Email Newsletters in the Digital Age
In a digital age, sending out email newsletters instead of paper newsletters has become much more popular. And why not? The marketing potential of cheap, nearly instant communication with interested customers is difficult to overstate.
The content within your newsletter can greatly affect your readership and business. Read on to learn what to include in your newsletter and how to organize it to more effectively generate leads.
Digital Versus Paper Newsletters
Digital Newsletter Pros:
Cheaper – Everyone is looking for a way to save money and sending out an electronic newsletter can cost much less than running a traditional mail equivalent.
Easy Distribution – Email is much easier to manage than paper mail. Email address lists are usually easier to keep up to date than mailing addresses. And with near instant delivery, you can send out newsletters much more frequently than by paper mail.
Better Targeted Audience – Since a user must opt in, you are marketing to a more targeted, engaged audience.
Gain More Audience – A digital newsletter has a better chance of being shared than its paper equivalent. An online share opens your marketing up to a much wider audience, which drives more traffic to your website.
Use of Statistics – Most email marketing services provide statistics including open, click, bounce, and unsubscribe rates. These statistics can help you better tailor your content to your audience. If your open rate is low maybe you need a more interesting and eye-catching subject line, for example.
Digital Newsletter Cons:
Easily Ignored or Lost – Amongst the barrage of emails people receive on a daily basis, your newsletter can easily be overlooked.
Viewed as Spam – Your subscribers’ email provider might tag your newsletter as spam. It’s a good idea to encourage your subscribers to add your newsletter’s FROM address to their address book. This prevents email programs from flagging your newsletters as spam.
What should be in your Newsletter
90% Educational and 10% Promotional 
– Promoting yourself too much can be a major turn off. If your newsletter constantly makes a subscriber feel pressured to buy, they will likely unsubscribe.
Instead, include content that educates the subscriber or has relevant information that ties in with the items/services you are promoting.
Creative Subject Lines – A good subject is the first thing people see. Interesting subject lines entice users to click. Read some tips for creating a good subject line.
Another option is to use the same subject line each time you send out your newsletter. This may seem boring but can build a sense of familiarity with your subscriber base so they do not accidentally delete your messages.
One Main Call to Action – Most of the time you will have many call-to-actions within your newsletter, but make sure to highlight only one of them so as no to overwhelm your readers.
Straight Forward Design – Stay away from long paragraphs and bullet your information. This makes it easier to read and keeps your audience interested.
Shares, Links, and Unsubscribe – Include an easy share button. Many times if your audience likes your content they will want to share it.
Have links to your website and any other websites you may have a partnership with.
Always give your readers the option to unsubscribe. If your unsubscribe feature does not work, it will frustrate your subscribers and probably get you blacklisted for violating the CAN-SPAM Act.
Contact Information – Have your business contact information prominently displayed in your newsletter.
Photos – Have a balance between photos and text. Having too many of either can make your email look like spam. Try to spread your photos out and link them back to a relevant web page.
Let Appletree Mediaworks Help you
Need help designing, managing, and sending your newsletter?
Let Appletree Mediaworks take care of your newsletter. We will work with you as often as needed to gather content, design the template, manage your email list, and schedule your newsletter. We stay up with all the latest technology trends and laws so you can focus on running your business.
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Facebook Tools for Your Business
Facebook has made some updates that benefit small and medium sized businesses. These include improvements to the call-to-action button, new sections, and a soon to come new mobile layout. All of these improvements to Facebook can greatly improve your business if used correctly. They can cause more users to buy your products, download your games/apps, and general interest in your business which can bring more customers.
Call-To-Action Buttons
Facebook has made improvements to the call-to-action buttons. They are much more prominent on your page and are displayed directly under the page cover photo. Some most popular options include ‘call now’, ‘send message’ and ‘contact us’. Here is a breakdown of more buttons:
- Book now – this can be helpful for any business that makes any sort of appointments such as hair stylists or hotels
- Use app – this is a unique one for those that have a mobile app and may increase the downloads of your app
- Play game – this is another unique one and is driven mostly for gaming businesses and can redirect the user to play a game demo or to the game online
- Shop now – this is for any business that sells any products and redirects the user to your ecommerce website (Also see ‘shop’ section below to improve this feature)
- Sign up – this can be used for any business that has an email subscription, or to sign up for the service such as Uber
- Watch video – this can be used for any company that has a video about their business or maybe their products. It’s a good way to get users more interested in your business
- Donate now – this is the most recent and is for non-profit organizations only
Send Message
Almost all the call-to-action buttons are pretty self-explanatory but the ‘send message’ button has to be used carefully. Once you have the ‘send message’ on your customers expect you to be responsive. Remember your goal is to have a high ‘Response Signal’ (more below). If you respond to 90 percent of messages within five minutes, you’ll earn a “Very Responsive to Messages” badge that tells page visitors that you can be reached effectively through messaging.
Once you know you are ready to be responsive to messages you get you need to know how to respond.
- Don’t be a robot – In your response write to the customer as if you were talking to them and not a robot using an automatic response. This makes a more personal connection with your customer.
- Short and informative not long and boring – There is not a limit of characters on Facebook messenger but you still should make it short and to the point. When using saved replies (more on this below) try to limit them to only frequently asked questions.
- Use Private responses when necessary – There are new options to respond privately when including sensitive information such as billing questions, order statuses, and sensitive customer complaints.
New Sections
New sections on the business page include ‘shop’ and ‘services’. The new ‘Shop’ section lets the business put their products on their page while the new ‘Service’ section lets the business list out services offered at the business.
Mobile Layout
A new mobile layout will make customers more easily find what they are looking for with your business by using tabs instead of endless scrolling should be coming out soon.
More Features
More features include ‘Saved Replies’ and ‘Response Signals’.
The ‘Saved Replies’ lets a company save a response to a common question “like ‘What are your hours?’ or ‘Do you have a certain product in stock?’ so companies can pre-write those answers and respond more efficiently.” (CNBC)
The ‘Response Signals’ lets companies identify which pages are more responsive (live Mint). This will show a response rate to the admin and show on the page if a high enough rate.
