Email lists provide an excellent way to remind and inform customers about your company. It is much easier to produce and distribute an email newsletter than a printed letter or magazine. However, email lists also make it very simple for readers to unsubscribe. Your newsletter must provide them with valuable, exclusive content.
What Readers Want
Although it’s more difficult if you sell a serious product, it remains possible to integrate humor with almost any email marketing campaign. The best type of humor varies depending upon customer demographics. Jokes, amusing stories and strange facts appeal to many readers. People won’t unsubscribe if the newsletter makes them laugh or smile.
Most Internet users also want to be rewarded for reading email newsletters. A survey found that 84 percent of people subscribe to commercial newsletters to save money, according to Business News Daily. To retain these subscribers, supply them with valuable discount codes. Tell them where to find coupons for your products.
When possible, combine information with advertising. Perhaps you own a health food store or a local pharmacy. You could include an article on the benefits of vitamin D in your newsletter. Most customers already know that the store sells vitamins, so the article doesn’t need much promotional language to persuade them to purchase this item.
People will unsubscribe from a newsletter if it becomes dull and repetitive. One way to avoid this pitfall is to relate each issue to the present month or season. Integrate current events as well. For example, a discount store might use its email list to tell readers about the benefits of portable electric fans during a major heat wave.
Think of an online newsletter as a magazine or a newspaper. People look at the advertisements, but they wouldn’t read a publication if it only contained ads. Always include some helpful tips or links to interesting websites. Pay attention to subscriber feedback, and use a tracking system to identify the types of content that readers prefer.
Opting Out Gracefully
It’s possible to track how often people open email messages; this can help you choose effective subject lines. Fab.com uses this data in a different way. It automatically unsubscribes readers who don’t open its newsletters for several days, according to The Next Web. This conserves bandwidth and prevents busy customers from getting annoyed.
To comply with federal law and prevent spam accusations, every newsletter must provide an easy way to unsubscribe. Fab.com has also innovated in this area. It uses an amusing opt-out page that tries to discourage readers from leaving. Fab also gives them the option to receive fewer messages instead of fully unsubscribing.
An email marketing campaign that combines humor, discounts and useful information will produce the most revenue. However, it is also important to remember that most people have relatively little time to read your messages. To keep subscribers happy, limit the length of your email newsletters and avoid sending more than one each week.