What Marketers Can Learn From Media Newsletters
MarketerHire’s Mae Rice asked Dan Oshinsky how marketers could improve their email newsletters and he provided some great tips. Two we can all take note of are to be way less promotional and much more personal in our content.
If you missed Dan’s advice for welcome emails or want to revisit it, you can find that here.
When Should You Send Your Newsletter?
Magan Le’s article for Litmus provides data and charts showing the optimal send times for optimizing open rates in several countries.
“Over 20% of all email opens occur within the first hour after being sent; within the second hour, nearly 30%. After that, opens come in at a much slower pace.”
Note: I changed my own send day from Tuesday to Thursday just before the end of 2020 but kept the time the same (10 a.m.) and haven’t seen a change in what has been a solid 30-35% open rate, which could be attributed to keeping the time the same. Have you run any helpful experiments on testing send times or days?
Connect With Other Newsletter People
Some of you may already be aware of these groups, but just in case you aren’t (or need reminding that they’re a great resource for newsletter creators), here are some that are worth your time.
Facebook Groups
Paid Community
Also, there’s a Newsletter Creators Room on Clubhouse that I’m going to try out soon (maybe host a live session?) to see if it’s exciting. I’ll report back. (P.S. I have 3 invites, so if you’re interested just reply and let me know.)
Are Your Open And Click Rates Above Or Below Average?
Campaign Monitor has published their 2021 Email Marketing Benchmarks. Scroll to the spreadsheet and find out how you’re doing compared to others in your industry. Note: newsletters typically get higher open rates than purely promotional emails.
How To Find And Attract Subscribers
Nic Getkake of The Slice shares some smart ways to get your newsletter in front of an audience in this article.
“Starting out, joining an engaged forum like Indie Hackers can be a great way for you to get your initial subscribers as well as validate your idea.
In the early days of The Slice, a good portion of my initial subscriber base were all from there, and it’s a good start point. It’s a great community and they are very inviting of newcomers, so ask as many questions as you can, comment on the posts, be active, ask for advice. Maybe you have just finished building your landing page, ask the community on what improvements you can make, and there are hundreds of sub groups that have a specific focus.”
Click through for a nice list of options, including paid advertisements, cross promotions, and other growth channels.
Related: Check out 10 Powerful Conversion Tips For A Better Newsletter Landing Page.
Ann Handley’s Lessons From 3 Years of Newslettering
In her 78th issue of Total Annarchy, Ann Handley shares what she’s learned about the art of sending.
Pay close attention, y’all:
“I wanted connection—not one-to-many social media connection, but me-to-you direct connection.
Three years ago, I also realized a fundamental truth:
The most important part of the newsletter is the letter, not the news.”
Along with her always lovely-to-read narrative introduction, she provides a list of 7 lessons. They’re worth reading and bookmarking, namely number 5:
“An email newsletter is not a distribution strategy, it’s a relationship-builder.”
Related: Check out this story, which is further proof that tech is less important than your newsletter’s ability to connect writer and readers.
Tips on Using Videos in Your Newsletters
In this article, Victor Blasco explains the benefits of adding videos to marketing emails. I think, though, that many of his insights apply to newsletters of every genre: marketing, editorial, or other.
And I speak from experience. The most popular category (defined here as category that receives the most clicks) in this newsletter is Screen Share. So if you’re game to deepen relationships and prompt engagement (create king cake baby moments, if I may), put something powerful behind those play buttons.
The juiciest bit of Victor’s advice comes in his 3 golden rules of adding videos in emails, the first of which is the ironic twist that you shouldn't actually embed them.
Huh?
“...you’ll notice that most of them rather use a thumbnail linked to the video hosted online. This is because many email clients often don’t support the technical requirements needed to play a video right inside the email.
But if you think this is a limitation, then turn that frown upside down. Think about it: instead of making your audience watch a video within the email itself, you can direct them to a landing page where they can watch the video and visit your online store next (or any other specific action).”
He also offers some tips about thumbnail sizes and what sort of text should accompany your videos.
Related: Check out this Guide to Collecting Feedback for your Newsletter from The Newsletter Crew.
21 Newsletter Growth Tactics to Consider
Louis Nicholls of SparkLoop created a list of 21 ways to grow your newsletter faster in 2021. It’s worth checking out to see if any of them will work for you.
Have You Set Up BIMI? Should You?
Dan Oshinsky’s December Not a Newsletter was another impressive collection of newsletter fodder, including some detailed instructions on setting up BIMI.
BIMI, which stands for Brand Indicators for Message Identification, allows any brand to put their logo next to their name in the inbox. Instructions start on page 4 in the For Your Reading / To Do List section.
Ernie Smith from Facebook group Newsletter Nerds, provides some insights into why Gmail clips your emails.
You might recall another piece on this topic from an earlier issue of Opt In and want to refer back to it if this topic fascinates (or infuriates) you.
Related: Check out How to Please Gmail (discovered via Really Good Emails).
