What you need to know about small business newsletters.
“Are newsletters worth the effort?” a client asked me recently.
Vicki had just hired a blogger as part of her content marketing strategy and wasn’t sure she could justify spending more money developing a newsletter. “Does anyone want another newsletter?” Vicki asked, “I sign up for loads of newsletters and never have time to read them. So why bother?”
And it’s true we all receive loads of business emails. According to Statista, more than 306 billion emails are sent and received each day. So what’s the real story? How many of those 306 billion emails get opened and what impact do they have on customers and the businesses that send them?
In this post, we’ll take you through the stats, discuss why so many newsletters fail and how to develop a newsletter that gets results.
The facts about email newsletters:
The thing to remember is that just because you don’t read your newsletters doesn’t mean newsletters don’t work.
Emails not only get opened - Campaign Monitor found that the average open rate is between 21.5% across all industries in 2021 - that’s 66,000,000,000 opened emails - they also offer an incredible return on investment. The DMA found that email generates £42 for every £ spent - that’s a return on investment of 4,200%!
Together these two stats explain why leading marketers still believe that “email reigns supreme” and why 4 out of 5 respondents say they’d rather give up social media than email marketing according to Litmus.
And in terms of your customers, they also seem to like receiving emails. A study by Bluecore found that email is still the most preferred and most personal way consumers like to engage with brands across generations - 74% of Baby Boomers, 72% of Gen X, 64% of Millennials, and 60% of Gen Z prefer email communication.
So if you are like Vicki and think the world doesn’t need one more newsletter - think again. A well-crafted newsletter could be your business’ secret weapon to keep your brand top of mind among consumers.
Still not convinced, here are 3 more powerful reasons to consider email newsletters.
You control the distribution - unlike social media, you control who sees your message and not an ever-changing algorithm.
You have a receptive audience - because readers must opt-in to receive your content you’re starting from a position of strength and speaking to an audience that wants to hear what you have to say. That’s golden.
You can humanise your brand - Peter Drucker, sometimes referred to as the grandfather of modern marketing said “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous”. Personally, I hate selling and that’s why I like newsletters - they help you sell without selling by making your brand relatable and trustworthy so when it comes time to buy people think of you first.
The number one reason that newsletters fail? They are about you and not about your reader.
Good newsletters like all good marketing understand their audience and cater to their needs and interests. They know how to deliver the right message at the right time to the right person.
So what makes a good newsletter?
Think of emails you like reading - they have a distinct voice, they’re interesting, maybe they’re funny, they probably provide some kind of utility. In other words, they offer something of value to the reader.
Six newsletter samples examples from my inbox
Newsletters
New York Times Cooking for great cooking ideas
Austin Kleon for inspiration
Christy Price for grown-up Squarespace support
Inside the Square.co for great tutorials
Peloton for new classes to try
Courier Highlights providing tips and tricks for entrepreuneurs
… and 6 Takeaways
Strike the right tone - be personable and authentic. This is an easier task for solo entrepreneurs such as Austin Kleon and Christy Price but it is still possible for large corporations like the New York Times who let the personality of their journalists like Sam Sifton shine through.
Make it easy to jump in - clear headlines, good use of visuals and lots of white space help readers to skim and find what interests them quickly. The Courier Highlight newsletter is a good example of this.
Deliver something of value - insights, tips, inspiring images - all of the newsletters above do this in spades offering real value from meal suggestions to business hacks and expert coding advice. For Squarespace designers - Becca Harpin’s Tuesday newsletter is a must-read for the latest Squarespace tutorial.
Have fun - Christy Price - another Squarespace expert always adds “Something fun” at the end of her emails.
Use Personalisation - this can range from something as simple as “Dear Katherine” to the inclusion of dynamic content based on past usage (Peloton).
Avoid the hard sell - it’s okay to highlight a new product or an upcoming event but don’t make it the main point of your newsletter.
Hopefully, you have a better idea of what makes a good newsletter and what should be avoided. Now it is a question of how to get started.
Step one: Define your Target Market, Segmentation and Personalisation Strategy
Decide who is your target reader and describe their needs, interests and pain points. Creating personas is a helpful exercise to visualise your readers and understand the context in which they will be reading and assessing your newsletter.
As a small business in the early stages of growth, you might decide to create a general newsletter that appeals broadly to your “ideal target” and refine it over time.
There are lots of ways to segment your client based - using geography, demographics (age, gender, education, family status), purchase history, product lifecycle, etc.
Good segmentation can make a big difference, however, if you are a small business and new to newsletter marketing then I would keep it simple to start.
Personalisation on the other hand is a baby step towards more sophisticated segmentation and is something you should consider from the get-go. Why? Because the majority of consumers (72% according to SmarterHQ) say they now only engage with marketing messages that are personalized and tailored to their interests.
Here are a few easy ways to personalise your newsletter:
Send new subscribers a welcome email.
Add the reader's name to the newsletter.
Test dynamic content blocks for key target groups.
Step Two: Determine Newsletter Business Goals and Metrics
Write down why you are starting a newsletter and what you want to achieve (e.g. build brand awareness, increase loyalty, position yourself as an expert, drive sales, increase web traffic).
Once you’ve defined your goals and objectives, put some measurements in place to assess if your strategy is working and identify any areas that may need tweaking. Include a mix of qualitative and quantitative measurements.
Qualitative Newsletter Measurements:
One of the best qualitative measurements is unsolicited customer feedback - if customers are reaching out and responding to what you write then you know you’re doing something right.
