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Summary:
1. Introduction
2 – The fundamental contents of a newsletter
3 – The specific contents of a newsletter
4 – The elements in favor of a newsletter
5 – The elements against a newsletter
6 – The five best strategies for using a newsletter
7 – Direct sales messages
8 – Typical content of a direct sales message
9 – Arguments in favor of direct sales messages
10 – Arguments against direct sales messages
11 – The 5 best strategies for using direct sales messages
12 – Conclusions
1. Introduction
One of the most frequent questions from those who have had their first contact with the world of Email Marketing is whether their email marketing program should take the form and contents of a newsletter or a direct sales campaign, or whether it can take on the form and contents of both types of messages.
Naturally, the most effective email marketing program should contain elements of both strategies.
But, apart from this, we must still try to identify the differences between an email message that is part of a newsletter and a message that has the direct sales function.
Only after this in-depth analysis will you be able to choose which type of form and content you will want to adopt based on the purpose you want to achieve with your e-mail marketing program, as well as based on the target users you will have identified when setting up your email list. departure.
2 – The fundamental contents of a newsletter
First of all, a newsletter is characterized by the desire to offer information that is interesting, useful and engaging, but which belongs to a specific sector, which is subject to rapid technological evolution or to the identification of new and unprecedented contents which are in any case up to date. with the times.
This information is intended to make you known and to create a close relationship between users and your brand.
A newsletter has the characteristic of being able to continuously expose your brand and your products in the minds of your customers, so as to predispose them to always be eager to purchase from you.
It has the function of creating a viral diffusion of the name of your company, your products and your brand itself among your subscribers, by sending interesting information, useful because it is cutting-edge, and engaging.
A newsletter is also a suitable tool for generating traffic visits to your website.
Finally, it can help you acquire sales thanks also to the effective characteristics that your products present and your promotional offers.
3 – The specific contents of a newsletter
While the specific content of a newsletter message can essentially depend on the sector in which you operate, the segment of subscribers to your list who receive that message, your tests on the contents to which recipients react positively, in general the most common features that a newsletter message may present are represented by:
- articles that focus on the most frequent problems in your sector, the expert column;
- columns that focus on specific advice useful for buyers and users of your products;
- the frequently asked questions column;
- the testimonials of your product, not only written and signed, but also on video, resident on your website, but linked in the email;
- reviews of products, features and functions;
- announcements of new products with new features;
- the calendar of the most representative events
- special offers and discounts;
- the comments of the most experts;
- comments from customers and most well-known users;
- links to the websites of commercial partners
- links to sections of your site containing useful product information;
- links to your social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn;
- the call to action aimed at forwarding the newsletter to friends.
Obviously, the more creative and unique the content of your newsletter is, the more you will be able to involve subscribers.
What I have provided you represents a list that can immediately give you useful advice regarding the contents that subscribers usually want to read.
4 – The elements in favor of a newsletter
Like any decision regarding your marketing plan, including a newsletter in your marketing mix must also seek to create some balance between the pros and cons of a newsletter.
In this list I present you with some favorable elements, which you will have to take into account when deciding which is the best format for your newsletter to take on for your email marketing campaign.
Providing subscribers with content that is engaging means they will be much more willing to open, read and click through to your newsletter messages rather than a series of direct sales messages.
Your customers really appreciate the fact that not all of your communications have the purpose of inviting them to buy something from you, and this can guarantee you a greater affirmation of your brand in their minds.
Of course, you will also be able to generate sales but not in the same quantity that you could obtain with a series of direct sales messages.
A newsletter is very effective in increasing visits to your website, and this is very important if you have set up a business model based on visits to the site and/or advertising via impressions.
Since a newsletter is not a direct sales tool, you can very well rent or sell space within your messages to your partners, but you will have to do some tests and evaluate the possibility of cancellations, but then it still depends on your line starting editorial, in the sense that if you have set it in a way that excludes the presence of advertising, even from others, you will not be able to suddenly change the setting.
A newsletter message offering an offer at a special price conditional on purchase within a certain time can very well be sent to all subscribers, unlike a sales message, for example a follow-up message, because in the latter case, the message reaches the recipient depending on the moment in which he signs up, and yet in order not to create problems with other subscribers it will always be necessary to maintain a certain discretion.
Naturally, the message with the offer via newsletter will only reach those registered by a certain date and not to subsequent ones.
