Email marketing pt1: Five reasons to have an email newsletter
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Posted: Mon 16th Jan 2012
In the first of a series on email marketing, Enterprise Nation considers why it's worth having your own newsletter.
We'll take you through the steps of choosing the right platform, creating content, building the newsletter and improving it issue by issue.
Five reasons to have an email newsletter
1. Contact
It's another online contact point with people who have expressed an offer in your product or service. But whereas your website, blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed generally require people to come to you, with an email newsletter you go to them - straight to their inbox.
It's like handing out flyers at a show rather than standing behind your stall waiting for people to come to you.
2. Can you afford not to?
Even if open rates are low and click-through rates to your website even lower, that still means someone is clicking through to your content and that someone can be considered a warm lead that you wouldn't otherwise have.
If you've set things up right, you may well turn them into a buyer. Besides, the chances are that your competitors are already sending their own email newsletter - to your potential customers. If they are, then you've got get yourself into the game.
3. It sharpens you up
An email newsletter is direct marketing. Direct marketing forces you to think about what your offer is and the best way to communicate it.
4. It tells you about your customers
An email newsletter is also a useful customer research tool. You don't just send it and forget about it; you look at what's been clicked on and by how many people.
This tells you a lot about what you potential customers are actually interested in, and that will help you clarify and refine your marketing messages - which can only be good for sales. You can also use your email newsletter to survey your customers, of course.
5. Aren't four good reasons enough?
Reason five is, quite simply, that it's quite a fun thing to do. It engages you with your own business and challenges you to think about what you've done and what you're going to do next.
Read the other articles in this series about email marketing:
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