Regular newsletters or mailings, sent to an opt-in list, work well to keep existing customers coming back or prospects engaged during a long sales cycle. The trick is to send messages on a regular schedule, not just when you’ve got something you want to tell people about.
The key to success
The single most important thing with a company newsletter is to send it regularly (we’re repeating ourselves here, but it’s important). By regular, that means at the same time of day every time, on the same day of the week, and it means always sending when you’ve said you will send (monthly, fortnightly or weekly). This is so you create the expectation with your readers about when they will be receiving your newsletter.
Of course, this means regularly generating new ideas for content to go into the newsletters. For most companies, internal news will run out pretty quickly, so the answer is to create more and more material about your industry or area of interest as a whole.
The more you can move the content of your newsletter away from your own business, the more engaged your readers will be. The most successful newsletters tend to be news round-ups and the like. People don’t like to be marketed to, but they do like to be kept informed. And if it’s your newsletter that’s doing the informing, you’ll be staying at the forefront of your customers’ minds.
Opt-in only
If there’s a temptation to sign people up to a list automatically, or, even worse, buy or hire an existing list, resist it! This is a classic false economy, and will lead to annoyed recipients and your company email address being blacklisted.
Building your own list via opt-in is a slow process in comparison, but as those Jack Daniels adverts are famous for asserting, the wait is well worth it. You end up with a high quality and engaged list.
Our newsletter service
- Overall strategy
- Setting up your newsletter service (although we can work with an existing service)
- Creating a design for the newsletter
- Working with autoresponders
- Working with different segments within your list; e.g. alternative messaging for previous customers and prospects
- Running continual optimisation for the sign-up rate, open rate and other vital metrics
- Writing, preparing and sending the newsletters themselves
- Reporting results
We recommend sending at least one newsletter to your list per month, if not more, and always sending on a regular schedule. Newsletters can be written based on notes that you provide, or from scratch by our own copy writers. We generally use Mailchimp, and can set this up for you if required, but we can also work with your existing platform if you use a different one.
Preparing and sending a newsletter involves editing and proofreading the copy, adding links and other media (such as images) and doing the technical set-up required for the send. We can also work with newsletters that have been completely prepared by your own copy writer. These can just be proof read, have media added and be set up to send.
Pricing
- £110 per calendar month
- + £35* per newsletter written
- + £30* per newsletter prepared and sent (in addition to writing)
- Recommended duration: ongoing
- Notice period: one calendar month
- All prices + VAT
For example, if you wanted us to write and send two newsletters per month, the total cost would be £275 plus VAT. These prices can differ if your newsletter has a very specific or unusual format; for example if it is particularly long or short. We will always agree these prices with you in advance.
Call us on 0800 644 0196 or email [email protected] to discuss how we can help you develop your email newsletter campaign and strategy.