Adding Value to Your Email Newsletter
Newsletters are highly powerful email marketing tools. Each piece of them is strategically built to ensure that subscribers read your message, click your links and create an efficient ROI.
It’s too easy, though, to get stuck in the vicious cycle of haphazardly regurgitating content in an effort to “just release a story” or meet distribution deadlines. Sadly, that practice counteracts all of the valuable time you put into strategizing your newsletter’s effectiveness. Always keep in mind that your subscribers signed up for something of value, and it’s your responsibility to make sure they’re delivered just that.
We’re here to help you add value to your email newsletter with our 5 ways to stop sloppy newsletter content before it destroys your relationship with your subscribers forever.
1. Make it valuable.
The #1 content rule for maintaining the effectiveness of your newsletter is to ensure that the content you share is of value to your subscribers. Before sending, ask yourself if your content helps your subscriber connect with you. Is it helpful? Relevant? Timely? While the vast solutions for valuable content are not concrete, sharing industry news, helpful tricks and new statistics are excellent places to start.
2. Make it timely.
Relevance can also be measured in the timeliness of your message. Attending a conference? Send a pre-show invitation or post-show recap highlighting your experience. Hit a milestone or receive an award? The news is slightly less interesting months after the acknowledgment has happened — so aim to showcase the news as soon as possible.
3. Plan ahead.
Having an idea for what content will fuel future newsletters can help to keep messaging from going stale or getting too repetitive. One simple trick for developing a content outline: reference the publication calendar of an industry magazine or online publication. A publication calendar can give you great insight into industry events and trends that are popular during any given month of the year and can offer the perfect starting place for brainstorming what on-trend topics you could cover.
4. Know what others are doing.
Take a minute or two and sign up to receive newsletters from your competitors and favorite brands. You’ll quickly see common patterns in their design, subject lines and content strategies. Compare them to your own. Test subtle changes for effectiveness. And, best of all, you’ll always be in the know with all of the industry news delivered directly to your inbox.
5. Be dynamic.
Don’t be afraid to test new strategies. Take advantage of the trendy power of video, social feeds, share links, native ad placements and more in your newsletter. Experimenting with new integrations can have an excellent impact on your ROI — just keep an eye on the numbers and be prepared to be flexible if something isn’t quite working.