We think email newsletters are one of the more undervalued marketing tools. They let you build a subscriber list you control, instead of paying each time you want to reach an audience through advertising.
When you advertise on social media, you’re renting access to that audience. Even when you post organically, you aren’t guaranteed to consistently reach the people who follow your page.
With a newsletter, people have signed up to hear from you. You have a direct way to stay connected without depending entirely on whether a social platform shows them your next post.
Build a list you can keep growing
You may pay a company like Constant Contact or Mailchimp to produce and distribute your newsletter. There’s also time involved in writing it and maintaining the list. But the subscriber list is something you can continue to build over time.
Start with a signup option on your website that explains what people will receive and roughly how often you’ll send it. Give them a reason to subscribe.
A seasonal business could invite customers to sign up for reopening dates, upcoming events, or booking announcements. Someone doesn’t have to be in town today to want to plan their next visit.
Newsletters can also be useful for governments, chambers of commerce, and community organizations. They provide a way to share updates with interested people without purchasing a new advertising placement for every announcement.
Make it worth opening
Not everybody will open every email. Your job is to make the information useful enough that people want to keep hearing from you.
That could mean answering a common customer question, sharing a seasonal reminder, explaining a service, or sending an offer relevant to the people receiving it.
You don’t need a major announcement every time. Customer questions and everyday work can give you useful material for a newsletter, just as they can for social media. Our suggestions for what to post when you don’t have anything new to announce can help you get started.
Choose a schedule you can maintain and give yourself enough time to put together something worth sending.
Pay attention to your audience
Growing the list is only part of the work. You also need to pay attention to whether people continue to respond to what you send.
Open rates don’t tell the whole story. Email privacy features can inflate recorded opens, so look at other signals, including clicks, replies, inquiries, and purchases.
Three to six months may be a useful point to review engagement, depending on how often you send and the type of business you have. It shouldn’t be an automatic cutoff. Someone who visits each summer may have a different pattern from a customer who shops with you every week.
Some subscribers may prefer occasional updates about your biggest events or seasonal offers. Give them a way to tell you what they want to receive.
For people who seem to have stopped engaging, consider a message asking whether they still want to hear from you. If they remain unresponsive, review whether to stop sending regular marketing emails. Always respect an unsubscribe request.
A newsletter takes ongoing attention, but it gives you a way to keep reaching people who have asked to hear from your business. Start with a clear reason to subscribe, useful information, and a schedule you can keep up with.
Need help deciding what belongs in your newsletter or keeping it going? Tell us what you have in mind.
