February 4th, 2009 by Samir Balwani
A Newsletter Marketing Primer
Category Email Marketing, General | 14 comments »
Newsletter marketing can be one of the best ways to sell a product or market your company. It can be difficult to start and maintain, but the benefits of a good subscriber list can be a great gain.
So why are newsletters great? Simple. Instead of soliciting random consumers, you’re reaching out and talking to those already interested in your product (they signed up after all). Not only that, but instead of forcing them to come to you, you’re able to go to them.
Building the List
The hardest part of creating a profitable newsletter is building the initial following. There are a few strategies that can be mixed and matched, and I’ll go over a few here.
The first is to simply drive traffic to a landing page. List the value someone would gain from your newsletter and offer them a form to sign up from. This is the simplest of methods, and is a great starting point.
You can take the above method one step further and offer a gift to the potential subcribers. The gift could be anything from a free listing on your site or a free ebook to download. This strategy may increase the number of subscribers you have but may also drop your open-rate for emails, as people were never really interested in your emails and just wanted the free ebook or listing.
A third strategy, one that takes more effort, requires making friends with other list owners. You can ask them to send out an email inviting them to sign up for your newsletter, as you do the same for them. You can also add onto this by linking to their newsletter landing page on your thank you page. This technique works well because the people already subscribed to one newsletter are more likely to sign up for another.
Newsletter Profit
By the time you begin really building your list, you should already have some good content. An autoresponder is a great way for sending pre-created chains of emails, or you can use a broadcast system to send one email at a time to the entire list.
Generally the rule of thumb to use when pushing affiliate products on a newsletter is to not suggest a product before your 7th email. You need the initial 6 emails to build trust with your subscribers.
If you’re trying to push your own product, the emails can be slightly different. The first email should remind consumers to check out your product. The second could try to sell your product again, reminding consumers how useful it is. Finally, the third email should try to sell it at a discount. You’re better off making a sale at discount, than no sale at all. At this point, if the consumers hasn’t bought your product they most likely won’t. Instead, you can now start recommending related products to these subscribers via an affiliate link.
Another method to make money from your newsletter is to simply sell advertising space in each email. This works well because its a generally consistent email and you don’t have to worry about how many people clicked through to the product and converted. Sell the advertising like you would any other ad on your blog or website.
Hopefully, you got a basic understanding of how to create a newsletter and how it can help sell affiliate products or your own. Subscriber lists are a great way to keep in touch with your consumers, so never let the conversation die. Try to send out a relevant and valuable email at least once a month, reminding your consumers the value of your emails.
Do you have any good experience with email marketing? How does it relate to social media marketing? Have an advanced tip you’d like to share? Let us know, and leave a comment!
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February 4th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Thanks for the post. Some extra pointers. Newsletter marketing is all about relationship building (relationship marketing). As with social media, you need to build the relationship before you should even think about trying to sell anything. Also, transparency and integrity are equally important.
When you invest time and resources in a helpful newsletter, your readers will see that investment as an investment in them. This inspires trust and builds credibility.
What’s more, every issues of your newsletter has the potential to sell, even if it’s not selling explicitly. Simply by reminding your readers that you’re there, and that you value them. At worst, it’s a bit of brand awareness. At best, they be prompted to contact you to resolve some need they’ve been ignoring due to time constraints.
And finally, always avoid marketing speak. People can smell snake-oil a mile off. Talk straight. Not just for transparency, but also for easy reading!
That’s all!
Cheers, Glenn (@divinewrite.com on Twitter)
March 13th, 2009 at 5:27 am
thanks for your post, its very useful
April 16th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Great article thanks Samir.
April 24th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
nice cool Thank you very much
May 12th, 2009 at 1:18 am
This was really hopeful.
I am still learning about internet marketing.
THANK YOU
May 17th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
ehh.. thanks.
May 31st, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Great article – thank you. I agree with Glenn Murray regarding relationship building. I use newsletters to keep my prospects informed and to introduce new products and findings regarding research on the health related products and services I market. Keep up the great work!
July 12th, 2009 at 1:38 am
Very nice email marketing background. Thanks for nice read Samir.
August 21st, 2009 at 7:55 am
Email marketing is important to small businesses and PUBLISHING your newsletter consistently is an important part of internet marketing
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Great article! I am just now in the process of building my newsletter. I think like you stated as well as Glenn, if you put some true value in there for your readers and try to build a lasting relationship a newsletter can be a pure benefit to both the readers and you.
October 5th, 2009 at 7:11 am
I have been marketing for 4 years and I have not had so much success as I have been having during this year of 2009. It has been my best by far all due to building relations with others through social media. I must say it does take time and in the beginning time consuming but the end results are phenomenal. I do not or have ever engaged in paid marketing with so much free resources out there all you need to do is put in some work and effort.
Sincerely,
Sara
January 8th, 2010 at 5:35 am
The great thing is that a regular email newsletter will help build and maintain a relationship with your list.
This will make them a lot more responsive to your offers etc.
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:41 am
For getting great response from emailer marketing, your email list should be strong, then it helps you to convert your visitors to customers.
January 24th, 2010 at 7:42 am
Does anybody know what is a good ratio for opening and clicking e-mails with special selling offers for services?