How to create a suc­cess­ful news­let­ter marketing strategy

News­let­ters are one of the most effective tools for online marketing. Emails are sent to specific target groups and are ideal for reaching customers in a per­son­al­ised way. News­let­ter marketing can be used for both B2B and B2C sectors.

What is news­let­ter marketing?

News­let­ter marketing is one of the most tra­di­tion­al online marketing dis­cip­lines. In this kind of marketing, customers are contacted through news­let­ters and other types of ad­vert­ising emails. There are numerous ways to implement news­let­ter marketing. A typical example that many online shops take is by informing customers after their first purchase of any offers and sales that are happening. News­let­ter marketing also offers various types of busi­nesses, ranging from retail and wholesale to gyms and box offices, the chance to keep in regular and direct contact with their customers.

Emails are a form of direct marketing which focuses on the expansion and main­ten­ance of a company’s existing customer base. In principle there are two different strategies:

• One-to-one com­mu­nic­a­tion: Emails are addressed to in­di­vidu­als.
• One-to-many com­mu­nic­a­tion: Emails are sent to many re­cip­i­ents.

News­let­ter marketing is very often part of dialogue marketing, which entails direct contact with the customer. Dialogue marketing normally takes place on the phone, usually via a call centre. News­let­ter marketing reaches out to the customer directly and tries to present them with a per­son­ally-tailored offer.

The news­let­ter should elicit a response from the recipient. They should be able to respond via links or an order form, which isn’t possible with many other types of marketing such as poster ad­vert­ising. The call to action should motivate the recipient to carry out a certain action, for example:

• To take advantage of special offers and discounts.
• To look at new products in the shop.
• To read current articles on the website.
• To download white papers and e-books.

There is a dif­fer­ence between news­let­ter marketing and email marketing. The dif­fer­ence is how often they are sent out. News­let­ters are sent regularly meaning that the recipient is written to on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Emails, on the other hand, are sent ir­reg­u­larly and are usually linked to a certain occasion or event. The occasion could be seasonal (for example, holidays or campaign days) or offer-related (e.g., the launch of new products, the start of a special sale).

What are the chal­lenges of news­let­ter marketing?

Pro­mo­tion­al mail doesn’t really have the best repu­ta­tion. The main reason is the increased amount of spam emails that have been sent out in the last few years. More and more people are buying and reading online so their email address ends up on the mailing lists of many shops, blogs and other sites. This results in an inbox that is over­flow­ing and re­cip­i­ents that only take a few seconds to decide whether they want to open or delete an email. Busi­nesses are aware that their news­let­ters or ad­vert­ising mails need to pique a customer’s interest straight away. This often do this by ensuring that emails are geared towards a certain target group or tailored to in­di­vidu­al people.

What are the ad­vant­ages of news­let­ter marketing?

News­let­ters can be es­pe­cially be­ne­fi­cial to busi­nesses due to their large coverage and the pos­sib­il­ity of cus­tom­ising it for certain groups. They can also be directly addressed to the recipient and come across in a more personal way. This per­son­al­isa­tion also means less waste when it comes to large mailing lists, since relevant content can be custom fitted to each re­spect­ive recipient. The com­bin­a­tion of relevant content and less waste leads to a high return on in­vest­ment (ROI), which means that the pro­por­tion between ex­pendit­ure and profit is very good.

Benefits of news­let­ter marking

✓ An efficient and cost-effective form of direct marketing

✓ Op­por­tun­ity to directly and per­son­ally address the customer.

✓ An in­stru­ment for long-term customer retention

✓ A way of promoting sus­tain­able customer re­la­tion­ships

✓ Wide reach (depending on the address list)

✓ A higher ROI

The success of a news­let­ter can be precisely measured. With ap­pro­pri­ate tools, you can keep track of which mails have been opened and which links have been clicked on. Com­pre­hens­ively analysing in­di­vidu­al campaigns enables them to be adapted better to customers and leads.

