The power of newsletters

Converting visitors to customers – Your money is in your list

Newsletters are a very powerful way of being able to inform customers, remind customers and keep customers in touch with your online business.

To fully understand the power of a newsletter to build your customer base it is best to imagine your business as a high street store. People don’t necessarily go into your store online ‘because they are passing’ as they would on the high street. You have to remind them and make your reminder interesting; whether that be a new article, a new offer, new products etc.

Encouraging visitors onto a newsletter list is the number one most successful activity in an online business.

Newsletters build customer relationships

Virksomhed nyhedsbrev

Newsletters are a way to keep in touch with contact and build up a relationship with a customer by giving them the experience they would if they kept visiting your shop on the high street. They get to see what’s on offer again, remind them of why they were interested in the first place and give you a change to show them what is new or has changed without them going looking for your site.

Newsletters are easily managed with autoresponders

Newsletters can be easily managed today with autoresponder packages for even the most non IT savvy business owner. When choosing an autoresponder think ahead, if you are paying per email going out, what will it cost if you have 5000 or more on your list. Also, if you are paying for the number of emails going out check that you can delete emails from your subscriber list otherwise you will pay to be sending to “dud” emails.

Tips on Newsletters

  • Offer a free rapport which is helpful to encourage people to signup
  • If you have a website, only put a teaser and link to read the rest on your site
  • Expect a proportion of mails to bounce as people change their email addresses
  • Your customers must confirm permission for you to send them a newsletter
  • If you don’t get permission to send customer’s mail they can report you for ‘spamming’
  • Test your newsletter before you send it out that everything is working; resending is not good!
  • Sign yourself up on your list so you get a copy of the mail and know what customers receive
  • It is important to use every opportunity to have people click on links to your site
  • The subject line for the email must be interesting as it is competing with hundreds of other mails
  • Think about your heading, only 20% of people read past the heading – would you click?
  • Don’t send out newsletters too often (max. 2 per month) – fresh and interesting is key to power
  • Newsletters will view differently on devices and because of email providers (unless your newsletter is pure text and no styled template, don’t try to satisfy every customer, you can’t)