The length of the message of a newsletter allows you to insert a multiple series of contents, such as sections of your website, and in any case everything that is suitable for spreading your brand and the image of your company.
5 – The elements against a newsletter
Here is a short list of points against using a newsletter:
Precisely because a newsletter will never be able to express itself in a call to action, you will not be able to count on repeated purchases like in direct sales, such as, for example, through a series of follow-up emails.
Creating a newsletter certainly involves a lot of effort, given that it requires the drafting of content comparable to the pages of a site that contains the full version of the articles and columns included in the messages.
Since a newsletter has many sections, it is much more difficult to carry out tests to verify the effectiveness of any content within the body of the message, such as a section header or a particular image.
In short, a newsletter requires a lot of work in its creation compared to what happens for a direct and non-direct sales message it doesn't even get many sales.
However, a newsletter can help you retain customers and ultimately produce sales in the short and long term.
Therefore, when you evaluate the pros and cons of a newsletter, consider that you will have at your disposal the possibility of composing excellent content and at the same time you will also be able to satisfy the need to still obtain a return on the investment in a newsletter.
A newsletter represents the best tool to create the loyalty of your customers and the diffusion program of your brand.
A newsletter can also play a fundamental role in keeping customers loyal to your company, your website and your products.
However, it will always have inferior results in terms of customer acquisition, direct sales and lost customer recovery strategies.
6 – The five best strategies for using a newsletter
I present to you the five best strategies that you should always consider when and plan to use an email newsletter.
Insert a summary of the article in the content of the message, together with a link to the full version of the same.
This not only increases good traffic visits to your website page, but also prevents your newsletter from being marked as spam, rather than going to the inbox due to the use of words that trigger spam filters.
Make links clear and visible and use text links.
Make sure all links leading from the message to your website, partner sites, or other locations are clear and visible.
If possible, set the color to electric blue and underlining for links for easy user recognition.
Although in web design it is considered normal, even if not in use, to use the words "click here" in a link, in email design it is actually rather discouraged because it is considered a spam practice.
Make sure your links are text-based and not image-based, as those links may not appear in all emails.
To avoid any risk, make sure that the corresponding text link is also contained under the image link, so that if the recipient's email client deactivates the images, the latter will still be able to understand what to click on.
Prioritize content that users can see in the first 300 vertical pixels so a reader can decide whether or not to read the full email.
Make sure the most engaging newsletter content appears within these first three hundred pixels and don't waste space with useless graphic headers or useless graphic welcome messages.
Use a “Summary” or “In this email,” since newsletters tend to be longer and users tend to scan them quickly, using a summary or short list of what is in the email makes sure users can quickly refer back to it to see what content they might want to read.
Allow readers the ability to read the newsletter on a web page.
In particular, give users who read their email on their smartphone the option to click on a link to read a version of the newsletter, embedded in a web page, instead of having to read the entire newsletter in the their email inbox, it's a huge plus.
Offering this option will significantly increase the number of users who explore your newsletter.
Email newsletters are a great way to provide users with your story, resources, and reasons to make purchases or visit your website.
Although the time it takes to create an email newsletter may be long, the benefits you will benefit from will last a long time.
7 – Direct sales messages
Unlike a newsletter a direct sales email aims to increase sales and revenue of your product or service through clicks to your website, so it also aims to increase the click-through rate .
Direct sales emails are best for customer acquisition, revenue generation, and retention.
This also means that tracking the results from that message will be simple, it will either have generated sales… or it will have generated nothing.
Let's say that in reality every e-mail sent within a sales system based on e-mail marketing, which takes the form of a newsletter, or a broadcast, or a follow-up of messages, can give different results, but that the line between having results or not is not so clear.
In fact, there may be messages that sell, or that sell little, or that sell almost nothing.
Split testing is always the only way to verify the type of message that gets the most results.
8 – Typical content of a direct sales message
What is the typical content of a direct sales email?
Sales results may vary based on the specific content or tactic of your direct sales email, but either way, what's appealing about a direct sales message is that its purpose is simple.
The content of a direct sales message is conditioned by the period in which it is sent, the sector the sender belongs to, the target segment to which it is sent and the objectives you want to achieve in terms of sales and turnover.
