It can’t be said enough that all website owners must consider promoting their products and services to be competitive in today’s tough online landscape. Touching base periodically with your target audience will make a difference. This practice is sometimes referred to as email marketing campaigns. This regular online contact with consumers will improve your brand, and make an impact on any business if done correctly. Today’s post is all about how to create beautiful newsletter campaigns with the goal of increasing revenue.
Newsletter (email marketing) definition:
Sending a newsletter to your consumers is the practice by which companies send out either informational or product-based content, via an email newsletter. The end goal is to attract consumers to products or services they may be interested in.
How to create successful newsletter campaigns:
Creating a successful newsletter requires the end user make a purchase or to ask for more information after receiving and reading the information. The most important thing to remember is to make sure the email newsletter is not created to be only sales-driven. The information must also be interesting to the reader. Those newsletters that are concentrating only on sales will not be as successful as those sending information worth reading. This success can be easily measured by how many click-throughs there are once the email campaign reaches the target audience.
Don’t drive the target audience away:
Most of us are regularly bombarded with sales offers of all types and promotions daily. Too many of these can irritate the target audience and in the end they could decide to block you from their list of content received. Those in the know suggest your email campaign should consist of about ninety (90 %) educational information and only ten (10 %) sales-driven content.
How important are newsletter headlines?
Newsletter content must be valuable to the reader, above and beyond the attempt to sell goods and services as mentioned above. Visitors are more likely to open content which comes to them in an interesting way. This is where the headline can make all the difference. Spend the time to develop a catchy and memorable headline by keeping it fact-based and relevant to your audience. This will help you increase the number of subscribers willing to click-through and read the entire content.
The body of the content: How knowledgeable are you?
As you develop the body of the content, you are demonstrating just how knowledgeable you are. You should be an expert and an authority on your specific product or service. Explain to your subscribers just how much you know. What are the advantages to purchasing your items? Do you offer a variety of styles and sizes? As you offer more information, you will also be building trust and thus bring more personality to your brand.
Experience teaches us that if the consumers develop trust in a brand, they will spend more with that brand and prefer that brand over others they receive ads from. Be that brand that builds trust by preparing great newsletter campaigns and you will succeed in becoming a successful email marketer. Your brand will stand out from the competition.
Effective newsletter campaign checklist:
- Creative headline which effectively represents the content
- Add specific info geared around the needs of the target audience
- Newsletters should be published regularly (holidays are target dates)
- Should have “call to action” verbs (offers a chance to buy)
- Content must be mobile-friendly for all devices used for search
- Must have an “unsubscribe” button for courteous behavior
- “Sign up” call to action verbs should be easily visible
- Offer rewards, incentives and specials to entice visitors
- Include a link to your online website for more info
- Add terms and conditions link to assure data won’t be shared
One of the email marketing platforms we recommend for our website clients is Campaign Monitor. It has a drag and drop email builder, very easy to use. You can pick from hundreds of professionally-designed templates. Once you prepare the template for your own brand and complete the newsletter, they load perfectly for any device being used for searching the web Email marketing campaigns are much more popular for click-throughs when compared to Twitter and Facebook content. Email campaigns keep your audience engages and will drive revenue your way.
Building subscribers to your email list:
The first step for any entrepreneur who is going to send email newsletters is to build a large subscriber list. This is a data base of those consumers you know of and those that find you online. We add all emails we receive daily to our subscriber list by simply adding them one at a time as they are received to our data base. Many of our clients ask us to add a block on the home page of their website which allows visitors to add themselves to the list. They can also “unsubscribe” if they choose to do so.
Another way to add subscribers ourselves is to log into our Campaign Monitor account and add them to the data base ourselves as they are available. Our programmer can also add thousands at a time if a client has a comma delimited list of client emails. They can provide us with the list and the programmer will add the list of subscribers using a programming method.
The efficiency of email marketing:
Email marketing can be a highly efficient and effective form of advertising. Since email reaches the consumer in real-time, they are much more like to engage with this type of product promotion. Another thing to remember is those visitors to your website that have given their email address are likely to be persons most interested in your offering. Therefore you are actually reaching the right audience to place an order.
Newsletter campaigns are cost-effective advertising:
To send a newsletter through Campaign Monitor, you will spend very little. In fact, each new campaign is as little as $5.00 each, and only one penny per person. It is easy for most site owners to create a template and send email regularly as sales are available to the target market. You will also be able to customize the emails according to the recipient, and develop different mailing lists for specific purposes and demographics.
Last but certainly not least, with email marketing you can analyze your marketing efforts and determine if they were successful or not. You can measure the open rate, click-through rate and determine which consumers were converted to actual buyers. Today folks are more and more using their mobile devices for to search for bargains. They can order online from anywhere they happen to be whether at work or in public spaces. Set a goal and begin to build your database of users. You will be in front of your target audience in no time.
Thanks for stopping by and hurry back for more from the Design Wizards at Inside Design Orlando. Contact us for professionals we refer if you need someone to create newsletters for you.
Enjoy the holidays.
Jean Holland-Rose
Chief Creative Officer & SEO Professional
