Announcements, sales, helpful tips, and industry updates. Email newsletters are such a great way to communicate with our network.

In online marketing, an email contact that has opted into a newsletter is generally worth about $10 – $15 to the business!

So, if you have 100 contacts, with the proper strategy and email marketing it should be worth $1000 – $1500.

Before sending out an email blast, what is the strategy? And what ‘rules’ do you need to follow?

When using email newsletters as a marketing strategy, you need to consider an email marketing service.

Why use an email newsletter service?

1. Your email could get blacklisted!

If you send out a large email newsletter with your email address, you could get marked as spam and your email blacklisted. Because, a lot of people have services like Gmail and Outlook, these services periodically record email violators and rate an email address’s trust-worthiness.

2. Following the law

Because you are a business, the emails you send to people that are in any way promotional in nature need to follow the rules laid out in the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. By using an email newsletter service, they guide you through the technology of the legal requirements, for example, a person’s ability to unsubscribe. By the way, I’ve seen businesses write at the end of an email sent through there own email account, “Let me know if you’d like me to remove you from this email list, by replying.” ….that doesn’t count!

3. Create a central location for leads (with the ability to categorize)

I think this is my favorite feature of email newsletter services. The ability to send relevant information based on the type of contact a person is great. For example, I’ll send out a different mass email to current clients regarding vacation plans, versus, referral sources, on a topic that will be helpful to them.

4. The numbers!

If you send an email with your own email address, how will you know who opens it, who doesn’t want to be on your list anymore, and what links did they click if they did read your email? All of the email newsletter services offer insights into the actions taken by those receiving the email, and you should use those to direct your marketing campaigns.

Recommendations on an email newsletter provider

Mailchimp – This was once my go-to recommendation because it had a great plan at the free level up a certain amount of contacts. While MailChimp still has a free plan, it is so prohibitive to use and quickly frustrating for clients that I don’t like this option for beginners.

Beginner Recommendation: MailerLite

The free account is great, and the service is easy to use. It has integrated well into the websites I’ve built with MailerLite signup forms.

Next-level Recommendation: Active Campaign

It comes with a lot of options to automate emails based on where they are in a sales cycle. I’ve only seen larger online businesses use this service because it manages online leads well, but, for most businesses it’s overkill.

The Ultimate: Keap by Infusionsoft

Like Active Campaign, Keap is a robust Client Relationship Management (CRM) tool that big-time online businesses use to manage multiple campaigns and revenue streams online. Most businesses would find the options overwhelming and hard to manage.

How to grow your email list

1. Create a freebie content in exchange for an email address.

One tactic to grow an email list is to give away content that is valued at around $10. Treating the freebie as a $10 offer, and marketing it like your other services. This is sometimes referred to in the business world as creating a “tripwire” or a sales funnel. Once, the subscriber has opted into the freebie by giving up their email address, it is your chance to further nurture the lead into the next purchase.

2. Import your current clients and connections into your system

If they don’t want to get the email, they’ll unsubscribe, it’s not personal it’s them setting healthy boundaries on their time and inbox.

3. At in-person meetings and events when you get a business card, ask if you can add them to your newsletter.

I might say something like: “Can I send you an email with a marketing guide I wrote for business owners like yourself?” Nobody has told me no, yet.

4. Write a great email newsletter.

Think about the email newsletters that you get, that you would never think about unsubscribing from. For me, I love business updates from clients and colleagues, those who send out really great tips on marketing, and a few blogs based on minimal living, babies, and a pizza chain that sends out really great coupons (don’t judge me too hard here). I’ve unsubscribed from a number of great newsletters because they didn’t feel relevant to me at the time, also. So, writing a great newsletter that is relevant to who you are sending it out to is a great way to grow your email list. Happy readers… forward emails to new readers.

5. Have an email newsletter sign up form on your website.

If we are working together, then you know this already, but it’s a place to start capturing email addresses before you even have your first newsletter written.