When social media and SEO dominate the marketing world, a lot of business owners don’t think about email. However, an email newsletter is an important, low-cost piece of the marketing strategy for many small businesses. And they’re not just for news. An email newsletter could include:
Starting one isn’t hard. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll be on your way.
Before you get started on any new business or marketing venture, it’s important to know what you want it to accomplish. Ask yourself these questions to help plan it out:
2. Choose an Email Marketing Tool
In the early stages, you may be able to manage email campaigns yourself from your business email service provider, but providers like Gmail and Outlook don’t have the same capacity as email automation tools. These tools can
As your business grows, a reliable email marketing tool will help you grow your email list and send automated email campaigns. Sav partners with MailChimp for email marketing associated with websites created on our website builder, but there are others that also do a good job like SendinBlue, AWeber, and GetResponse.
If you start an email newsletter but no one subscribes to it, does it make a sound? Here are a few ways you can attract newsletter subscribers:
People you already know are an underrated part of a list building strategy. You probably won’t get all of your friends to sign up, but you can probably get a few. If there’s anyone you have in mind, let them know that you are creating an email list and what they can get out of signing up. If you want your invitation to go further, ask them to invite their contacts. If you have a customer base but don’t have an email list yet, reach out to your customers in the same way.
If you expect people to just give you their email address out of the goodness of their heart, you won’t get many subscribers. Sweeten the deal with something like:
A successful pop-up form should:
Here are a few places on your website and beyond that are great for placing sign-up opportunities for your email list:
Be sure to use compelling CTAs in each of these places to grab visitors’ attention without spamming them.
Creating digital marketing campaigns for the purpose of getting newsletter sign-ups can take your email list to the next level. Create some Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn ads that lead to an email sign-up form or a landing page.
Contests and giveaways are popular tactics for email list building and brand awareness on social media channels. Just make sure the prize you’re giving away is related to your company and target audience so you’ll attract people who won’t unsubscribe the moment the promotion is over.
Invite new subscribers to refer their friends to your email list in exchange for a discount or special offer. You can create a referral program with tools like ReferralCandy, Tapfiliate, and Partnerstack.
Scroll boxes allow you to trigger a popup when website visitors reach a certain point. Research your visitors’ on-site behavior to determine when that moment should be.
The subject line is the first thing recipients see, so make it a good one. Follow these best practices to make a clickable subject line:
Newsletter design matters. An email with plain text and maybe some clip art won’t grab readers’ attention. Most email marketing providers have templates where you can drag and drop your content and the option to code your own with HTML. Use eye-catching, relevant visuals and easy-to-read text formatting that will work for desktop and mobile devices alike.
Now it’s time to add the content. Be sure to include:
5. Preview and Send a Test Email
Before you send any email to your subscribers, make sure you like how it looks from the perspective they’ll see. First, send a test email to your email address. Once you get it, make sure the features display correctly on desktop and mobile devices. Then, it’s always a good idea to A/B test different versions of the same email to see which one performs better with your audience.
Now it’s time to send that email! You can either send it right away or schedule it for later. Some email marketing tools even have a feature to optimize your schedule for higher open rates.
Don’t just send it and forget it. Tracking the metrics for your newsletter is an important piece of improving your email marketing strategy for the future. The important KPIs for email newsletters include:
We partner with MailChimp to make sending email newsletters easy for all of our website builder users. Users with Advanced and Unlimited plans can also take advantage of the email automation feature. Start sending today!