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When it comes to small business email marketing, you must have a newsletter. It’s cheap, it provides a direct conduit to your website, and it’s incredibly effective -- if you do it right.
But it’s a daunting challenge. Nearly 300 billion emails were sent to inboxes throughout 2019. Wait, scratch that -- that's the number of emails that were sent per day that year. That's nearly 40 emails for every man, woman, and child on the planet every single day.
Standing out in that crowd is a challenge to say the least.
It's overwhelming to any small business. How can you create a newsletter that your customers will actually read? It will take some work, but there's no reason you can't create one that will do some heavy lifting for your business and bring in leads. We’ve put together some practical newsletter ideas to get you started.
The difference between a good newsletter and a bad one is vast. One sends a steady stream of quality leads to your business, the other dies in spam folders to be read by virtually no one. Follow these seven email design best practices to ensure your newsletter gains an audience.
Your subject line is the difference between a reader engaging with your brand and sending it straight to the trash without a second thought. It has to pop, so put a lot of effort into subject lines.
It’s where you sell the reader on your newsletter, and you’ve got a fraction of a second to close the sale. It needs to have immediate impact, in only a few words.
3 quick tips:
Any correspondence with your customers shouldn’t be self-serving, and newsletters are no exception. Offer something of value in your newsletter, whether that's practical information or even a free product.
If you don't provide something the customer will benefit from, why would they open any future newsletters? Never forget this when you make a newsletter for your business.
3 quick tips:
Want to stand out from other email newsletters that are cramming their inboxes. Ask yourself, what does your brand offer that no one else does? Then, emphasize that in your newsletter.
For example, if you offer small business IT security at an affordable price, include practical content on how small businesses can protect themselves from hackers for cheap.
3 quick tips:
Adhere to a consistent calendar when you send your newsletters. Sticking to a schedule makes you look more professional than sending newsletters at all times of the day or the week. It suggests you have a streamlined operation, and that you are a dependable organization.
It’s also good for email list management, because it trains your readers to expect your newsletter at a certain time, making it more likely that it will stand out in their crowded inboxes.
3 quick tips:
The whole point of your newsletter is ultimately to sell products, and that won’t happen if they're never visiting your site and just living in the newsletter week after week.
Find ways to guide them to the site for additional useful content or benefits. The newsletter should serve as a stepping stone to the site, and not an end in itself.
3 quick tips:
Your newsletter needs to have pop. Follow these three ways to do that: by making it simple, making it visual, and making it focused.
Simplicity helps the reader immediately understand what you're trying to convey, visual elements help make it interesting, and focus ensures that you aren't distracting the reader with various flotsam and jetsam.
3 quick tips:
Once you have your newsletter, don't just throw it out there. You need to understand how it’s performing and what you need to change. You will have to make some tweaks at some point.
By monitoring key performance indicators, you can see what times of day work best, what type of content is resonating the most, and what calls to action (CTA) are getting the most clicks.
3 quick tips:
Rather than start with a basic, boring newsletter, get experimental at the outset. Review some email marketing examples from other companies to see how they do it. Use your software to try out various newsletter templates to see which resonates best.
Experiment with some catchy newsletter titles. Be creative and have fun.
If you love your newsletter, you’ll love spending time on it, and that can only help your content and your engagement with your customers. Make sure the newsletter is a joy rather than a drag, and you’ll reap the rewards.
Our Small Business Expert
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