I can already see you, thinking that sending newsletters are not your bread and butter.
You are not the type of person who knows what to write, you feel you have nothing to share with your clients, especially conversational pieces; you believe you are a poor communicator and you assume no one is interested in what you have to say.
When you put yourself in the shoes of your readers, you think that it is hard to keep up with the flow of information streaming into everyone’s mailbox every day (there is actually a syndrome called ‘information fatigue syndrome’).
Uninteresting freebies or irrelevant content do not help too. You feel that starting to send emails now would be like filling up yet another box full of emails to be trashed.
Although it is true that newsletters are not for all types of business, I also think that writing an email does not necessarily mean being long-winded or boring, predictable or mediocre.
We are constantly unsubscribing from mailing lists that no longer interest us (and this is more than normal) but we are constantly on the lookout for businesses that offer a pleasant read through an email, an unmissable offer, the event of the season or a well thought out list of suggestions for our next holiday.
Using email marketing to approach readers to satisfy these needs, to bring them closer to a brand and entertain them, or simply to intrigue them with a special offer, is effective and beneficial to a business. It will always be worthy for us to spend five minutes every month cleaning off the mailbox as it is for them to produce good quality content for us.
These are my 4 reasons to use email marketing:
We all have an email address. I may not use social media or I may do so occasionally, but I check my mail every day;
For the same reason, and by the very nature of social media, a post on Instagram may escape me but it is unlikely that I will miss a message in my inbox. Also, an email does not wait for the user to get to a website or to remember a brand: emails act as your personal reminder.
If it is true that the newsletter is not for everyone (are we interested in receiving one from the plumber who changed our boiler last week?), it is true that there are a myriad of other emails that I can send. For example, offers or referrals. And they can be very short;
The market is beyond saturated. Knowing how to tell about your product or service in an intimate and personalised way, through a message that is relevant to the reader, manages to speak to the person, to establish a relationship and make it ongoing.
Like all things done well, it takes time and organisation to get results. To grow a relationship, you need a plan, a system in place, the right content to attract the reader. A relationship’s success is based on many factors: on how, how much and what we write, of course, but also on our products or services, on the quality of our customer service, on the attention we take in everything we do.
From the moment we introduce ourselves (with effective welcome series, for example) to the post-purchase messages sent to the customer.
We need to invest resources to adjust and refine our strategy on the basis of what works.
I hope I have intrigued you a bit with this article. I would love to hear what you think about email marketing and if you have any doubts, I look forward to hearing from you. The world of email marketing is really wide and if you need a hand to start putting the right foundations in place, you can find me here.
Enjoy the work!
Chiara
