IT’S NO SECRET that I have a love-hate relationship with email marketing. After all, who wants yet another email in our ever-overwhelming inbox? But in today’s still socially distanced world, email marketing is important. Perhaps more important than ever before.
So how do you create and send an effective business newsletter without feeling like you’re part of the problem? Yes, it IS possible.
To answer this catch-22, I created and shared my 5-step formula to master email newsletters. It’s a formula we used at ’cause Digital Marketing to create our Tuesday Pet Trends newsletter that continues to far outperform industry standards. It also serves as lead magnet, trust-builder and effective sales channel, with only an extra 30 minutes a week devoted to building and sending it out.
How It Works
On its surface, our Tuesday Pet Trends newsletter is very simple: we send out the top-trending pet news and trends each week. We also add a short perspective on how pet businesses may or may not want to talk about each topic with their audiences. (i.e. beware that this might tick people off! Or, you could share this as an interactive challenge.) These are topics our team pulls every day for our clients anyway, so doing a roundup of the best ones each week is a breeze.
How You Can Reproduce It
Before you dive into the what and how of your newsletter content, make sure you consider these five steps to help you nail down what purpose your newsletter serves and how to keep the creation process simple.
Next, ask yourself the following:
- What expertise do I have that makes me stand out? Here at ’cause, we specialize in pet trends and understanding the pet parent to help pet businesses thrive. What do you specialize in? Whether it’s the best locally sourced and organic pet products, living a funky life with your dog in your hometown or providing the best dog-human relaxation experience around, consider what you’re best known for (or want to be).
- What do I do or know already that my customers crave? Take time and write down all the things you do all the time. For us, tracking daily pet trends is something we do every day. What do you do? Whether it’s checking out the hottest pet events in your area, having your dog product-test all the goodies or trying out making DIY dog beds out of vintage suitcases, I bet there’s something you can chat about at least once per month that your readers will crave.
- Test it out on a small scale first. Before diving into a whole new newsletter, try out sharing your topic via your social first. Take a video of your store kitty playing with the toys that just came in and ranking them from cat-licious to catatonic. Share a new DIY dog-treat recipe your barkery just made. Whatever it is, make it simple and see how it performs.
Once you have something that’s simple and performs well most of the time, turn it into a bonafide newsletter and have your audience sign up for your emails to see more!