E-mail Newsletters

Most of you are already champions at this, but I wanted to cover today some of the benefits of an e-mail newsletter.

As you business owners have noticed, the internet has changed anything.  E-mail newsletters were one of the early ways that marketers capitalized on the online world.  It sometimes seems like the good old e-mail newsletter is on its way out, and is even old fashioned compared to some of the new media that are available.  This, however, is not the case.

Even though the e-mail newsletter’s reputation has been battered by spammers and over flooding of the inboxes, think of your newsletter in this way.  If your newsletter list has 500 people on it, every time you send out a newsletter, you are contacting each of them.  How long would it take you to make 500 phone calls or visit 500 homes and knock on their door?  Now of course they won’t all read it, but all 500 people didn’t use to open their door either.  And the best part is, you can reach out to them again, and again, and again.

Here are some tips for your e-newsletters to your customers:

Add Value:

“SALE! LAST CHANCE” in the subject line might work a couple of times, but eventually, the aggressive pitch is going to get old and you are going to get tagged as spam, ignored, or unsubscribed from.  Do sales, do promotions, but sometimes mix it up with valuable content that is meaningful to your customers.  Nobody knows your customers like you do.  Find ways to tie into what is happening locally.  Celebrate temple dedications.  Tell your story.  Send something funny.  Just mix it up once and a while and stay in your customer’s good graces.

Opt In:

It might be tempting to buy e-mailing list full of 1,000 names for $50. However, these lists usually add little value.  They’re not targeted, their out of date, and worst of all, they didn’t give you permission to contact them.  Permission marketing is really where all of the power of online interactions is.  It’s the process of a customer saying, “I trust you to put things in my inbox” and you honoring that trust with valuable and worthwhile content.

Consistency:

Not only will this make customers accustomed to what your schedule is and more likely to open it, it will also make it easier for you to stay consistent with developing and sending out content.  If, for example, you know your newsletter goes out Wednesday morning, pretty much without fail, that Tuesday afternoon, you will be going through and putting together items that will work in that newsletter.

Hopefully these tips help you as you move forward.

Ringmasters would love to help you in providing content for your newsletters.  Even if you would like to run some specials or giveaways using Ringmasters products, we’d love to talk to you.  If you have any other questions about starting an e-mail newsletter or how to go about it, I’d love to help.  We’re invested in your success.  Just e-mail: kirk@ringmasters-inc.com or call me at 801-612-3030 ext. 21.