How many times a day do you check your email?

I check my email about 100 times a day, though I know that may be inefficient and more than most.

The point is that most people check their email regularly and if you can get your message into someone’s inbox you get direct access to that person. Whether they read your newsletter then becomes a matter of choice (do I read it or do I delete it?) as opposed to chance, which is what other social networks provide unless special notifications are turned on.

Three years ago I ran one of my first social media strategy workshops and I had a photographer attend. During the workshop we had a lengthy conversation about how a newsletter would be a good tool for her to use in her business. She hated the idea. She hated getting newsletters and didn’t understand why she should send something to her clients that she would never want to get?

The answer I gave her is that not everyone feels the way she does and giving people the option to get content the way that they want is important. She decided to give it a go and her monthly newsletter is now one of her biggest sales generators.

She’s not alone. So many people don’t want to send newsletters because they don’t like getting them. But the key is to do it right. If you do, you’ll get huge value out of your newsletter.

Give value

Nobody wants to sign up for a regular sales pitch or at least, not many people do. When you’re planning your newsletter, make sure that you have a plan for creating value for your audience.

What does your audience want? What do they need? How can you provide that for them?

For us, we share free tips and tricks on how to use social media for business. For others, it could be discounts and coupons, it could be first access to programs or products, or it could be information sharing on how to get better at the things that audience cares about. 

Really think about who you’re talking to and what they would like to get. If you aren’t sure what they’d like, ask a few people and start there. 

Be consistent

When people expect to receive your newsletter and know what is likely to be in the newsletter they are more likely to open it to see what’s inside. Make sure that you send your newsletter at a regular interval. Once a week is a great amount, but if you can’t manage that, start with once every two weeks or once a month. 

Tell people about it

People won’t sign up for your newsletter if you don’t ask them to and tell them what the value that you’ve already decided that newsletter will have will be.

Make sure to have a lot of opportunities for people to sign up for your newsletter – on your web site, on your Facebook page, when you’re at live events. And don’t forget to include the why:

• “For first access to our latest programs;” 
• “For special deals on our products and services;”
• “For free information on the best ways to create a happy life.”

Whatever it is that you’re doing, don’t expect people to come up and ask you to be on your list, tell them they need to be there with a reason they can’t turn down.

Now it’s your turn. Leave a comment and tell me what you offer and how you convince people to sign up for your newsletter or share an example of a newsletter you get and what convinced you to sign up for it. And if you haven’t yet signed up for OUR newsletter, you really should! We provide free tips and tricks to help you use social media to grow your business online AND you’ll get a free copy of our Daily Social Media Checklist!

One easy step to guarantee improved email marketing results

I go to a lot of networking events and hand out my business card on a regular basis. I talk to a lot of business owners and end up meeting quite a few who offer services that I am (potentially) going to be interested in. I always try to have a little more conversation with business owners that I might call for help one day. I like to get to know more about who they are and how they work. It gives me greater comfort when the day comes that I make the call to ask for help. It also helps me remember their name and what they do.

Apart from giving out my card, I take a lot of cards as well. The give and take is usually reciprocal. If you’ve ever been to a networking event, you know how it goes.

In the aftermath of almost every networking event, I inevitably start receiving newsletters that I have not personally subscribed to or given my permission to add my email to the list.

This bothers me.

Not because I don’t want the newsletters (sometimes I do). 

It bothers me because it’s not the best way to grow an engaged email list. In fact, in just a few months, this tactic could put some of those very business owners I was thinking of doing business with in the position of breaking the law in Canada.

Canada’s new legislation - in effect July 1, 2014

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation has been in the works for years. While it’s long overdue and has its challenges, some of the basic principles of consent have long been considered best practices for “commercial electronic messages” (a.k.a. email marketing). The CASL’s information page about commercial electronic messages states:

Generally, the sender will need to obtain consent from the recipient before sending the message and will need to include information that identifies the sender and enables the recipient to withdraw consent.

Three requirements:

Make sure you have permission to add someone to your list.

An opt-in form on your website is one way to gain consent. If you want to subscribe everyone you meet at an event, ask first. We actually use a double opt-in to protect our subscribers from having their email added by someone else. This means that if you subscribe to our newsletter (a very good idea, by the way), you will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. We don’t do this to annoy you. We do it to make sure you’re only subscribed if you truly want to be. Without the email confirmation, anyone could enter your address and subscribe you. We wouldn’t know you hadn’t consented, but you sure would.

Identify who you are when you send an email.

We have a statement in every email that goes out to our newsletter list - it tells the recipient why they’re subscribed to our email list. I have gotten emails from businesses that had me scratching my head - why am I getting this? I look through and if they don’t have a statement like this to remind me, I will probably hit unsubscribe. (I might anyway if I haven’t given permission.)

Make sure there is a clear, easy way to unsubscribe.

The phrase this information page uses is “withdraw consent”. I like that phrase. It describes perfectly what that action is. Unsubscribes are telling you they don’t consent to receive content anymore. It doesn’t mean the person isn’t interested. It doesn’t mean they won’t come back. But that decision must be respected. Ultimately, it improves the quality of your email list if the people who are subscribed truly want to see your content. I do a mass unsubscribe every 12-18 months to start fresh and declutter my inbox. I often resubscribe to the lists that deliver value in areas I need.

It was best practice long before it was law

Seth Godin coined the phrase Permission Marketing (affiliate) in his book in 1999. If you haven’t read the book, you can get an idea of the permission marketing philosophy from Seth’s Blog. Asking permission requires patience and level-headed focus on the end goal. Getting distracted by vanity metrics such as newsletter subscriber counts leads to practices like adding every person you meet to your list whether it’s relevant for them or not. Wouldn’t you rather have 100 relevant subscribers with a 50% open rate than 5,000 with a 1% open rate?

