According to a 2019 Médiamétrie study, over 22 million French people connect to their email inbox at least once a day. Like email campaigns, newsletters are one of the most used tools by companies today to create a connection with their customers.
Do you want to incorporate newsletter sending into your digital marketing strategy to animate and engage your contact lists?
Here’s everything you need to know about newsletters, the number one marketing tool for companies to stay in touch and engage their customers long-term… Let’s get started!
Reminder: Definition of a Newsletter and Main Benefits for Your Company
What is a Newsletter?
A newsletter is a marketing/communication tool used to send information via email to a list of contacts composed of prospects and customers.
Most companies use newsletters to:
- Inform their prospects and customers about their company’s news, products, or services;
- Maintain a connection with their community of customers;
- Engage their audience and strengthen brand affinity;
- Generate regular traffic to their website and blog pages;
- Build long-term audience loyalty.
Some companies choose to send newsletter campaigns to their contact lists daily, while others opt for weekly, monthly, or quarterly sends. It all depends on the company’s marketing and communication objectives and the content they want to offer their audience!
Indeed, the primary purpose of a newsletter’s content is to inform and educate the recipient (a prospect or customer) about a topic of interest or the company’s news.
To collect email addresses from their prospects and customers, companies typically offer a contact form accessible on their website. By filling out the contact form, prospects and customers agree to regularly receive information from the company in the form of newsletters or emails.
What Are the Advantages of This Communication Tool for Your Company?
As a company, regardless of your industry, implementing a newsletter has many advantages for your business. Among them are the ability to:
- Reach a Large Audience Quickly
Indeed, the first advantage of a newsletter is that this email can be sent to a large number of recipients instantly. It’s therefore a good tool to disseminate information about your company, products, or services to all your contacts quickly and regularly.
- Send Professional Communications to Your Audience Very Simply
Creating a newsletter is simple and accessible to everyone! Thanks to tools such as Sendinblue, Mailjet, or Mailchimp, you can create professional newsletters in just a few clicks, without being a programming expert. These tools usually offer email templates that you can modify and adjust as you like to create a newsletter that represents you.
- Communicate with Your Prospects and Customers at Lower Costs
Creating and sending a newsletter is much less expensive than any other type of advertising! Indeed, the various tools mentioned above (Mailchimp, Sendinblue) are very affordable, regardless of the number of contacts you have. These newsletter managers usually offer free versions initially, which can then become paid depending on the number of sends, number of contacts, and desired features.
The SaaS software developed by Trustt supports companies and allows them to collect qualified and segmented email addresses to maximize the open rates of their newsletter and email campaigns.
Newsletter, Email Marketing, Is There a Difference?
The answer is yes! Be careful not to confuse newsletters and email marketing, which are two different communication actions.
Indeed, email marketing is a communication with a commercial aim. The purpose of sending an email marketing campaign is to promote your company, products, or services in order to convert your prospects into customers.
The newsletter, on the other hand, aims to inform your contacts, prospects, and customers about the life of your company in order to build loyalty. The objective of a newsletter is therefore essentially informative. It helps improve your company’s brand image and create a unique connection with your contact lists.
4 Best Practices to Create a Trusting Relationship with Your Audience Through Newsletters
A newsletter requires work! It must be creative, original, and well-constructed to interest your readers. You must work on the subject line to make it impactful and ensure that each of your newsletters is read, but also on the design to make them pleasant to read and insert Call To Action buttons to redirect your readers to your website and social networks. But that’s not all! Here are 4 areas to explore to capture your readers’ attention and send newsletters that stand out!
1 – Offer Content with Real Added Value for Your Audience
To stand out from the multitude of emails received daily by your prospects and customers, you must absolutely think about the content of your newsletter!
A newsletter’s sole purpose is not to talk about your company’s news and highlight your products or services. Your newsletter must truly bring something extra to your readers.
It is imperative to offer rich and attractive content to your contacts so that they want to read it regularly and your open and subscription rates do not decrease over time…
Thus, to capture the attention of your recipients and make them want to read your newsletters more than those of your competitors, you can set up an editorial line and a sending schedule.
To interest your audience, you can, for example, share:
- Tips and advice related to your industry;
- Your latest content and resources (blog articles, white papers…) in your audience’s area of expertise;
- Your work methods or how your company operates;
- Behind the scenes of event planning;
- Useful external content for your contacts (articles, videos, podcasts…)
- Tutorials for using your products or services;
- Your mistakes, the lessons you’ve learned from them, and the improvements implemented;
- Testimonials and reviews from your customers after using your products or services;
- Surveys and satisfaction questionnaires to better know and understand your customers;
- Etc.
The list of possible topics to cover in a newsletter is long! One rule: be creative and share content with real added value for your readers in order to create a strong and lasting connection with your contacts (prospects and customers).
2- Create an Appointment with Your Audience
To engage your contacts and build a solid trusting relationship with your prospects and customers, one of the best practices to adopt is to send your newsletters always at the same time and regularly.
For example, you can decide to send your audience a newsletter every week, on Monday late morning. By offering your readers quality content that truly interests them, every week, on the same day and at the same time, you create a ritual, a habit, and gradually enter the daily lives of your prospects and customers.
This regular and quality appointment between you and your audience will allow you, over time, to gain your customers’ affection for your brand and thus build loyalty.
To send your newsletter at the right time and maximize your open rate, it’s important to consider the audience you’re sending it to. Who are your contacts (prospects, customers)? What are their characteristics? Their habits, their motivations? Clearly defining your audience helps you determine the best time to send your newsletters.
3- Show Your Human Side to Create a Unique Connection with Your Audience
To generate interest and interactivity among your readers with each newsletter send, don’t hesitate to talk about yourself and show who you really are!
Indeed, to capture attention, it’s not enough to talk about your product and service offerings, but rather to show yourself from a unique angle, marked by transparency and authenticity.
You can, for example, open the doors of your company, show behind the scenes, highlight your values, your motivations, and what drives you on a daily basis.
Today’s customers are looking for more authenticity and transparency from brands. By showing yourself as more human and more accessible to your contacts, you establish a close and trusting relationship over time! By speaking openly to your readers, you improve your brand image and create a unique bond, a sincere and lasting attachment.
4 – Personalize Your Newsletters
Newsletter management tools, such as Mailchimp or Sendinblue, for example, allow companies to categorize contacts in their email database according to their characteristics.
These newsletter sending tools also allow you to completely personalize each email, by inserting the recipient’s name in the body text or in the subject line of the newsletter.
Personalizing your newsletters will inevitably attract the attention of your readers who will be more inclined to open your email if their name appears!
This way, you show them that you are genuinely interested in them and that they are not just another customer to you.
By personalizing each of your newsletters, you increase your open rate, which is the number of your contacts who will open your email compared to the number of sends made.
Addressing targeted and personalized communications, with customized messages, allows you to strengthen the engagement of your audiences.
Your first newsletter campaign is launched? As with any marketing/communication action, it’s important to “analyze your results to measure the success of your operation! Look at the open rate, delivery rate, click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, share rate, conversion rate, and then your ROI. Analyzing all this data allows you to continuously optimize your newsletters to” ensure you achieve your objectives and always delight your customers. It’s your turn to play!
