5 tips for a better newsletter
A company newsletter is a great way to stay in touch with existing customers. Get it right and a newsletter can help build brand loyalty, reinforce your value proposition, and help cross-sell new products and services. But get it wrong and it could backfire, causing clients to unsubscribe in their droves.
Each month, Cyan Marketing helps dozens of businesses to engage with their audience with thought-provoking articles professionally presented and delivered via a powerful email marketing platform. Here are the top 5 tips from our marketing experts to ensure your newsletter packs a punch.
1. Make it relevant, make it interesting
A newsletter can be a great marketing tool when used correctly but your messages will only hit home if the content is useful to your audience. Typically, a newsletter will include a selection of different features and articles, so try to ensure that there is something in there for everyone.
Our customers’ newsletters feature case studies to showcase the great work they have done for others, new product launches to generate more enquiries and human-interest stories that talk about the achievements of their staff. People love to hear more about the people who deliver your services, so if a colleague has recently gained a new accreditation or maybe run a 10K for charity, these stories will prove to be popular among your customers.
Educational pieces that clarify the finer points of your services or explain important points of compliance will also be useful to your readership.
2. Pick a schedule and stick to it
Sending your newsletter on a regular basis means readers will come to expect it from you and, providing the content is relevant to them, they should always look forward to receiving the latest edition.
At Cyan Marketing, we’re often asked about the optimal frequency of a company newsletter, but this depends largely on the type of business you run and how much you have to say. For example, an entertainment venue with different events running every night of the week, may feel that a monthly newsletter is best to keep customers up to date with what’s going on. A dental surgery on the other hand, whose treatments do not tend to vary greatly from month to month, may feel that a quarterly edition is sufficient.
The important thing is that you decide on a regular sending schedule and stick to it!
3. Break it down
To make your newsletter clearer, you should break it up into sections. Pages full of text are uninspiring and likely to scare your readers away so break it down with headings, subheadings, links and images. Organising your text into sections will also make your newsletter easier to read as it presents the information in bite-sized chunks.
When sending your newsletter as an email, we suggest using small and enticing paragraphs that draw your readers in before directing them to read the full article elsewhere. If you want more people to visit your social media or you’d like more people to visit your website, use links in your newsletter to drive more traffic to these areas. This frees up more space for more graphical elements and prevents the newsletter from becoming too text-heavy.
4. Make it responsive
These days, far more users will be checking emails on their mobile phone than on a desktop, so it’s vital that your newsletter looks and works just as well on a small screen as it does on a computer.
You would be well-advised to use an email marketing platform that enables you to preview the appearance of your emails and newsletters on a mobile device before you send them, but if this isn’t something you have access to, just be sure to send a test to your mobile so you know what it will look like.
5. Don’t oversell
Naturally there are commercial aims when sending a newsletter, with companies seeking to increase their presence, encourage repeat business and cross-sell new products to their client base. But don’t oversell it. Some companies make the mistake of using their newsletter purely to promote latest offers or push service upgrades, but this approach will drive readers away over time.
The secret to a successful newsletter is in providing a mix of features that strikes the right balance between information, education and sales promotions. Engaging material should make up the majority of your newsletter with the addition of appropriate promotions that call your reader to action. If you can get this balance right, then the sales should take care of themselves.
If you’d like help creating effective and engaging newsletters that nurture the relationship you have with your customers, call our team on 01268 778555 or email info@cyanmarketing.co.uk.
