As a marketer, you’ve probably found yourself trying to brainstorm the best ways to engage your customers and boost sales.Through this, you’ve most likely come across the popular email marketing tactic: the newsletter. 

Newsletters have stood the test of time as an effective marketing tactic. You get to promote your brand and users get exclusive content in return.

According to McKinsey researchers, you’re 40 times more likely to get new customers from email marketing than you are through social media. Why, you ask? 

Well, let’s start off by looking at the functions of a newsletter as a marketing tactic. 

Marketers send out newsletters in order to
  • Spread brand awareness: Consumers are bombarded with advertisements from different companies on a daily basis, and in order to compete, your business needs to cement its place in your consumer’s sights. 
  • Update consumers on promotions, new products or sales: According to Marketing Sherpa, 72% of people actually prefer to receive promotional content through email.
  • Spotlight the brand: A newsletter is a sure-fire way to demonstrate your businesses capability and expertise though exclusive content. 
  • Build a relationship with the consumer: Delivering consistent communication and the exclusive content allows brands to build consumer trust and reliability as they feel as if they are gaining something from your newsletter.
Now that we’ve handled the nitty-gritty, let's take a look at why newsletters are the way to go for your business:

Newsletters are valuable content sharing tools

The world of digital marketing is complex. With options like social media, pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and influencer marketing all proving to be worthy competition, newsletters are often overlooked. 

However, the power of the newsletter should most certainly not be. They are proven to be a cost-effective and engaging way to liaise with your consumers. 

One of the most persuasive factors of utilising a newsletter is that it is simple to orchestrate and yields high rewards. By integrating newsletters into your marketing strategy, you are able to boost sales while saving money

According to the Data and Marketing Association, 66% of consumers have made an online purchase as a result of an email marketing message. This proves that newsletters assist in keeping you top-of-mind, providing customers with content that encourages them to make a purchase. 

As newsletters allow you to grow your business by providing passive shoppers with the nudge they need to make a purchase, you are growing your consumer base. 

Here, your newsletter serves as a vehicle for information and a means to stay in touch with the customer until they are prepared to make a sale. 

Aside from gaining new customers, another benefit of utilising a newsletter is that it allows you to retain and market to existing customers, while having the potential to expand your consumer base.

By marketing to existing customers through newsletters, you are keeping them in the sales funnel. Sharing exclusive content, promotions and new offers with your customers you promote the idea that your company values their customers and that you are consistently improving your services. 

This allows you to build long-lasting relationships with consumers as you provide consistent and entertaining content, whilst maintaining a personal touch. 

Like most marketing strategies, newsletters are quantifiable. Marketers are able to measure the success of their newsletter by looking at:
  • the number of subscribers they have
  • their open rate —  the number of recipients that open their emails
  • their click-through rate — the number of recipients that click on the links in their newsletter
  • attributed revenue — the number of sales they are making through their newsletter 

News24's brand-new newsletter

South African news publication News24 has proven just how effective an appealing and informative newsletter can be. 

"News24 has a diverse and discerning audience of roughly 1.5 million unique users daily. Our newsletters are therefore an effective way to give readers the content that they are most interested in, in a way that’s easily accessible to them. We see each newsletter as a curation of the best News24 has to offer — editions of the bigger news site, where you can quite easily miss a story if you’re not always online," says newsletter and engagement editor, Alet Law.

The publication has recently modified its newsletter layout, resulting in a more attractive and crisp format. It also revised it to make the content skimmable, so you get the gist breaking news articles just by reading their newsletter.

"Newsletter readers fall into one of two distinct groups: those who read every word, top to bottom, and those who skip and scan for things that interest them. Our featured newsletters, such as Good Morning, SA, Friday Briefing and Rucking with Rob cater to both these groups, meaning you can get everything you need to know about the news from scrolling through your newsletter, and clicking only when something interests you," Law adds.

"It’s all about convenience and easy access and we have seen good results from this strategy in terms of sign-ups and engagement," she concludes.

Which newsletters do you most enjoy finding in your inbox? What elements make them stand out?? Let us know in the comments section below.

Well, you’ve made it this far. Why not sign up for our newsletter while you’re here?

Do you want to know more about content marketing? Be sure to check out these Five reasons to use video for content marketing in 2020 right here.
*Image courtesy of Vecteezy