Sticking with the email marketing theme this week, are newsletters still valuable when promoting your business online? Offering a newsletter to visitors of your website is usually done with email marketing list building in mind. You join up with an email marketing service and then you place a sign up form on your website so that people can sign up for your list. The problem though is only completing these two steps doesn’t often work because Internet users sometimes refrain from signing up for email lists if they’re not going to get anything in return. This is where the newsletter typically comes in. Rather than simply sticking up a sign up form on your website, you offer visitors a copy of your regular newsletter if they sign up. This gives you the opportunity to sway people to sign up for your list, while giving those who do sign up information that they’re looking for.
It all makes sense, but whether or not a newsletter is a valuable marketing tool is still constantly being debated. Let’s explore both sides of the story to see whether or not the newsletter is still worthwhile when it comes to promoting your business online.
Newsletter Pros
- They are generally easy to create
- You can choose how often you create and publish a new one
- You can keep them simple or make them more elaborate by including images, links, etc.
- If people like your website and/or your business, they may be interested in keeping up to date via your newsletter
- You can market in them by sharing new products or services with your email list
Newsletter Cons
- They can be boring if not done right
- People may never see them if they don’t open their email
- If they’re sent too often, people may unsubscribe from your list
- The word “newsletter” is too vague so people may be unsure of what they’ll be getting
Newsletters do have their issues, but when it comes down to it, it’s about putting effort into them so that they can help promote your business. Making sure that the important information is at the top of the newsletter will help spread the message you want to convey easier. Also, only sending them when necessary will deter people from feeling like they’re being spammed.
Crafting a perfect newsletter that gets good results if often done by trial and error. If you’re not getting the results that you want from your newsletter, try changing things up a bit to see if that helps.
