What to Include in Newsletters and How Often You Should Send Them
You’re newsletter is a direct form of communication with your audience. If you haven’t read the preceding post “Why You Should Have a Mailing List”, I recommend reading that first, if you dont have a mailing list or you’re on the fence about having one.
Once you have a mailing list, you need to maintain it at least once a month at the very minimum. I recommend twice a month in the beginning stages. Most of us, including myself at first, are at a loss of what to include in the newsletters, especially when you don’t have what you may consider to be “news”, as often as other well established brands.
So, this is what we do, to stay in peoples inboxes consistently. The obvious is to send out a newsletter anytime you announce something new, have an appearance or have new content to promote, Don’t send something out as it happens, unless it is time sensitive. That’s when you become annoying and have people unsubscribe. That’s why picking a schedule is important. For my example scenarios, I will use a bi-weekly schedule format.
Let’s say I posted a new blog post or added a new service/product, but it’s a week where I’m not sending out a newsletter. Since I typically promote my new posts and such, on all of my social media platforms in the current time, it’s okay to not send out the newsletter this week. A newsletter is more of a reminder and a way to pull people in, to view your content without distractions. You get a second round of promo this way as well; people have already seen the headline and the more times they see it the more prone they are to clicking it.
You can use your newsletter to recycle content you have talked about before, weeks or even months ago. As you may have new subscribers. However, try not to have too many newsletters in a row with recycled content. If you find yourself recycling back to back to back, it’s better to skip your schedule and not send anything and wait until you have something new.
If there is a current trending topic about something you have created content for already in the past, create a newsletter around that. Even if its not newsletter day.
Did you reach a goal, start a new goal or just accomplish something great, share that with your subscribers, even if there isn’t a link to content around it, don’t be afraid to get personal with your subscribers.
Promoting a time sensitive event, go ahead and break the schedule and send out the newsletter regarding it. The schedule is to keep you consistent, it is not set in stone, you have to use your best judgement for your own scenarios. Be sure to edit your schedule as your audience grows and content output rate changes.
When I create newsletters, I like to start with the latest content and then I will recycle 1-2 older content pieces to give the newsletter some depth. Always include pictures, as they help grab attention of the viewers. You should also include all of your social links and website url; these are things you should just have built into your template already so they’re there every time you create a new newsletter. You can also automate newsletters, if you know you that one week you’ll be away or won’t haves content to promote, go ahead and pre-schedule the newsletters.
Pro Tip: Keep your subscribers happy, if you add a new freebie (I’ll go into details about freebies later), send it to your current subscribers as well. Happy subscribers are engaged subscribers.
Bonus: I use Mailchimp for most of my clients as it’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers, it’s a great starting point and has relatively low costs after you reach the free threshold. If you need more advanced features I recommend Constant Contact, keep in mind it comes with a price tag at every level; so I typically stay away from it for smaller brands, since the costs aren’t justifiably yet for a lot of people.
Related Article: Why You Should Have A Mailing List