What’s that one easy step?

Get permission.

Don’t assume you have it; know you do. I guarantee your email marketing will go much better with a list of people who have invited you into their inbox.  

Is the timing of your emails asking for an automatic DELETE?

One of the very first things I do every morning is check my email. (In fact, I do it while I’m still lying in bed.)

What do I always find? An enormous amount of emails!

Then I start deleting

When I first check my email and see 30+ new emails I delete everything in one mass sweep that isn’t from someone I know or isn’t a personal email. Anything that looks like a mass mailer, whether I signed up for it or not, gets deleted. I’m betting there are 50+ that meet the same fate on a Monday morning.

When I have that much new mail I just want to get through it, not take the time to read articles or find out about specials. And there’s no point in thinking I’ll get back to it later, because I know I just won’t.

First thing isn’t when they want to hear from you

Many businesses schedule their emails for 7am or earlier so that they’ll catch their audience first thing in the morning. The idea is that they’re fresh and that people spend time reading and catching up on things first thing in the morning.

And they might, but often not their emails. You’re better off skipping that mass email crunch time and waiting until later. When they check their email at 10:30 while they’re topping up their coffee and they only have a few emails waiting and they’re ready for a break for example.

There are no hard and fast rules

There really isn’t ever a rule that can apply to every audience so you need to play around with this. If you’ve been sending your emails first thing in the morning, try a couple at different times. My suggestion is Tuesday – Thursday between 10 and 3. Try one in the morning and one in the afternoon and then compare your stats.

Are you getting better open rates during one time over another? Or better click through rates? You can find out so much about your audience from analytics.

Leave a comment below and let me know if you find one time frame works better than others for your audience.

Does everyone hate getting newsletters?

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about the fact that I think newsletters are important, but I think it’s worth saying again. 

I’m a huge fan of newsletters. In fact, I’m that annoying person who is always asking everyone if they have a newsletter and trying to convince them to start one if they haven’t. The reason I hear most often for not having a newsletter is:

“*I* hate getting newsletters”

So if that’s you, here’s what I want to say:

That’s totally fine. You can hate newsletters and I have no issue with that! I KNOW you think they clog up your inbox and that they feel like sales pitches to you. I know you would rather go and find your own information and you’re tired of everyone and their brother asking you to sign up to their newsletter. I know. I sympathize. I do. :)

But here’s the thing. You’re not everybody.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who WANT to get newsletters. They don’t want to go looking for information, they want it right there in front of them to choose to read or not.

They don’t go on Facebook or use RSS to find their content. They check their email 10+ times a day.

They are happy to open emails they asked to receive.

Does it really work?

Sara McConnell of Sara McConnell Photography wasn’t convinced when we first talked about her starting a newsletter.  I pushed pretty hard and it now has a direct impact on her bottom line.

There are several reasons why I didn’t want to create a newsletter: I don’t like reading them when they’re emailed to my inbox and I felt that with twitter, Facebook, and blogging, that I had all my bases covered.  What I realized though is that I don’t represent my typical customer (with my social media habits) and that I was missing out on an opportunity to reach out to clients as well as offer them exclusive deals and information, something I couldn’t do through the social media platforms I was using.  Seventeen newsletters later and I’m clearly a convert!

So, does everyone hate getting newsletters?

The simple answer is no. Some people really do like getting newsletters, and some people are happy to get specific newsletters sometimes. The key is to provide value.  

Sara provides early access to sessions in her newsletters so opening her newsletters gives you the opportunity to get the best possible timing on your photoshoots.  

Wellman Wilson’s newsletter recaps the top content from the previous two weeks for those who can’t make it to the blog on a regular basis and we also announce new programs there first (sign up in the box below!)

What can you provide your audience that would make it worth their time to open your newsletter to see what you have to say?

5 reasons a newsletter is still a great tool

I often find that when I ask people if they have a newsletter I get a lot of squirmy faces and responses like

“people hate being inundated with emails and newsletters”

“*I* just ignore all the newsletters in my inbox”

“I don’t want people to feel like I’m spamming them”

My response is always that a newsletter is still an incredibly valuable tool for your business and here are 5 reasons why:

1) It comes to them

People are busy.  Just because they don’t have time to check out your blog posts or your Facebook page doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in what you’re doing, they just haven’t remembered to make the time to go and visit.  A newsletter puts you right into their inbox as a reminder to take the time.

2) Not everyone uses social media

Is your audience entirely made up of people who are ACTIVE social media users? Not everyone checks Facebook daily, not everyone reads blogs, and very few people go back to a web site without a good reason.  Those people will appreciate some news coming to them about what you’re doing.

3) You can make them feel special

Put something in your newsletter that can’t be found on your blog or web site, or put it in your newsletter before you put it online.  A special discount just for newsletter subscribers,  access to content before anyone else or newsletter only content not only makes people feel like they’re getting value out of the newsletter, it’s an incentive for people to subscribe.

4) You pick the timing

Relying on people to come to your site or to the other channels you promote your content on to “find” what you’ve written is less reliable than sending it to their email which more people check regularly.  If you are having a special promotion, an event, or any kind of time-sensitive topic that you’d like to share, sending it at a specific time can be a real bonus.

5) They’re more likely to see it

When relying on tools like Twitter, Facebook or Google+ to get your information out, you risk things streaming by or never appearing in their feeds.  Even though they may not open your newsletter, they WILL see it come through their inbox and decide whether or not to take the time to read it.

Here is a link to my first newsletter. In my newsletters I will recap the top posts of the month, talk about upcoming events and workshops I’m offering, and give a special discount for one of my services that can only be found in the newsletter.  I’d love it if you would sign up!

What about you - do you have a newsletter?