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.

The biggest asset your business has is its “list”

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.

How to easily create and manage newsletters 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 creating and getting the most out of newsletters

  • Offer a free rapport; giving them some valuable information up front and demonstrating your value to them encourages them to sign-up;
  • If you have a website, only put a teaser snippet in your newsletter and add a link to read the rest on your website; this helps build up traffic and relevance of your website.
  • 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 so they must sign up;
  • If you don’t get permission to send customers mail they can report you for ‘spamming’. If you do this often it can be enough to get your email banned and that can have severe implications on your business;
  • Test your newsletter before you send it out that everything is working; many autoresponders do not allow you to re-send the broadcasted newsletter!
  • 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. This links must be relevant and helpful, don’t waste a customer’s time as it’s the fastest way to have them unsubscribe.
  • The subject line for the email must be compelling/intriguing as it is competing with hundreds of other mails;
  • Think about your heading, only 20% of people read past the heading – would you click?
  • How often should you send out newsletters? – there are compelling arguments and statistics providing value for any viewpoint. If you keep your headlines attractive, even though customers might not open them, they will feel the emails are valuable when they decide to. If the headings are powerful and relevant, they will feel they are missing out if they unsubscribe!
  • 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).

Nyhedsbrev - Keep Customers Informed And Connected With Your Products And Services