Tips for starting news­let­ter marketing

Tip 1: Create a recipient list

In order to kick-start your news­let­ter, you first need a list of re­cip­i­ents. It should, if possible, consist of in­ter­ested readers that could become customers. The easiest way is to write to your existing contacts.

But be careful; pro­mo­tion­al mails can only be sent with the recipient’s expressed consent. There are different ways of getting this consent. It is important to use the double opt-in process, which involves the in­ter­ested party filling in their details. They then receive an auto­mat­ic­ally generated email and must confirm that they actually want to receive the news­let­ter.

Tip 2: Gain new sub­scribers

It’s always better to be on the safe side by sending existing customers an email asking if they would like to receive future news­let­ters. An ad­di­tion­al way of expanding your mailing list is to integrate the news­let­ter re­gis­tra­tion into the order process (e.g., ‘Yes, I would like to receive this news­let­ter’.) or to place it on the homepage.

There are different strategies to encourage new customers to subscribe to the news­let­ter. An incentive (for example, a discount code) is often offered to new customers when they complete the double opt-in process. A popular choice is a free white paper or e-book download that can also be linked in the news­let­ter.

Tip 3: Choose suitable content

As mentioned above, the recipient often has a barrage of pro­mo­tion­al emails in their inbox, so making your own news­let­ter stick out from the rest is no easy task. Relevant content is behind the success of every email campaign. It is important to speak to the customer’s needs and not just to offer them value. You have better chances of besting your com­pet­i­tion if you adjust the content and pro­mo­tions to your target group. If you want your news­let­ter to actually be read, you should take into account that per­son­al­ised news­let­ters can have more impact depending on who they are sent to.

If you want to:

• increase your sales figures, you should in­cor­por­ate product offers and discount campaigns.
• strengthen your brand, you should establish a repu­ta­tion as an expert in your field by providing relevant and trust­worthy in­form­a­tion (e.g., a white paper.)
• increase your read­er­ship, you should have current news and relevant in­form­a­tion about current affairs available.

Tip 4: Pay attention to the design and structure of the news­let­ter

Even the best content isn’t much use if it isn’t well presented. A stand­ard­ised layout increases the re­cog­ni­tion value and strengthens the corporate identity of a business. The company logo should be in the header with a link to the website. A clear and intuitive nav­ig­a­tion­al structure is just as important as an ap­pro­pri­ate and readable font. When building and designing the news­let­ter, you should always keep readers’ behaviour in mind. Here are some rules to follow:

Organise in­form­a­tion according to im­port­ance

The ‘above the fold’ principle applies to news­let­ters as well as websites. Many know this principle from the classic newspaper adage. All important in­form­a­tion should be above the fold (i.e., the page break) so that the reader sees it straight away. When it comes to the internet, the principle refers to the limited browser window. All the important content, key state­ments and offers in a news­let­ter should be in this visible area. Most im­port­antly, the call to action, which en­cour­ages the reader to click on more, should be visible without the need to scroll down.

Call to action

The CTA (call to action) is es­pe­cially valuable when it comes to designing a news­let­ter and can be thought of as the center­piece of the news­let­ter. The CTA has to speak to the customer so they feel compelled to click on it. The design should look different, with the button or writing often being different from the rest of the content. The text should also be short and to the point. Since you only have a few words or a sentence, you need to cut to the chase and give the customer a good reason to click.

Use visual stimuli

The design (the choice of colours and contrasts) as well as content, structure and po­s­i­tion­ing can also make a dif­fer­ence as to whether the CTA is suc­cess­ful. Click elements, CTAs and special offers can be made to stand out by using different colours. You can emphasise different areas to direct the reader’s attention to them, but it is best to con­cen­trate on just one or two high­lights. If you use images and graphics, don’t forget to include the alt texts. These are shown as al­tern­at­ives in case the graphics cannot be shown correctly. If you are ad­vert­ising a big discount sale in an image, you should also have this written in the alt text. You can learn how to create custom news­let­ter templates in our Digital Guide.

