What is the role of newsletters in a marketing strategy?
Whether you’re selling a product or offering a service, newsletters can play a valuable role in your marketing strategy, helping you to regularly communicate and connect directly with your customers, sharing the latest news and helpful insights about your business and industry.
In the media industry, the role of newsletters is evolving, with increasing numbers of journalists joining new platforms, such as Substack, to share their work, and PR agencies issuing newsletters as ‘the new press release’.
The Data and Marketing Association has conducted research that suggests that the return on investment for email marketing is £42 for every £1 spent, meaning that email campaigns are an important and cost-effective marketing tool.
To make sure that your newsletter grabs the attention of your audience, and harnesses its full potential, take a look at our top tips for newsletters, and read more about the increasing number of emerging newsletter platforms.
The purpose of newsletters
Simple to create, cost-effective and increasingly popular, newsletters are an important part of your marketing strategy. They are a way of communicating your brand and company news to your core audience and can help to build relationships and maintain contact with your customer base. Sending regular, helpful and insightful newsletters is a way to demonstrate your industry knowledge and expertise in an authoritative, yet friendly manner. Rather than a hard sell, newsletters are a way of sharing regular and useful updates - think of it as an extension of your company blog and social media channels, but delivered directly to the inboxes of your target audience.
However, whilst newsletters are written with the purpose of updating your audience and should be written in a friendly tone, it is important that they also contain a call to action, whether it is to direct customers to your website or a relevant landing page, to read your latest blog or to encourage them to make a purchase.
Creating a newsletter marketing strategy
There are many factors to consider when writing and issuing an email newsletter as part of your marketing strategy. Perhaps the most important point to consider is your target audience, as this will inform the content, as well as the contact list. A key business aim should be to continually build and regularly update a relevant database of contacts and their email addresses, ensuring your newsletter reaches the right audience for your business. All businesses with a newsletter strategy should clearly display an opt-in for their newsletter on their website, to encourage new subscribers.
Next, it is vital that your business creates a regular schedule for issuing newsletters, considering key business milestones and important industry topics. The frequency of your email newsletter will depend on your specialism, with many businesses opting for weekly or monthly newsletters. However, it is important not to bombard your audience with too many newsletters. We all know what it is like to have an overflowing inbox of unread newsletters!
Newsletter content
Another important consideration is the newsletter content; what you want to share with your audience. This could be the launch of a new product or service, general company news, such as the business winning an award or a helpful and insightful article on a relevant and timely industry topic.
Once you have decided upon a topic, drafted the content and selected the images for inclusion, the email design needs to be considered. The style and content will depend on a number of factors, including your industry and audience, and whilst some newsletters will be image-led, such as those announcing a product launch, others will contain more written content, for example, news of a recent award win. However, no matter the email style, it is important that the newsletter is optimised for use on mobile devices.
Issuing your newsletter
When issuing your newsletter, a relevant and interesting subject line should catch the eye of the recipient and encourage them to open the email and click through to the relevant landing page. Personalised emails are generally much more successful than generic ones and a direct personal address is a way of connecting with your customer base and sets the tone for a friendly and informal newsletter.
The time and day of issue is also an important factor for consideration and will play a significant role in ensuring that your newsletter marketing campaign is successful. Again, this will depend on the type of business, the industry and the product and service on offer, but is vital that your newsletter reaches your audience on a day and at a time that is convenient for them, as this will increase the likelihood that the recipient will open and read the email and click through to your website or landing page.
Newsletter platforms
There is an increasing number of newsletter subscription platforms and start-ups available to businesses or journalists who wish to include newsletters as part of their marketing strategy. These platforms are tools to create and share newsletters with their target audiences, and also to analyse and review the stats of each newsletter, measuring the success of the campaign. Perhaps, one of the best known is Mail Chimp, a service that is used by many businesses across various industries to create and issue newsletters.
There are also a growing number of startups, including Substack, which was founded in 2017 and is used by many journalists to share paid-for content with their readers. Even celebrities are getting in on newsletter marketing campaigns, with singer Dua Lipa, recently launching a lifestyle newsletter; Service 95, to share global style, art and culture news directly to the inboxes of her fanbase.
Analysing the success of your newsletter campaign
Various factors, such as the length of the newsletter update, the content, the date and time of issuing of the newsletter and perhaps, most importantly your list of contacts, will affect the open rate of the email and should be regularly considered to ensure that your newsletter is delivering the best possible results for your business. This data is available through newsletter subscription platforms, such as those mentioned above.
Things like click-through rates and unsubscribe rates should be analysed by your business and should inform your newsletter marketing strategy, helping you to continuously improve and adapt your newsletters for your audience over time.
Remember to regularly promote your newsletter and its content on your social media channels, as this will encourage your followers to sign up to and engage with your newsletter.
Newsletters as the new press release?
Over in the PR world, we’ve noticed a change in how newsletters are being used as part of a PR campaign and increasingly they are seen as the new ‘press release’, being issued regularly to journalists to announce company and client news and updates, product and collection launches, to promote brand events and much more!
Newsletters proved especially valuable during the Covid-19 pandemic when face-to-face press briefings were not possible, and with many suffering from Zoom fatigue and unable to face another virtual meeting. Now, the hybrid working model in place for most staff in the UK, including journalists and PR agencies, means fewer IRL meetings and therefore, a heavier reliance on alternative methods of communication.
Whilst newsletters are unlikely to entirely replace the press release and face-to-face press briefing, more and more PR agencies are exploring new ways to connect with the media, from interacting via social media platforms to the creation of PR agency podcasts. Newsletters, whilst just one tool in a PR agency’s belt, are simple to create, cost-effective and efficient - they have the benefit of providing a brief and succinct overview of the company’s client portfolio, without having to bombard journalists with multiple press releases and client updates week on week. We think the trend of newsletters as the new press release is set to grow within the PR industry!
The popularity of newsletters is set to continue with more and more businesses using them as a cost-effective tool in their marketing strategy.
If you’re an interior designer, product designer or architect and would like help with your marketing strategy, including your newsletter, then please get in touch with us.
