Keeping you up to date

One of the biggest challenges with launching a newsletter is building the number of contacts in your database. Read on for our top tips on how to make your newsletter a success, or check out Episode 4 from Season 2 of our podcast, Revitalise & Grow. 

1. Give thought to making your content shareable and use social media to your advantage; once you have worked out which frequency works best for your business, there should be a content plan structured around your optimum timeframe. There are a few things to consider when you are trying to make your content more shareable. Firstly, consider whether you can offer a high value “lead magnet” (a piece of content that your audience would be willing to exchange their email address for) that will draw the right sort of people in to your database. Just be sure to be really clear that signing up to a lead magnet will mean your audience will be added to receive your newsletter – this should be positioned as the amazing value-add it is, whilst ensuring people are not being duped. And always make it easy for people to unsubscribe if they so wish. 

Similarly, you should cross-promote your newsletter on your social media channels to encourage people to sign up (a discount code could work well as an incentive).  If you share a direct link on your social channels to your newsletter sign up page that makes it nice and easy for your audience. 

You may also want to consider including some reviews and testimonials on your newsletter sign up landing page so new subscribers are able to see your credibility instantly, and understand the value they will be receiving. 

And finally, tell people about how great your newsletter is! Tell them in meetings, at shows, in your store, leave a nicely designed note in with your product – go through your list of key customer touchpoints and consider how you can let them know about your fantastic, value-adding, entertaining newsletter and what they need to do to sign up and be part of the action! 

2. Be on top of the measurement of your newsletter; analysing how your newsletter is being received can help you understand what aspects are performing well and anything you may need to rethink and change for next time. The most important things to keep track of are open rates, click through rates and unsubscribe rates. The majority of platforms come with a reporting functionality for you to access these statistics, but there are a myriad of sites to use if this isn’t an option on your platform (for example, we use InfusionSoft, but you may wish to start out using a free platform like Mailchimp).

3. Analyse which frequency works best for your consumers; there is no particular day or time that is formulated to work – it’s always different for each brand. Therefore, we would recommend experimenting with sending your newsletters out at different times; for example, weekly, bi – weekly or monthly, morning, afternoon, evening, on weekends etc to see which receives the most engagement. Don’t be afraid to experiment.