So make it easy for readers to provide feedback - ask them to rate and respond to your newsletter and conduct reader surveys to gather specific information about likes and dislikes as well as generate new content ideas.
Quantitative Newsletter Measurements:
In terms of quantitative measures, the 4 most tracked are open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates and unsubscribe rates.
Open Rate
What is an Open Rate?
It is the percentage of subscribers that open your newsletter.
What is a good open rate?
Across all industries, the average email open rate is 21.5%. Anything above 17% is considered a good open rate.
Click to Open Rate (CTOR)
What is a Click to Open Rate?
It is the percentage of people who clicked on a link after opening your email. It helps to gauge the effectiveness of your newsletter content.
What is a good Click to Open Rate?
The average click-to-open-rate across all industries is 10.5%. If you have a CTOR between 6 and 17% you’ve done a good job.Bounce Rate
What it a Bounce Rate?
Is the percentage of emails that get returned or “bounced” back to you without the recipient ever seeing the email. This can happen for a variety of reasons - the email address is out of date, the server is experiencing problems, the recipient’s inbox is full, the email is too large, your email has been marked spam etc.What is a good Bounce Rate?
You want a bounce rate of less than 2%. Anything higher needs investigation.Unsubscribe Rate
What is an unsubscribe rate?
It is the percentage of people that hit the unsubscribe button on your newsletter and opt-out of future emails. Your unsubscribe rate can give you a good indication of how well your content is meeting your reader's needs or not.What is a good unsubscribe rate?
According to Campaign Monitor, the industry average unsubscribe rate is 0.1%, Hubspot had it slightly higher at 0.48% and GetResponse thinks anything over 0.5% should set off alarm bells.
Step 3: Decide on the best newsletter structure - how will it sound, what will be included, how often will you send out.
The first thing to consider is your Tone of Voice.
Your Tone of Voice should reflect your brand values and personality, it should be distinctive and recognisable. It can be formal or informal, serious or playful, respectful or relevant, enthusiastic or matter-of-fact.
The Tone of Voice matters because it affects how people perceive your business, helping them to decide if you are a brand that they trust and want to listen to.
Then consider your Content.
The key is to make your content relevant, timely, informative and useful. You want to be offering your readers something of value. Hubspot recommends making your content 90% education and 10% promotional.
A winning formula used by entrepreneur and web designer Eleanor Mayrhofer is to include one thought, idea or blog post followed by 3-5 fun non-business-related links and maybe some news about her business or a call to action as a ‘P.S.’ and that’s it.
There is no hard and fast rule about length. I can think of several very popular newsletters that are long reads but my hunch is they are the exception and most of your readers would prefer something short and snackable. Long or short make it skimmable so people can easily find what they want to read.
Set a schedule for sending out your newsletter
According to Campaign Monitor, the ideal frequency is at least once a month and no more than twice a week.
Even more important than frequency is consistency so when deciding on a regular schedule make sure it is manageable and achievable - the worst thing you can do is send out ad hoc newsletters willy-nilly style.
Weekdays perform better than weekends.
Mondays see the highest open rates ( 22.0%) and Sundays the worst (20.3%) (Campaign Monitor, 2021) Tuesday has the best click-through rates (2.4%).
In terms of the time of day, Get Response suggests sending emails out between 8am and 5pm link.
As nearly 24% of all email campaigns are opened within the first hour of sending. (GetResponse, 2020) you should aim to send when people are taking a little personal time in their work day. Omnicom research found 8am, 1pm and 4pm are some of the best times while Hubspot found that opens spike near 6pm. The key is to test and tweak until you get it right for your audience.
And if you are watching open rates - you might be interested to learn that after 4 hours the chance of it being opened is 4%!!
Three more things to consider to ensure your newsletter is a big success.
Be sure to optimise for Mobile
Nearly 1 in 5 email campaigns is not optimized for mobile devices. (SuperOffice, 2020) This is a problem when according to Forbes more than 80% of email campaigns are opened on a mobile device.
As we’ve said before platforms like Squarespace make optimising for mobile an easy with their responsive design - this extends to their newsletter function.
When designing for a mobile try and keep the subject line short - ideally around 25 to 30 characters. Make sure your copy is - you guessed it - scannable. Keep the design clean and simple - use a single-column design, a readable font and lots of white space.
Test, test, test!
Test everything but particularly the subject line. According to Litmus, brands that always conduct an A/B test outperform those that don’t and achieve an ROI of 48:1.
If you are not sure what to test start with the subject lines as this can have a big impact on whether your newsletter even gets opened or not. Studies show that as many as 50% of subscribers decide to open a message based on the subject line.
The best subject lines are short - ideally less than 50 characters. Consider using power words, including a question or providing a teaser.
Make it easy to share and sign up
Great newsletters not only keep your existing customers engaged they can attract new customers if shared. So make it easy for subscribers to share your newsletter with others.
Here are some ideas on how - add a newsletter link to your social media bio, include a newsletter sign-up at the end of all blog posts, videos and /or podcasts and ask subscribers to share your newsletter with others if they like what they’ve read.
Final thoughts…
One of the regrets, I hear most often from small business owners is that they wish they had started sending out newsletters earlier. Why? Because a newsletter done well and consistently can be one of your most effective and profitable marketing strategies. It doesn’t have to be perfect from the start - it just needs to be genuine and focused on your readers. Improvement can be made over time by testing different approaches and engaging with your readers to learn what they’re most interested in. So what’s stopping you?
