Emailing is considered a convenient and inexpensive way to attract customers. It is actively used by Internet entrepreneurs and not only. How to make an email newsletter, how to increase its effectiveness, what myths are associated with it - read the article.
Main misconceptions
It is generally accepted that mailing is easy and simple. It is enough to have a database of addresses and regularly send letters with offers to buy this or that. However, look into your drawer. How many emails do you send to spam? How much do you delete without even opening it? When was the last time you bought something when you received a similar letter?
The technical knowledge of how to do bulk email is clearly not enough to get a good result.
Firstly, the base of addresses must be legal, purchased subscribers or received from a partner do not meet your expectations. Ideally, the target audience should be gathered.
Secondly, the letters should contain interesting and useful information. No less important is the form of presentation of the material. You need to write so that you want to read the letter. Headings are extremely important, otherwise no one will open the newsletter.
The plan is important. You must know in advance when and what you will tell your readers.
A simple conclusion follows from this. You need to learn how to make an Email newsletter correctly. Read books, take part in trainings and, of course, try in practice, look for your own approaches and methods.
How to do Email Newsletter correctly
The purpose of letters from the company is to sell your product. But you can come to this in different ways.
Maxim Ilyakhov, author and editor of one of the most interesting newsletters on the Internet (from the Megaplan company), identifies three ways.
- The first way is gaming. A fictional character is created - the hero of letters. Stories are told on his behalf, and he can also share his opinions or impressions about something. The task of such letters is, first of all, to entertain the reader, but also to offer the product too. Game and sale should be separated. As an analogy, you can recall an interesting program with ad units.
- The next way is cognitive. This is exactly the strategy followed in the Megaplan mailing list. Letters is a kind of business magazine filled with useful information. Articles are written by authors or reprinted from other sources. Thanks to this approach, audience loyalty and the company's expert image are formed.
- The third option is direct sales. It is considered the most ineffective of all possible. It is these letters that most often fall into spam. Even with this approach, only 20% of the information should be selling, and 80% - useful. Otherwise, the method will not work.
How to form a base and not become a spammer?
Choosing a newsletter, you get on a slippery track. Letters are a real invasion of personal space. People don’t like this, so they press the Spam button and complain. It is important to ensure that the information is interesting and relevant to readers.
How to make email newsletters useful? Do not write about your company or how good your product is. Take broader topics that will engage your audience. About success, about life around, share working secrets and techniques. Let your letters help people solve problems, even if they haven’t bought anything yet.
Mailing efficiency is directly related to the quality of the database. Accept the fact that a maximum of 20% of the addresses will be working, and 80% are dump boxes that they don’t even check. The base will be better if it includes people who subscribe themselves because they are interested in something. To collect just such addresses, you need to treat the newsletter as a serious project that requires an investment of time and energy.
Regularity
Naturally, you need to contact the audience regularly. If you do not plan this, then you should not start. Most often, letters come once a month or once a week. It is better to send high-quality material, but less often than low-quality, but often.
It is believed that the most effective regularity ranges from two letters per week to one letter in two weeks. Frequent appeals are perceived as a manifestation of importunity, and if you remind yourself too rarely, you can completely forget.
Technical points
So, you have decided on the filling of letters and regularity, put together a database of addresses. What's next? How to do email newsletters?
If the database is small, then a very real task is to send letters without attracting paid services. How to make an email newsletter yourself? Very simple.
When you finish the letter, fill in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. Addresses must be separated by commas. There is a limit on the number of recipients. For example, in Mail.ru there can be no more than thirty.
In addition to the fact that this method is time-consuming, there is another danger in it. Spam filters emails with a large number of recipients are perceived as unwanted. To get around this protection, you need to send messages not in bulk, but each one should be sent separately. With a large base, it is simply impossible to do it manually. How to make an Email-mailing yourself in such a situation? Have to resort to the help of special mailing services.
How to make everyone a newsletter by Email: links to services
Three most popular today: SmartResponder, Subscribe, UniSender. All three are domestic. Thanks to this, they have a Russian-language interface and technical support is Russian-speaking, which is very convenient.
Also, they all provide official documents for services, which is extremely important for legal entities.
UniSender and Smart Responder are democratic. If the database is small and there are few letters, then you have the opportunity to use the services for free.
In addition to electronic, you can send SMS messages through these services. It is also very important that there is access to statistics: how many letters are open, how many are sent to spam, how many people have made the transition to the site, etc.
Another advantage of the services is that they are actively engaged in educating their users on how to make email distribution to unfamiliar subscribers effective. You will receive articles and books the very next day after you complete the registration procedure.
Now you not only know how to create an email list, but also have information on how to make it interesting, effective and help promote your business.