3 reasons making newsletter a part of the digital communication game
Newsletter? Really?! Are newsletters not a bit “has been”, out of fashion, a communication tool from the past?
When I teach digital marketing to my fashion students and comes the topic of e-mail marketing, they usually don’t find the use of it. Most of them don’t subscribe to newsletters, mainly in fear to be spammed. They rely more on social media to keep up to date with their favorite brands.
But how do you stay in touch when social media don’t work? In this new article on My Blog Box:
We will define what are newsletters and e-mail marketing.
We will look at the main 3 reasons why you should have a newsletter to communicate with your audience.
What is e-mail marketing?
E-mail marketing is a digital marketing strategy used by brands to communicate about their news and offerings. E-mail marketing is also a direct marketing strategy, meaning that the brands communicate directly with their audiences, without any intermediaries.
As its name stipulates it, to perform any e-mail marketing campaign, you need to have the e-mails. Obtaining people to trust you with their e-mails might be the biggest challenge. Indeed, nowadays, e-mail marketing is associated with spamming, when you receive unsolicited communication from a brand, business or individual.
Many reglementations have been implemented in the USA, Canada and in the European Union to prevent spamming and to secure personal data, including your e-mails, on the Internet.
As a brand, make sure you are awake and you comply with these regulations when you build your mailing list.
What is a newsletter?
A newsletter is one of the many messages you can send via e-mail to your mailing list.
Depending on your objectives, newsletters can be a round-up of your activities and news or be focused on a particular topic. In terms of frequency, different types of newsletters are at your disposal:
The daily newsletter
The weekly newsletter
The bi-monthly newsletter
The monthly newsletter
When you encourage people to subscribe to your mailing list, make sure you explicitly state the frequency of your communication with them.
Moreover, depending on this publication frequency, you will need to create enough content.
Usually, the two main publishing frequency I could have noticed for newsletters are either weekly newsletters or monthly newsletters.
On the top of newsletters, you can also send follow-up e-mails after an order, invitations, birthday messages, special offers and so on.
Why a newsletter? Reason #1: A social media back up plan
Nowadays, the main digital communication happens on social media. However, how do you communicate when, suddenly, social media don’t work or are not accessible? Social media blackouts have already happened few times and taught brands and small businesses not to have their digital communication relying exclusively on them.
E-mail marketing in general, and newsletters in particular, will enable you to always stay in touch with your audience, even in case of social media blackouts.
If it’s an Internet blackout or a power blackout, unfortunately, there is nothing to do.
Newsletters allow you a better flexibility in your digital communication efforts by not putting all your eggs in the same basket.
Why a newsletter? Reason #2: A tool to have a conversation with your audience
Not that you can’t have this conversation on your social media profiles… But the information you publish on your social media is more a general one. Through your newsletters, you can make this conversation a bit more private, more dedicated. You will talk to your audience as a human, you will call them by their names and they will feel more special, as if they were your friend, a friend of your brand.
It will feel more authentic than the show-off and glitters we usually show on social media.
E-mail marketing is a very powerful tool to foster relationships. Depending on the situation of your audience, depending on their stage alongside the buyer’s journey, you can send them very personalised messages which can turn them into clients and, the graal, into regular clients.
Why a newsletter? Reason #3: A tool to build your brand awareness
Use your newsletter to drive traffic to your website, to your blog. Your e-mail marketing communication should help you to boost your other online and offline activities. Your audience might not have seen your last news on your social media. Newsletters will be here to remind them about it…
Remind your audience about a contest you are organising on your social media. Announce the launch of a new collection or collaboration with some sneak picks and avant-première exclusivities. Invite them to a live event on your social media or to your stand in a pop up store or seasonal market.
Encourage them to invite friends to subscribe to your mailing list with some incentives (a coupon, a gift for their next order).
Send added value content, educative, useful information which will make their lives easier, more pleasant.
And always add calls to actions, a link for people to click on to discover your new collection, your new offering, to read your new article, to listen to your last podcast’s episode or to watch your last tutorial on Youtube…
Your newsletter is here to support all your other marketing and communication efforts to boost your brand awareness.
When correctly crafted, having a newsletter can be a game changer for a small brand or a small business. The main thing to remember will be:
Don’t abuse the trust people have in you when they share their e-mails with your brand
Send newsletters only when you need to, and not because you have too. However, if you commit to a certain frequency (weekly or monthly), try to stick to it. Regularity is key. Even for newsletters.
Don’t send useless newsletters. Send interesting, entertaining, educating newsletters on topics your audience loves so that they love your newsletter and share it with their own community.
Newsletters and e-mail marketing are not a tool from the past, from the first years of the Internet. They are still relevant in an integrated digital marketing and communication plan.
I hope that this article was helpful to make you understand the power of a great newsletter.
My Marketing Toolbox has recently launched its own monthly newsletter “In The BOX” in which I talk about fashion, fashion history, podcasting, books and some behind the scenes. Feel free to subscribe to it here.
Launching an e-mail marketing strategy and a newsletter can be scary at first. I am here to help you to review your overall marketing strategy and see how e-mail marketing could bring you to the next level. Contact me for me information!
See you soon!
Cath @MyMarketingToolbox
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