Why You Need an Email Newsletter

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A website is great for bringing in new new enquiries, first-time sales but what about repeat visitors and existing customers?

Email NewsletterAn email newsletter is an easy way to get those same people coming back to your website regularly, reading about your news and new products, asking questions and downloading information about products they are already using and hopefully purchasing new products.

The Top 10 Reasons

Here are just a few of the reasons why sending your customers or people who have subscribed your newsletter makes great business sense:

  • Send your customers (who already know about and like your products) a personal message each month or each week
  • Add value to your product with ‘expert’ information and tips
  • Drive traffic to your your website, phone & email enquires
  • Give your company a face and a personality for customers to relate to
  • Get your name in from of customers regularly (newsletter arrives straight into your customer’s email inbox where it can be read without any effort on the part of your customer)
  • Make customers feel special – Reward your customers with special loyalty discounts and targeted offers
  • Cement your company as ‘the expert’ in your choosen area
  • Invite comments, feedback and suggestions – customers often have great ideas for improving products and services
  • Makes it easy for people to spread your news – “Forward this email to a friend”, twitter, facebook etc
  • Create a loyal database receptive to new products, big events and  other big promotions

The Right Way to Do It

Instead of writing special newsletter content each month think about sending an RSS campaign. Here’s how:

There are 3 reasons to create your newsletter this way:

  1. Your news posts add fresh content to your website so Google will index your website more often
  2. Newsletter subscribers have to click through to your website to read articles where they are then exposed to your products and services
  3. Your new posts bring in traffic under new search phrases and continue to do so forever

The Do’s and Don’ts of Email Newsletters

Some things you should DO:

  • Add a subscribe form to your website somewhere obvious
  • Give visitors an incentive to sign up – expert content, bonus file etc
  • Personalise your email newsletters. Eg. Hi Tania, This month…
  • Make sure people can unsubscribe easily
  • Include links to forward to a friend, share on social network etc
  • Match the look of your website

Some things you should NOT DO:

  • Add people to your list who didn’t ask to be there
  • Promise expert content and not deliver
  • Use advertising speak and formal language
  • Promote other products, not related to yours

Useful Links and Reading

Find out more about setting up an RSS Campaign to automatically feed your news to your newsletter.

The best email newsletter software I’ve found is MailChimp.

Using WordPress or similar content management software to build your website means you can easily write news and feed it into an RSS Newsletter.

Articles by Jo Couchman

Filed Under: Business Articles, Growing a Business, Marketing, Marketing, Starting A Business
About Jo Couchman

Jo Couchman is chief website designer specialising in WordPress websites, blogs and social media. She uses WordPress expertise combined with a design and marketing background to create attractive & functional websites clients can manage themselves. More about Jo...

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