Tip 5: Choose the right news­let­ter tool

To run a suc­cess­ful news­let­ter marketing strategy, choosing the right tool is crucial. There are a number of different providers, each covering a different range of functions. We provide tips and sug­ges­tions for providers in our Digital Guide article that compares email marketing software. If you work with WordPress, you can find more in­form­a­tion in our article that compares WordPress news­let­ter plugins.

Tip 6: Check the most important in­form­a­tion before sending

Before sending the news­let­ter, you should double-check that important elements in the news­let­ter are correct:

Dispatch time

The date and time of dispatch should reflect the re­spect­ive target group. B2B customers are best reached between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Private users should be written to in the evening or on the weekend. Find out how to find the best time to send news­let­ters in our Digital Guide.

Correct sender and subject

The subject and sender are the first things that the recipient sees. If these look dubious, your mail will quickly find itself in the trash bin. The sender’s address should therefore be de­script­ive and clear. You can do this by including the company’s name in the sender’s address. The subject line should also be clear. Catchy wording will encourage the recipient to open the mail whereas empty phrases and lots of punc­tu­ation will put them off. With only 40-50 char­ac­ters, you have to be clear about the pro­mo­tions and links. In another article, we go over how to formulate the perfect subject line for a news­let­ter.

Ap­pro­pri­ate target group

Most programs enable different mailing lists to be created so you can choose which target groups you want to address. The target group has to be defined before the news­let­ter is created. Check that the right recipient group has been selected before you send.

Important com­pon­ents of every news­let­ter

The double opt-in process is very important when it comes to news­let­ter re­gis­tra­tion. Just as important is providing readers with an un­sub­scribe option. You are also required to add a dis­claim­er. These are usually placed in the footer section.

Tip 7: Send a test news­let­ter

Before the news­let­ter is sent out, you should check its present­a­tion and func­tion­al­ity as well as whether the links work. The present­a­tion can differ from email client to email client. These should be factored in, as should the mobile display because the majority of emails and news­let­ters are opened on mobile devices. This change in user behaviour should be taken into con­sid­er­a­tion in your news­let­ter marketing strategy. Re­spons­ive designs react to different screen sizes and show the user a version of the news­let­ter that has been optimised for their device. The test mail should also determine whether the display is shown correctly on different devices.

Tip 8: Measure and optimise success

Different software solutions for news­let­ter marketing make it possible to precisely measure the success of your efforts so that you can con­tinu­ously optimise news­let­ter campaigns. All-important figures related to the dispatch of your news­let­ter are provided through in­teg­rated tracking:

• Delivery rate
• Opening rate
• Click rate
• Un­sub­scribe rate
• Con­ver­sion rate

Thanks to these figures, every business can check whether the news­let­ter design and content were prepared according to the target group. Little by little, you can improve and optimise your news­let­ter so that you can carve out the ideal marketing strategy for different recipient groups. A favoured method of op­tim­ising subject lines or content is AB testing. This is where two versions of the same news­let­ter are sent out and the reactions to both mails are then compared. You can find more details about this in our article ‘News­let­ter eval­u­ation via email tracking’.

Why news­let­ter marketing should be in your marketing strategy

As a classic marketing tool, news­let­ter marketing should be a permanent element of every solid marketing strategy. Well-thought-out news­let­ter marketing, supported by the right tools, leads to in­di­vidu­al customer contact and long-term success. Through per­son­al­isa­tion, this type of online marketing can prove to be a sus­tain­able and effective endeavour. Per­son­al­isa­tion is more than just personal addresses and seg­ment­a­tion though. Dialogue marketing works well when each dialogue is cus­tom­ised and contains the exact in­form­a­tion that each customer is looking for. Pro­fes­sion­al software solutions can further fa­cil­it­ate your news­let­ter marketing efforts.