How many times have you tried to carry on a conversation with someone who just didn’t seem to be listening to what you had to say? Their mind seemed to be elsewhere and try as you might, you just couldn’t elicit a response. Perhaps they had pressing issues absorbing their focus, but more times than not, you just weren’t saying anything of interest to them.
In other words, you weren’t engaging them. This is how you need to look at marketing and one of the best tools at your disposal is a regular newsletter. It is the way you can regularly communicate with your audience, your market, but are you saying the right things? Are you engaging them? If your newsletters aren’t being met with the kind of response you were looking for, here are some tips that will help.
1. Layout Is Critical
One of the hardest lessons learned is that the layout of your newsletter can be central to its success. Instead of sending off pages of text, which you must admit is boring to look at, why not use a few high-quality images? They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and so it is with newsletters. Yes, you are trying to impart information, but if it doesn’t grab their attention, they’ll never read what you have to say.
2. Make Those Headlines Count
According to marketing guru, Neil Patel, your headlines should be magnetic. Patel is a name that literally every marketing group respects, and it is his contention that if your headlines aren’t magnetic, if they don’t attract, few people will bother to read what you are saying.
3. Learn from the Pros
If you really want to see what works, it’s time to subscribe to a few newsletters from companies that get a high response from their mailings. The Sendinblue automated newsletter platform has several examples of what a high-quality newsletter should look and read like on their website. You can get some inspiration from these examples from Sendinblue, so take the time to learn from the samples they have posted for you.
4. Engagement and the Call to Action
While you do want to keep your audience updated on any news within your company or even within your industry, you also want to keep them interested in what you have to say. This is where you can engage them with a question or two. Give them a way to respond to that all-powerful Call to Action (CTA) and when they click through to your site, you can draw them in even further. Keep them engaged by asking for their opinion – get a response.
5. Use What You’ve Learned
Here is the actual key to a successful newsletter. If you want to know what your readers want to hear, ask them! As mentioned above, ask for a response. Ask for opinions. This is how you know what your audience is looking for and what you might want to address in future publishings. If you want to learn how to get the information you need from your customers, this article on inc.com details how to ask the right questions.
Bear in mind that you need to be in constant dialogue with your audience and a newsletter helps you do just this. Keep those automated mailings going out regularly, whether it is weekly or monthly or even daily. These tips should help you drive engagement and that is how you build a loyal following. Engagement is the key.