However, the following contents are typical of direct sales messages and are independent of the previously listed aspects:
• New incentives for the buyer
• Automatic percentage discount or via coupon code
• Free gift given by virtue of the purchase
• Buy one, get one free
• Free shipping
• Free priority or expedited shipping upgrade
• Sending additional product information
• Bonus in cash or points
• Offer of a discounted product due to the intervention of a friend
• Offer a free trial period
• Offering product samples
• Exclusive offers for VIPs
• Seasonal products
• New product announcements
• Product testimonials and reviews
• Product support from authoritative and famous people
9 – Arguments in favor of direct sales messages
Direct sales emails have their own list of advantages and disadvantages to consider when inserting them into your marketing mix. When determining the direct sales email rollout in your email marketing plan, consider the following key points:
Below are the positive points of sending a direct sales email:
• A direct sales email requires less editorial effort than a newsletter, with reduced content and image requirements and typically just a referral link to a page on your website.
• Since a direct sales email has only one call to action, it is easier to segment the user list and present the most appropriate offer.
• The revenue and sales numbers generated will be higher with a direct sales email compared to a content-based newsletter.
• Because a direct sales email has shorter content and only includes a call to action, it is easier to test individual email elements such as headers and images.
10 – Arguments against direct sales messages
Below are the negative points of sending a direct sales email:
• Direct sales emails can often result in much higher spam complaints and unsubscribes than a newsletter.
• Direct sales emails can cause irritation in users, who may very well stop opening your email messages altogether if they begin to perceive that every communication from you is simply a solicitation to purchase something.
• Direct sales emails focus only on a single business, meaning they should not offer the opportunity to promote other sections of your website, partner sites, or other content.
11 – The 5 best strategies for using direct sales messages
Here are the top 5 strategies that should be practiced for direct sales emails:
A call to action: While you can feature multiple products in a direct sales email, don't ask customers who read the email to do anything other than purchase as it will distract them from the intended goal.
Don't clutter your direct sales emails with links to other content, links to additional information about the same products for sale, or even links to social media.
Use equal amounts of text and images: While it's important to use images to showcase your product or generate emotion, always remember that many email clients don't display images.
Always make sure there is an amount of text equal to the amount of space taken up by the images so that users can know what the product offer or feature is without having to load the images into their email browser.
If possible, try to give the html email the appearance of a plain text message, with only the addition of a small company logo at the end of the body of the email, especially if they are messages addressed to entrepreneurs (therefore in the case of B2B sales strategies).
Be careful of spammy words in your text, because direct sales messages run a greater risk of using words that could trigger your email provider's spam filters. For example, words like free, sale, discount or click here can cause your email to go to spam instead of the recipient's inbox.
Make links clear and visible and use text links.
Make sure all links leading from the message to your website, partner sites, or other locations are clear and visible.
If possible, set the color to electric blue and underlining for links for easy user recognition.
Although in web design it is considered normal, even if out of use, to use the words "click here" in a link, in email design it is actually rather discouraged because it is considered a spam practice.
Make sure your links are text-based and not image-based, as those links may not appear in all emails.
To avoid any risk, make sure that the corresponding text link is also contained under the image link, so that if the recipient's email client deactivates the images, the latter will still be able to understand what to click on.
Put the best offer in the subject and immediately under the header, in the body of the message.
Offers can also be for more than one product you would like to sell, so make sure that if you are making multiple offers or promoting multiple products, your best offer is not only first on the list, but is also described in the subject line .
12 – Conclusions
Direct sales emails are a key way to increase revenue, sales and get good traffic to your site and a higher click-through rate.
You can include this setting in any email marketing mix strategy.
Remember to always be balanced when inserting your offers, and therefore when using your messages for direct sales, do not crowd them with too many offers so as not to irritate your users, and also be aware of the causes that can activate anti-filters spam.
Whether you decide to use a content-based newsletter or multiple messages set up for direct sales, your ideal email marketing mix will be able to combine both strategies when you deem it most appropriate.
Take some time to think about the different versions of messages you can use, how they fit your email marketing goals, the size and content of your message database, and your internal resources.
Direct sales emails are best for acquisition, revenue generation, and recovering previously lost customers.
Direct sales emails can also play a role in keeping customers connected to the company name, its website and products, but should not be used as the exclusive means of achieving this.
Direct sales emails should absolutely not be used to increase customer loyalty and build your brand.
Now you can start to fully visualize the types of emails you might want to send.
However, there is yet another factor to consider, and that is using an autoresponder.