people to subscribe to your newsletter. In most cases, you’re going to need to include a "legal bribe" to get them to sign up for your email newsletter. This is a tactic you’ve seen used all over the web. It’s the valuable resource that you get for free if you’ll just sign up for the email newsletter. (I use Creating Marketing Magic and Creating a Website Google will Love for mine.)
Once visitors have "opted in" then the job is to keep them reading and opening your emails. One of the hardest thing for newsletter "editors" is fine tuning the mix of giving vs selling. In my experience, be sure you’re "giving" away valuable information (as defined by your readers) at least three times to every one time you talk to them about buying something from you. That’s my standard. Not everyone agrees.
My "read more" rate runs at about 50% for my newsletter, which is an INCREDIBLY high click through rate. I suspect that it’s because I give more than I "sell". As a matter of fact, I do VERY little "selling" via my newsletter. But that’s because I’m trying to keep my newsletter out of the JUNK status. Because even after someone has subscribed, they still have the ability to send your approved email messages to the junk pile.
I have signed up for many, many newsletters and over the years, there are only a handful that I haven’t delegated to junk status. Those that I read are packed full of great content and observe the 3-1 ratio of giving vs selling.
Statistic show that a newsletter subscriber is 5 times more likely to purchase from you than someone who isn’t subscribed to your newsletter. With those kinds of odds…. it’s little wonder that so many marketer’s use newsletters.
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