When making digital marketing strategies and plans, the great forgotten by far is still the . This communication channel, which a decade ago was essential for brands, has lost steam in the promotion and customer acquisition strategies of projects, whether or not they are one hundred percent digital. What has caused this drop in the use of the newsletter? Has it ceased to be an effective promotional channel?
Experience shows that the answer to this question is negative. Email marketing is a useful tool within the strategy of each brand which can have a positive impact, but as usually happens, when its use is not appropriate, the results are not what is sought, and the reality is that the greatest disappointments with newsletter campaigns come from misuse of this channel as a means of promotion. . Let us not kill the messenger for it.
What is the newsletter: elements
E-mail marketing uses newsletters to impact consumers with information of two types: editorial and commercial. Regardless of the type of information, our goal is the same: grab the recipient’s attention by entering their inbox with a specific message. We are knocking on a person’s virtual door and we must do it in the best possible way, hence it is necessary to know how does a newsletter work
The first thing we must know is the format and the elements that a newsletter must follow to be effective before the recipients:
- The subject must be eye-catching and catch the consumer with a quick, short and punchy phrase. Many users only read the subject line, so if we don’t get straight to the point, we’ll miss the opportunity for them to open the email.
- The design of the newsletter must be attractive. I recommend betting on newsletters that are simple but at the same time elegant. The message should not be very loaded with images (in fact, it is recommended to use few images so as not to overload the email). It must be pretty and attractive.
- The content has to be like the subject: direct, concise and clear. It must be made up of a prominent headline, a brief body of text where what we want to promote is synthetically told and a small box, exploded view or lead where more details are given. It is important not to overwhelm the recipient with more than three or four subjects per e-mail.
- The images, as we say, preferably in a reduced number and that under no circumstances occupy much size in the e-mail.
- We must also include someattention call, a direct message that accurately informs the consumer to catch their attention.
- Finally, it is necessary that the newsletter has all the corporate information of the company that makes the shipment.
Once we have defined what e-mail marketing, the newsletter and its main structural characteristics are, it is time to talk about personalization.
Customize and you will win
We said in previous lines that a newsletter is like knocking on the digital door of a person’s house: we visit their inbox, being a well-known brand for the recipient, and we try to capture their attention. As we can maximize impact of our newsletter? With customization.
The message needs to go directed to that particular individual. Includes the receiver name in the body of the message and use the information previously provided by that user to configure the message. Do not conceive of sending a newsletter as a single message: you can create multiple messages for different user profiles.
For example, if our goal is to sell shoes, we need to collect information from our customers to find out their tastes and personalize shipments as much as possible. The same newsletter can carry three different messages depending on the target audience. For example: high heels, flat shoes or leather shoes. Divide your audience and you will increase your success rate.
It is also extremely important to play with a reasonable shipping frequency. Overwhelming the user with constant newsletters is useless. Dozens of email hits are received every day, so we must not only select the frequency of sending well, but also when we send. Making sure our newsletter is received at the right time is key.
The importance of measuring
When working with newsletters, it is not only important to properly configure the message that we are going to send, but know how shipping works that we have done. It is about sending and analyzing the results with several criteria that will help us to improve the performance of our future communications:
- Open rate: How many people have opened the mail?
- : How many errors do we have in the database?
- Clicks: How many clicks have we gotten? Where have they clicked?
- Zones: What are the areas of greatest impact in the newsletter?
- Conversion: How many users have followed our path?
Those that we establish to define the success or failure of our newsletter (purchases, registrations, downloads made, etc.) will mark the way forward with future communications. Always analyze and measure data. It is essential to achieve results at all times.
Respect the legal framework
Indispensable not only for a newsletter to be successful, but also for it to comply with current legislation, is to meet a series of requirements. The first, without a doubt, is that our database, that is, the subjects who are going to receive our communication, respect the national and European regulations of the . We cannot send communications to any user: it is necessary that they have previously accepted the reception of our messages.
Our database must also be updated. With the entry into force of the GDPR, all companies have had to update the express consent of the users of their databases in order to continue making shipments. It is essential to comply with this regulation or we expose ourselves to possible fines of prohibitive amounts that can financially affect small projects.
In the legal framework, in addition to clearly offering information about the company that sends the newsletter (address, VAT number, etc.), we are obliged to incorporate the option to unsubscribe and add a clear contact channel so that recipients can contact us in case of need.
These are two essential details for every newsletter we send.
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