Are you a marketer who is looking to start email newsletters for your business? Or someone that has already been running newsletters and is looking for tips to improve it? We’ve got you covered! Keeping in mind the broad user base of email marketing, the Zoho Campaigns team recently conducted a Twitter Chat with some email marketing experts, and we’d love to share what we discussed. Let’s get started!
We Tweeted out seven different questions related to email newsletters, so let’s take a look at how our experts answered.
Q1. What are the factors to consider when deciding if you should start sending out an email newsletter for your brand?
My favorite newsletter right now focuses on delivering good vibes!
— Avi Goldman (@theavigoldman) July 8, 2021
Love the idea of testing the water first!#ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
Bottom Line: Before attempting anything, make sure you’re going to be consistent with it. For that, you’ll have to plan and strategize how you’re going to go about it. If you have a solid plan with useful materials for your audience and you think you can work it out, it’s high time you start sending email newsletters.
Q2. What are the ideal features an email marketing newbie would need to start an email newsletter?
It's all about the content! ✒️#ZCampaignsChat
— Avi Goldman (@theavigoldman) July 8, 2021
Love that you can start with almost nothing and build it from there. #ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
Bottom Line: To focus on sending newsletters, you’ll need a friend to help you conduct your plans: an email marketing software solution. Ensure the software you choose has basic features like a signup form builder, list segmentation, and pre-designed templates that could incorporate your valuable newsletter content.
Q3. What are the top 3 things that you did or suggest to do to grow an email list?
A3.
1. Twitter 😉
2. SEO – Content based on keywords and blending in newsletter as natural next step
3. Personal network – I always start by personally asking people in my network if they'd mind providing feedback. You can feedback and you get a new sub!#ZCampaignsChat— Samuel Jefferies (@MrSamLJ) July 8, 2021
It took me a while not to be afraid to ask. But people want great emails!#ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
Bottom Line: No one will subscribe to your newsletters unless you ask them, so make sure to ask your social media followers to sign up for your email newsletters. Then get to know your subscribers in order to provide relevant and quality content. That way, they’ll value you and want to hear from you. Finally, get feedback from your subscribers and deliver the type of useful content that they expect.
Q4. What are the top metrics that you follow to reinvent your email marketing strategies?
Asking is always a good place to start!#ZCampaignsChat
— Avi Goldman (@theavigoldman) July 8, 2021
A4 Part 2
For my newsletter, it's about shares, comments, direct feedback. If someone tells me they learnt something, I factor that into future content planning.#ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
Bottom Line:Consistently check conversion rates after sending out each email newsletter and try receiving direct feedback from your subscribers.
Q5. What were a few mistakes or failures that you learned while initially working through email marketing?
A5
1. Be respectful of your reader's time: keep it short
2. Remain focused on the reader: how is this going to make their day better?
3. Don't fear the unsubscribers: you're just honing your ideal, engaged audience#ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
A regular schedule is often overlooked and so important. #ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
Bottom Line:Start using emails during the early stages of your business and email your subscribers regularly with quality and useful content so they’ll remain loyal to your brand. And be ready to face a lot of unsubscribes and never fret over them.
Q6. What is the one thing that you definitely want email marketers to try out?
Love this!#ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
Finding a new way to approach an old topic can make such a difference#ZCampaignsChat
— Avi Goldman (@theavigoldman) July 8, 2021
Bottom Line:Be creative and try to experiment with your content in new ways and look out for trends. This will make it possible to regularly give unique content to your subscribers.
Q7. How do you look at email marketing’s future, especially with a lot of talk around privacy and personal data?
A7
Sure, we'll lose a few metrics, but I don't predict a huge amount of change.
As long as the content stays useful, original and of value to the reader, I think email marketing will continue to thrive. #ZCampaignsChat
— Sally Fox · Copywriter (@sallymfoxwrites) July 8, 2021
A7. I think it's here for a while longer. You certainly have to pay more attention to getting explicit permission etc. But overall, that's for the best as it clears out the spam and gives more room for high quality email to shine.
— Samuel Jefferies (@MrSamLJ) July 8, 2021
Bottom Line: As privacy regulations tighten, you will have to pay more attention to permission-based email marketing so that you can send emails to people who are genuinely interested in hearing from you. The good news is they will be far more likely to open your emails, so all you’ll have to concentrate on is how to engage with them.
Here we are wrapping up, however, if you’d like to read more answers regarding these questions, take a look at our Twitter Moment (don’t sweat it, you can view this even if you don’t have a Twitter account =D). We hope this episode of #ZCampaignsChat helps you understand how email newsletters can give you the ability to build credibility with your audience in this age of digital transformation. If you’d like to participate in our upcoming activities on Twitter, we’ll keep you updated here.
Have any other interesting perspectives or tips to share from your experience? Drop in your comments and let’s discuss email newsletters! And, if you’re planning on starting an email newsletter for your brand, here are five types of newsletter content to improve brand awareness.
P.S Here’s the link to a webinar that we recently conducted on how to plan, create, and run email newsletters.
Comments