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How To Make Sure Your Company Newsletter Gets Read

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By Tyler Gallagher, CEO and founder of Regal Assets, an international alternative assets firm with offices in Beverly Hills, Toronto, London and Dubai.

As an entrepreneur, I always go the extra mile to make sure my customers get as much value out of our relationship as possible. This goes far beyond the point of sale. To build strong, long-lasting customer relationships, I think it’s critical that you find ways to provide value for your customers long after they walk through your doors or checkout their shopping cart. 

One of the best ways to do this is to offer a company newsletter to subscribers. On an opt-in basis, you can amass a long list of customers with whom you have a direct line of communication. With a newsletter, you can build trust and authority within your audience and keep your brand fresh in your customers' minds. 

However, there’s a delicate balancing act involved. If your newsletter fails to deliver real value or only serves to annoy your customers, you can lose your credibility. But when done right, and when published at the right frequency, it can open new doors for your business. In this article, I’ll go over exactly how to strike that careful balance, as well as why you should

Newsletters 101: An Underrated Competitive Advantage

According to a recent poll of B2B marketers, 81% said that email newsletters are their most used form of content marketing. The same poll found that 31% said that newsletters are the best way to nurture leads. 

Even though I work on the B2C side, I’d agree that email newsletters are a crucially important way of generating interest in your brand. In fact, I’ve utilized them consistently since the start of my entrepreneurial career. 

The customer lifecycle lasts years, not days. If you want to stay top of mind, you need a way to connect with your customers long after they’ve made a purchase. A newsletter does just that while also providing myriad other benefits that assist with driving sales and social engagement. In short, newsletters offer a competitive advantage over businesses that neglect them. 

Benefits Of Email Newsletters

Still on the fence about whether you should start an email newsletter? Consider the list of benefits that newsletters could pose for your business. 

• Driving Web Traffic

Your newsletters can drive targetted traffic to your website. Throughout each newsletter email, include links to new content on your website or toward special promotions hosted on your site. This way, they have an incentive to re-enter your sales funnel and start considering new purchases. 

• Reputation Management

When you release a newsletter, you create a brand voice and help control the narrative surrounding it. In industries that are highly dependent on trust — such as mine, alternative investments — newsletters can establish your brand as having an authoritative reputation within your niche. 

• Social Media Growth

Newsletters are excellent conduits for social media development. In each newsletter, plug your social media accounts at the end and encourage your readers to connect with you on each platform. This way, you can build a social following that consists of dedicated customers. 

• Sales Initiation

Newsletters help promote sales, introduce new products and make customers feel like “insiders” who have special access to deals and promotions. A well-crafted newsletter strategy should periodically include special discounts and rates for newsletter subscribers to help drive new sales. 

Perfecting The Art Of The Email Newsletter

Don’t know where to start with developing a successful newsletter? To help steer you in the right direction, I’ve listed some pointers below. 

• Express, Don’t Impress

As a rule, it’s best to spare your readers any complex, lavish language. Instead, keep it real and keep it concise. If you have a new product, deal or development to announce, cut right to the chase. Nobody wants to read an overly wordy newsletter that beats around the bush. 

• Educate Before Promoting

There’s nothing worse than a purely self-promotional email newsletter. If you want your audience to actually open and read your newsletter, make sure there’s real value contained in it. Sure, take the opportunity to advertise new deals or products, but make sure the majority of the content informs the reader about how to make the most of what they already have. 

• Find The Right Frequency

As I alluded to earlier, sending out newsletters too frequently might annoy your audience. According to a survey of B2C marketers, higher open rates and click-through rates are associated with newsletters that post five or fewer times per week. Any more often than that and you’re likely going to start seeing some of your audience unsubscribe. 

• Nail Your Subject Lines

Subject lines are tricky. If they’re too to-the-point, you’re not going to attract any attention. However, totally bizarre headlines tend to annoy more than they attract any real curiosity. As a general rule, I like to err on the side of creative or eye-catching subject lines that communicate the benefit of opening the newsletter (e.g., “WARNING: This month is EXPLODING with deals” — maybe not exactly that, but you get the point. Get creative with it.). 

Build A Successful Newsletter Strategy Today

A content marketing strategy is incomplete without email marketing. If you want to get a leg up on the competition, launch a newsletter and allow your customers to opt in at checkout. It’s never too late to start, and your most loyal customers will thank you for the opportunity to get the inside scoop on deals and promotions. 

However, a newsletter is as good as useless if it never gets opened. Luckily, you can put together an effective newsletter strategy that your audience actually wants to read by following the guidelines listed above.