Want to Boost Your Content Marketing Strategy? Start an Email Newsletter!

Growing a business takes time, but one digital marketing method will quickly increase your website traffic and boost your content marketing strategy: Email marketing. It can be daunting to decide what type of content you want to share and how you would like to present it in your emails but your industry and your brand should inform your content. You will have to do some research to see what type of email marketing will work best for your business.  For example, releasing a digital magazine would be a good option for beauty and fashion websites, while automated promotional emails for a customer’s birthday would be a good fit for restaurants. Check out these tips from Social Encode to learn how to create your own email marketing strategy.

The Many Benefits of Email Newsletters

Starting an email newsletter is an excellent way to share your content while being able to boost the results of your targeted marketing strategy, all without spending a whole lot of time and money in the process. With a great email newsletter to send weekly, twice weekly, or monthly, you’ll build an email list, generate website traffic, expand brand awareness, grow your social media following — and if you sell products online — increase sales as well.  And let's face it, it is proven that email marketing works and is still the best way to communicate directly with your clients as a whole.  Internet advisor boasts the typical return on investment (ROI) for well-crafted email campaigns is 4,400%, and on average an email campaign has an open rate of just over 20%.  Those are pretty exciting numbers and all you need is an email list to start.

Tips for Writing an Effective Email Newsletter

Now that you’re familiar with the benefits of starting an email newsletter to grow your customer base, it’s time to write your newsletter! Start by reviewing examples of your favorite email newsletters and decide on the type of newsletter you’ll create.

As a rule, every newsletter should provide a healthy balance of promotional and educational content: About 10 percent of the content should be promotional, and the remainder should be educational. Here are some other things to keep in mind while writing your newsletter:

• Keep your content clear and concise.
• Include your best content: This could be videos, blog posts from your website, and other valuable content you have generated for your business.
• Encourage your subscribers to visit your website or blog after reading.
• Make sure the newsletter is mobile-friendly.

How to Increase Your Email Open Rates

Writing and sending an email newsletter is just the start: To launch a truly successful email marketing campaign, your subscribers should be opening your emails. Ryan Pinkham of Constant Contact recommends creating an eye-catching subject line, making sure your “From Name” and “From Email Address” are both easily recognizable, and running A/B tests to determine the best times of day to send your email newsletters for the most engagement. Some of the email marketing platforms will even allow you to use their own marketing data to give you the best times of day to send email blasts out based on your industry.  The email marketing platform Mailchimp does this, and they also make it very easy to re-market your emails to the people that didn't open them.  Sometimes things just get overlooked and the best option is just to send it one more time to those who didn't open your message initially.

Be sure to think beyond the subject line as well. The pre-header, which typically contains a bit of the main body text, can be customized to accomplish more for your newsletter. One clever idea is to use it in conjunction with your subject line since one typically follows in line with the other.

Visualize Data with Charts and Graphs

To make your email newsletters stand out, it’s also important to use quality visuals whenever possible. Enhance your content and increase click-through rates by creating infographics, using screenshots and original photography in lieu of stock photos, and presenting data with charts and graphs. You could also use GIFs, videos, and illustrations to capture your audience’s attention.

As a bonus, you don’t need to be a designer in order to create these graphics: Lots of online tools are available to help you get started. Canva, Affinity Designer, and Genially are just a few graphic design tools to start experimenting with today.

Consider Hiring Some Help

Whether you could use some help with writing content for your email newsletter, creating custom graphics and illustrations, or managing the email marketing campaign, there are different types of freelancers to help you achieve your business goals and objectives. A few freelance professionals to consider hiring include:

• Writers
• Email marketers
• Graphic designers
• Email designers

To find the right freelancer to help you start your email newsletter and grow your customer base, check out websites like Upwork, Flexjobs, MarketerHire, and Freelancer.com. A freelancer could help you on an ongoing or short-term basis, depending on your business budget and specific marketing needs.  Working directly with freelancers can save some money if you have a tight budget, however, you might end up not getting what you need and have to hire design or marketing professionals on top of that sunk investment in the freelancer. If you are in that boat or haven’t started looking for freelancers yet, Prime Encode can help you create professional eye-catching designs and infographics for your email marketing needs.

Utilize E-Newsletter Tools and Software

Now that you know how to start a successful email newsletter, it’s time to choose the right tools and software. Nathaniel Medina of HubSpot offers 21 recommendations, including free tools such as Benchmark, SendInBlue, and Sender.net — and paid options like Moosend and GetResponse.  Mailchimp as mentioned, also offers a free version that allows for up to 500 recipients and paid versions that include more recipients and email automation tools.

As an alternative to using these email newsletter design layout tools, you could create an interactive PDF to give your newsletter more of a traditional magazine feel. PDFs are easy to upload and share with your subscribers, and online tools and templates make it possible to create custom newsletters for free and without design experience.

Online tools can also be used to edit your PDF newsletter — as well as your magazine content and graphics — all without printing each page. Making changes to your digital magazine is as simple as uploading the PDF file, making your edits, and downloading the revised document.

The Bottom Line

To boost your content marketing efforts and drive traffic to your website, having an email newsletter or digital magazine is a must. Email newsletters are quick and easy to create, and the benefits will be well worth the time and effort you put into crafting your newsletter content. Keep these tips in mind and your email newsletter will be sure to succeed. For help with your digital marketing strategy, including email marketing, contact the professionals at Social Encode today!