Are your newsletters just going straight to spam? Or maybe you don’t even have them? Newsletter marketing is definitely NOT dead. And, honestly, it’s one of the most efficient ways to reach your customers.
Now, sending newsletters here and there without a strategy won’t bring you crazy results. However, it’s still better than nothing. That being said, let me share three main strategies that have delivered the best results for my clients.
The main thing I want you to take from this article is that no matter what you decide, you still need to test at least two ideas. Let’s say you do decide to test out a freebie strategy. This is when you should try two different freebies that could generate results.
Both of these freebies have to be created with your product in mind. Ideally, your freebies should already solve a problem for your customer. You need to keep in mind how your actual product is going to be better. And that’s exactly why it’s incredibly useful to plan out your newsletter strategy.
Why Your Open Rate Isn’t Great?
I’ve heard some pretty good excuses that said that maybe they didn’t do something well technically. And apparently that’s why their open rate is horrible.
“All of our letters just go to spam and that’s why people don’t see them. And THAT’S WHY our open rate is horrible.”
One of my Facebook ads clients
I mean, it’s nicer to believe that you open rate isn’t great because you don’t know some kind of crazy secret. But the truth is that for most businesses their newsletters open rate isn’t great because their first emails s*ck.
Let’s say you are GMAIL. If your customer receives an email and doesn’t even open it, what will you think? Oh, they just didn’t notice it?
Most probably, all of the emails that aren’t opened are going to fall under the category of not important. We all have had a notification from gmail saying “You haven’t opened an email from x sender in x days, do you still want to get them?”. I mean, it’s not the exact message, but that’s the idea.
The hard truth is that as long as you follow the main guidelines e.g. collect new subscribers by complying to GPDR law, include the unsubscribe button in the email, etc., it’s way more likely that your emails aren’t reaching your customers because your headlines aren’t tempting enough.
Even if you send your newsletter subscribers an email that includes a great discount, if it doesn’t stand out from the crowd, they will most likely ignore it.
How to Make Newsletters Work?
The first thing you need to think about is how your first email subject line is going to be tempting enough so that your subscribers actually open it. It’s essential that your email’s subject line is catchy. And also that you do offer them an irresistible offer.
While it’s good to send your customers a 10% cart abandonment discount, there’s so much more you can do with email marketing.
Look at it this way, most businesses offer a 10% discount. People will not go “WOW” once they see it. That’s why, it’s important to think of something original to help you stand out from the crowd.
Newsletter Strategy That Actually Works
I first heard of this strategy on the Side Hustle Show podcast with Dag Faggella. Honestly, I love that podcast and I am in no way affiliated with it. Today I want to share his podcast episode 102: zero to 50k a month: email marketing hacks for entrepreneurs and audience builders. It’s not often that I listen to the same podcast multiple times but this one is just full of incredibly useful information.
The main thing I took out of it was the 14 automated newsletter series. I know it sounds crazy to send 14 newsletters to a brand-new lead. But what’s even crazier is that it actually works. And yes, they are sent every day.
The main reason why I think it works is that the moment someone subscribes to your newsletter, that’s the moment when they are the warmest possible lead. Now, obviously, the newsletters have to be useful. One of the ways to make it useful is to offer a freebie.
What is a freebie?
Freebie is a product or service that you give away for free. This includes physical and digital products, webinars, ebooks, checklists, templates, courses, and even consultations. If you want to find more freebie ideas, I’d highly suggest checking out this article.
Freebie examples:
- Contests and giveaways,
- Webinars and video interviews,
- Access to Facebook group (at the moment the group is free but it will be paid later),
- Checklists, ebooks, templates,
- Secret discount codes just for newsletter subscribers,
- In-depth case studies,
- Planners, worksheets & workbooks,
- Challenges and trackers,
- & so many more!
Also, once you decide on which product you want to sell, for example, digital planners. Feel free to go to Pinterest and look at what your competitors are doing:
I’m definitely not going to tell you to just copy them, but Pinterest is obviously a great place for inspiration. And personally, one of my freebie pins has gone viral.
Bonus tip: don’t just create one Pinterest pin. Make sure you create multiple ones and use different keywords. Also, I would create a group board as well for the main keyword.
Here’s another example, this time it’s for free Google Sheets templates. As you can see, many people give them away for free. I like to subscribe to all of my competitors’ newsletters because then I can spot some opportunities that I may be missing out on.
Again, the point of this isn’t to just copy somebody else. Honestly, if you are going to copy an idea, let’s say give away an Etsy calculator. Make sure that yours is an improved version of theirs. The goal isn’t to compete with your competitors. What I personally want is to improve my own business. And that’s what motivates me. The understanding that I did at least a little bit better today than yesterday.
Do I Have to Use Freebies to Get New Leads?
