Creating a Newsletter that Drives Sales

One of the most popular forms of email marketing is the newsletter. Newsletters are fun to create and customers like to read them. However, newsletters can’t be all fun and fluff. They have to sell or they aren’t worth the time.

Newsletters should be relevant to readers. They will not keep reading if the content is un-relatable. Make sure the subjects are newsworthy, and pertinent to the industry. Also, be concise and focused. For examples, look to the Internet. Web articles writers have perfected the format. Use plenty of headlines, bulleted lists, images, and tables. These break up paragraphs, which makes reading easier, and adds to the newsletter feel of an email.

Marketers will also want to establish themselves as a trusted expert, so they should insert helpful tips, techniques, and lists of valuable resources. Include links, but not too many. If readers are given too many opportunities to stray, they will. This is called leakage. To avoid creating leaks, links should be to non-competitors or pages on the marketer’s website.

How can marketers tell if their newsletter is driving sales? First, they must consider the purpose of their newsletter. If the newsletter is all about information and developments, the marketer can measure success by looking at reader feedback. (A word of advice - always give readers an opportunity to respond.) If the objective of the newsletter is to be a call to action, results can be measured by looking at sales and click through rates.