The Importance of Newsletters
I’ve written about why I feel most small businesses should have a newsletter before, but in this article I wanted to focus on how a newsletter can support and capitalise on your social media marketing efforts. First though, I’ll do a quick recap of what newsletters are and why they are so important.
What do we mean by a newsletter?
In digital marketing terms, we’re talking about a regular email sent out to your customers containing updates about yourself and/or your business. An electronic letter full of news, if you will. However, it’s a common misconception to think this newsletter has to be long and contain multiple items, or that the news itself has to be a big deal — a new product launch, an appearance in the press or a big discount for sale. Actually, your mailing list will usually be happy with something much more informal and chatty. Here’s a few topics you could cover in a newsletter:
A market or fair you’re attending
A new blog post
Seasonal reasons to book your services / buy your products
An experience you’ve had that taught you something or inspired you
A good review from a customer
A local event that may be of interest to your clients
Tips and tricks of the trade (or recipes, interesting facts, activities etc)
Now we know what to write about, we need a way to get it out there. In order to send your regular electronic letter full of news, you’ll need a mailing list of people who’ve given you permission to email them. Most businesses, large and small, use some kind of mailing list platform to manage this. Many of these have free options for small lists, and you’ll be able to create sign up forms, landing pages and your regular newsletter from the one platform. We use MailChimp, but it isn’t the only option.
So, do you really need to do all this?
Well, I don’t like making absolute rules for every business, because they’re all different. But, here’s a few reasons why you should definitely consider having a mailing list and sending out a regular newsletter:
You can build more of a connection.
You’ll keep your business at the forefront of their minds.
You own your list — good news if you lose access to your main social media account.
These are the reasons I covered in my last article, so go back and take a look if you’d like more details on any of these. But what I want to expand on now is…
How your newsletter can work with your marketing efforts on social media
Here’s the thing: It’s really hard to get people to buy something directly off a social media post these days. In general, posts trying to make direct sales get less reach anyway unless you’re paying for them, especially if you’re trying to get your audience to click on an outbound link. Even if you do pay for social media advertising, there’s so many adverts now that many of us have become practised at mentally skipping over them unless they are super eye-catching. But also, unless what you’re selling is at a price point where it can be considered an impulse buy, a lot of us aren’t ready to unthinkingly purchase something on the basis of one social media post or ad, especially in the current climate.
So what can be done? Well, the above illustrates why it’s important to keep posting on social media, building a core network of fans and customers, but it also highlights the gap a newsletter can fill. It is MUCH easier to convince someone to sign up to your mailing list than it is to convince them to make a purchase straight away—especially if you offer some kind of incentive for doing so, like a discount or a freebie. Once someone has signed up, you then have the time to nurture that connection until they’re ready to become a customer.
My own experience for both products and services is that more sales come from even a small newsletter list than a decent-sized social media account. Often they come from people who follow on social media as well as being signed up to the mailing list. But it’s the newsletter that finally prompted them to buy. Of course, it takes time to create and build these channels, but if you are currently pouring lots of money and/or effort into marketing with less results than you’d like to see, could a regular newsletter be the thing you are missing? Get in touch if you’d like to chat about it.