The short answer is no. There are definitely other ways to generate new leads. Freebies are great if you have a brand-new website and want to collect as much data as possible with the least amount of money. With freebies, your posts on social media could go viral.
However, freebies do attract some customers that are only interested in getting them and will not want to pay anything extra. That being said, most of the time if the freebie caught the person’s attention, the freebie is something they find useful.
What Could I Do Instead of Freebies?
You could do secret sales just for newsletter subscribers, sign-ups for your new product pre-sale, sign-ups for limited-time purchase offers, early bird access, loyalty programs, personalized offers, referral programs, quizzes that send customized results, limited edition collections, and more!
All of the ideas that have been listed above will attract more interested people in your product. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t just plan my leads collection strategy with freebies. It’s incredibly useful to have multiple marketing funnels.
14 Automated Emails Strategy
I’ve created 14 email topics that you can use for your own freebies automation series. Now, we do start with freebies. I mean, if you have promised someone a freebie it makes sense that they get it, right? But time is of the essence here, so besides all of these freebies, we do want to start talking about sales as soon as possible.
In this video, I go through each newsletter topic step by step:
Want to create your own newsletters but don’t know where to start? Sign up for the newsletter planner pre-sale. Create newsletters like a marketing specialist and make the most out of your business.
How to Get Newsletter Subscribers?
By offering a freebie, you can reduce your new subscriber cost dramatically. This freebie can’t be random and has to be relevant to your business. According to Dan Fagella, your freebie needs to be something that will incentivize the person to buy. For example, if you are selling Google Spreadsheets, you could give them a taste of what it would be like to have one.
For example, your freebie could be a one-page calculator spreadsheet that later advertises the main spreadsheet that has more functionalities. Basically, you show the person how easy and useful it is to use your spreadsheet so that later they want to buy your actual product.
Most importantly, the freebie has to be related to the product you are going to sell later. Also, in case you are selling a physical product, you can always consider a giveaway instead.
Include These Newsletter Ideas Into Your Newsletter Strategy
Every business will be different. However, you can still get inspired by the newsletter ideas that actually work. In case you choose a freebie strategy, you do need to make sure that your first email includes the freebie.
The thing is that we want to always underpromise and overdeliver to our customers. Can you imagine how disappointing it would be if you were promised a present and then didn’t get it until day 3?
Besides that, you need to make sure that you start talking about your product ASAP. There are no two ways about it. People need to know the benefits of your product while they’re the most interested.
Now that we got those essential things out of the way, let’s focus on other email ideas that deserve your attention:
- Story email: Share one of your own personal struggles. People like to buy from humans. Ideally, your story has to be related to the product itself.
- Problem + solution: You never know which problem is the most important to your customers right now. That’s why you will need to test different ones. One of the email strategies that intrigue people is when you send them an email talking about a problem and then promise a solution the next day. Besides that, you do want to test an email that includes both the problem and the solution (your product) as well.
- New freebie template intro: let your subscribers know how the template can help users organize your subscribers’ lives. Don’t just say a freebie. Tell them exactly why it’s useful for them. & Don’t forget to mention why they should open your next email.
- Benefits email: don’t just talk about your product features. Most people don’t connect to them anyways. Make sure to include the benefits instead. In other words, don’t make your subscribers think about why your product is useful to them. Tell them.
- Tutorial email: Are there any hacks that you could share with your customers that could make their lives easier? Share them. The more valuable your content is to them, the more likely they will stay subscribed to your newsletter. The longer they stay subscribed to your newsletter, the more likely they will make repeat purchases.
- Testimonials email: There’s no better way to help others trust your product than to share testimonials from your previous customers. It depends on the product but sometimes you can collect great testimonials by offering a huge discount or even letting some people try your sample product for free.
- Reminder email: Encourage your subscribers to use the discount or test out a product.
- Follow-up email: After your client purchases a product, send them a thank you email and ask them for feedback. I usually like to include a digital gift. In other words, I try to give as much value as I possibly can and provide great customer experience.
- Teaser email: Tease the upcoming release of your latest product. If you can, you want to create hype for your new products.
- Design sneak peek email: Share a sneak peek of the design of your latest product.
- Pre-sale newsletter: Offer users the opportunity to pre-order your latest product with a discount. Honestly, this strategy usually works better than the actual product launch. People know that they get a deal and it’s also great for you in case you sell a physical product because you can plan it out better.
- Limited-time offer email: Offer a limited-time discount on your product. The truth is that it’s difficult to have a successful campaign on Facebook ads that only lasts two days. But these kinds of limited-time campaigns work incredibly well on newsletters. It creates a sense of urgency.
- Last call email: Send a final call email reminding users that the pre-order promo code will soon expire.
I hope that you found this article useful! Please leave a short comment bellow if you want more articles like that. Thank you 🙂