Amidst flashier, more high-tech marketing solutions, the email newsletter has sadly been lost in the shuffle. Yet ignoring this key form of customer outreach could be detrimental to your broader marketing outcomes. The simple reality is that email newsletters work; they remain one of the most valuable ways for businesses to directly engage with their customers. When properly managed, an email newsletter can lead to a greater brand rapport, to increased website traffic, to more conversions, and beyond.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons your business might benefit from a regular email newsletter campaign.
Catch People While They’re Reading
In a perfect world, your customers would visit your website every day. They’d scroll through the News section, catch up on the latest company blog posts, and verify that they’re current on all the latest promotions and product launches.
Of course, that’s not how most customers interact with business websites. It’s much more usual for customers to access your website only when they need something specific… a phone number, information about a particular service, etc.
When you send an email newsletter, however, you can provide company updates in a forum where customers are much more likely to read them. Simply put, your customers may not visit your business website every day, but they probably do check their inbox every day. A newsletter allows you a way to engage your target audience in a setting where they are much more prepared to actually digest what you have to say.
Personalize the Newsletter Experience
Another benefit to email newsletters is that they allow you to customize your messaging to accommodate specific customers.
For example, you can segment your subscriber list into different groups, tailoring each newsletter to match specific demographic criteria. In other words, you may be sending out a few different versions of your newsletter to more accurately reflect the interests of your different user groups.
You can even allow your customers a chance to select the topics they’re interested in when they subscribe to your email newsletter.
In other words, instead of an open fire hose of information, you can use your email newsletter as something much more finely-tuned and precise; a good way to show customers that you respect their time and are ultimately seeking to make their lives better, not just busier.
Boost Your Website Traffic
Another important role that the email newsletter can play: Encouraging readers to visit your business website.
For example, in each newsletter, you can provide a succinct summary of your most recent blog post(s), with a teaser inviting the reader to click through to read the entire article.
This can be a good way of highlighting your recent thought leadership and encouraging your readers to pursue more details on the topics that interest them.
Along the same lines, a quick assembly of new products, services, sales, promotions, or discounts can be a good way to get people clicking over to your business website to seek out additional information.
Gather Data and Analytics
By encouraging your readers to visit the website, you can unlock another key benefit of the email newsletter, one that too often goes unmentioned: Collection of data and analytics.
What we mean is just this: Once you send out an email newsletter, you can monitor the traffic back to your website, paying attention to which parts of the site get a lot of hits and which ones don’t.
This information can help paint a picture of which parts of your value proposition are connecting best with readers, and in turn you can use that to carefully craft follow-up marketing effort.
In essence, you’re creating a feedback loop, one that allows for continuous refinement to your marketing message.
Grow Your Audience
Generally speaking, you’re probably going to be sending your email newsletter primarily to previous customers and clients… people who are already fairly familiar with your business and its core offerings.
But with the right messaging, you may be able to expand your reach, as well. For example, if the content you send is genuinely valuable, or if you promote new products and deals that are truly enticing, your readers just might forward the newsletter to their friends. That brings new awareness to your business, new eyeballs on your website, and potentially even some new customers.
Using Your Email Newsletter Effectively
Clearly, an email newsletter can offer some substantial benefits. With that said, these benefits are predicated on an email newsletter strategy that’s well-executed. Everything matters, from the timing of your newsletter to the list segmentation to the content itself.
As you seek to incorporate an email newsletter into your broader marketing strategy, we hope you’ll give us a call; we’re always happy to talk through any of the logistics, or to explain some additional benefits of email marketing. Reach out to enCOMPASS any time you’d like to chat.
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