Creating a great newsletter is important because it is one of the primary ways that you communicate with your customers and also recruit new potential business. It’s also how you are likely going to stay in touch with your audience and communicate with them for several months or years to come. With all of that in mind, it’s always important to use your newsletter as a way to provide value to your subscribers, while also still promoting your business in the process.
You may already have a large subscriber list and a following of people who are interested in what you have to say, but one of the challenges in creating a newsletter is in coming up with content that will engage and interest your target audience.
Here are ten promotional content ideas for your next newsletter that may put a spark in your next email campaign.
Calendars and Timelines
Have you considered including an attractive calendar or timeline within your email marketing content? This is a great idea that may increase your level of engagement and help you to promote your events.
Perhaps you have a company picnic coming up that will allow either employees or B2B subscribers to meet you in person? If you are a local business or organization that caters to local clients, this may be especially effective in increasing your audience and interest in your company or cause.
Calendars and timelines may also be used to communicate within your network of employees or use it as a way to talk to your independent contractor who do some work for you but who are not in your local office.
Sales Goals
If you are communicating with your staff only, you could insert your monthly and annual sales goals within your next newsletter. You will not want to include this information if you are sending it out to clients. But it is an excellent way to tell employees and staff what your revenue goals are and inspire your sales team with bonuses or other incentives.
Nearly all of us prefer visuals over reading long form content. Be sure to use charts, images and numbers wherever possible to increase engagement and memory.
Case Studies
Case studies offer another element of content that may interest either your B2B clients, vendors or research partners that are involved in your business. By showing them case studies on a particular element that you want to focus on, you can generate excitement for your brand, especially if you are working on a unique idea and need validity to move the idea forward.
This is something we continue focus an effort on through our blog content. (ie: split testing case studies, email titles case studies)
FAQs
Some of the best content to include in your email newsletters and marketing campaigns are things that you would normally see on your main website. For example, an FAQ section within your newsletter may help to answer any lingering questions that customers or business partner may have about your business.
You can get the content and material to include in the FAQs from surveys that customers or partners have filled out, online customer service forms, or social media comments. To make this effective, delve into the research for your company and find out from customer service what customers are saying on the phone as well.
By addressing specific issues that customers are interested in knowing, you may answer important sales questions and overcome objections which, in the past, stood in the way to more sales.
Blog Link or Column
Do you have a blog or online column that you would like to share with your subscribers? Why not include a link directly to your blog or column within your monthly or weekly newsletter? What better place to place this than the regular communication tool that you are using for your brand or organization?
Blogs also are more personal than many of the other business tools you use and may offer an informal way to communicate with customers on a regular basis. Your blog can address different topics which are of interest to your customers, or they can address concerns of customers by allowing them to post their comments and questions.
Photos and Video
Photos and video content will reach more people than any other type of media, including blogs or articles. While actual text-based content such as blogs and articles are critical to your success, the video has proven to increase your conversion rate by up to 85% and your open rate by up to 53%.
Photos are always welcome to subscribers as well and help increase the engagement level and interest of your email subscribers by offering something more stimulating than simple text alone.
Advice Column
Another very effective kind of content that you could use is to offer a consultation section within your email newsletter. You should choose a topic that is relevant to your target audience, then let an expert answer questions or offer advice about specific questions or topics.
Another great example of how this can be done is through our email marketing experts series. Be able to feature this type of premium content within your newsletter would be a huge benefit to your subscribers.
Free eBook
One of the best ways to get people to open and respond to your email newsletters is to offer them something free. How about a free eBook? Offering customers something free without expecting anything in return is like washing a neighbor’s car without asking for pay. It’s something you can do to increase your value to your readers and then later they may remember it and return to help you when you need it.
This is actually what more brands and marketers are doing when trying to get people to join their newsletter in the first place. You can see a few examples here.
Employee Spotlight
Do you need to improve motivation within your sales team or other employees? How about featuring an employee spotlight that will focus on a different employee each month? Recognition for a job well done not only helps the person that you are spotlighting. It also helps company morale and inspires others to act. So if you need something to boost your interest level with employees, try this idea.
Coupon links or loyalty programs
How about including a coupon link or a link to a customer loyalty program that customers can sign up for within your newsletter? There’s nothing like inspiring people to act because they may get a discount or receive some benefit from doing so.
Include the link to your coupon near the bottom but try to limit the size of your email so that customers will not get lost in the text and forget to act on it.
Make Your Newsletter Work for Your Business
Remember that, though your email newsletter is about information, the goal is to get them to do something, buy something, or go to your site. With this in mind, you should always think about how you can improve the call-to-action and get more people to act after seeing your newsletter.
At the same time, the real value in your newsletter is your engagement — however, numbers are also extremely important. If you’d like to learn more about how to double your mailing list or newsletter size, click here and we will show you how!