Email newsletters have gotten a bad rap as a communication tool. Perhaps countless Ethiopian princes promising you their fortunes and long missives from Aunt Alice written in all caps have made emails seem like social media’s desperately uncool older brother.
But e-newsletters are having a renaissance of late. Success stories like news round-up theSkimm, Gwenyth Paltrow’s Goop and Lena Dunham’s new venture, Lenny, are proving that e-mail is actually a very powerful medium for reaching a targeted readership, particularly customers interested in news and innovations from a specific industry.
Here’s why you should take another look at adding an e-newsletter to your marketing strategy.
They’re intimate
E-newsletters evoke the feeling of a letter sent specifically to the recipient. They slice through the clutter of information on social media and the web by landing directly in a space where people receive notes from friends, pictures from family and memos from their boss.
Rather than quickly scanning through myriad posts, a subscriber chooses to open an e-newsletter in the relative quiet and privacy of their inbox, meaning they’re spending more time and focus on your message.
They’re targeted
Producing content for digital platforms can be a bit of a guessing game—you can send your message out there, but you have little to no control over how it’s received and manipulated.
E-newsletters let you control the message to give your recipients the information they’re looking for. Recipients opt in to receive your e-newsletter meaning they’re interested in what you have to say.
They save time
E-newsletters are an especially useful way to communicate with business-minded subscribers who don’t have a lot of time to sift through social feeds to find what they need. According to the Quartz Global Executives Study, 60 percent of executives across markets read an email newsletter as one of the top three news sources they check daily—nearly twice as many as those who use news apps.
They’re highly measurable
A well-curated email list can give you a lot of information about your customers. E-newsletter programs can give you data on everything from the number of people who opened your email, to click-throughs and conversions from specific campaigns. Some allow you to create subscriber profiles to track purchasing history and give you the ability to analyze customers’ online interests to create micro-targeted campaigns.
They inspire trust
The Internet is a swirling cyclone of information but it’s increasingly tough (and time-consuming) to sift out the quality stuff. If subscribers can rely on your e-newsletter for quality information, insight, entertainment or all of the above, they’ll come to trust your brand as an authority.
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At a time when we’re inundated with more information than we can possibly process, the inbox is becoming highly valued space. Get invited in, and you’ve got a fighting chance at capturing your customer’s attention.
Jennifer Goldberg is co-founder ofTavanberg, a Toronto-based content agency focused on helping brands connect with customers through standout storytelling.
MORE EMAIL IMPERATIVES:
- The Secret to a Great Sales Email »
- How to Make Spam People Actually Want to Read »
- The 5 Words That Make People Open Emails »
- How to Avoid the “Ugly Email” »
- The Secret to Saving Email Relationships »
Do you have an email newsletter? Why, or why not? Let us know by commenting below.
