Newsletters: Are they still worthy?
Newsletters: Are they still worthy?
Some would consider newsletters to be a dying form of communication or sending of information, some may even say it’s too old school and becoming obsolete. But you’d be surprised how many companies and especially clients of mine that use newsletters to channel / include either of the following information (as examples):
Up-and-coming events
A round-up of recent accomplishments from say, the past month or quarter
Hints and tips related to the organisation and how-to guides
Testimonials
Promotions and discounts
Blog posts
For a couple of clients of mine, I am contracted to design and schedule newsletter campaigns quarterly for their clients / subscribers within their organisation. They send me the content, then I produce it into a ‘campaign’. Therefore I know first hand how effective newsletters can still be for companies and I myself have even used this tool (Bits & Bytes … I know, it’s been a while since I’ve done one, but I have future plans to bring these back very soon! Unless you’re reading this and they’re well and truly back in regular distribution, in that case: finally)
So, are they still worthy in modern times?
Newsletters are used to give insights and share detailed stories such accomplishments that may be too lengthy for say a social media post for instance. In this day and age, with emails and social media being the pinnacle of communication and still highly popular (and probably will be for the next 50 years or more, until it is all embedded in our brains or glasses… imagine… bit like the unsuccessful Google Glass, remember that?). Back in the early days of when emails were used, companies would barely touch it and stick to the old fashioned phone call or meet and greet and letter posting, but nowadays obviously people still call or talk face to face to each other, but emails are used by over 81% of companies in the world which incredible.Â
With emails, this is where a newsletter comes in as a popular choice. Some of you may have thought of a newsletter as a physical hand-out or something posted through your day, which is still a thing for most however paperless is the way forward as well, and the newsletters I see nowadays (and the ones I design and distribute on behalf of my clients) are all through email campaigns. They’re hugely effective and I know some people tend to know a spam email when they see one and decide to move it to the Junk folder without even opening it, but with the right subject and content you’re sure to give the right impression and receive the right amount of subscribers who would feel benefited seeing updates and seeing information such as up-and-coming events etc.
The kind of newsletters I like and tools to use
I mentioned briefly my ‘from scratch’ designed newsletter I would distribute fortnightly named Bits & Bytes (again, I will be returning this as a monthly newsletter to send to the my clients emails, posting on my socials and adding to my website), but there are other more effective and less time consuming tools out there such as mailing campaigns to make life easier and give a professional and effective impression out to clients and visitors. For clients (and myself) I use Mailchimp (I don’t have shares), which is a fantastic tool for what I’ve mentioned in this blog post, obviously there’s always premium options but what you get for a free package is more than generous and worthwhile if you’re a small or even medium sized business / organisation.Â
What entails is you create an ’email campaign’ which would include a list of your contacts that you want the intended newsletter sent out to, whether that be 5 or 105 contacts, then decide on a subject and when you would like the campaign sent. There’s obviously one thing missing: the content, this is entirely based on what design and content you want to include to send out to your ‘subscribers’ so that’s left to you. Mailchimp give out all the necessary design tools such as inserting imagery and changing font etc to make it as pretty and eye-catching as possible, but most importantly making it informative and engaging. In my view, the more eye-catching, light-hearted and relevant the content is, the more you’ll get out of your subscribers and hopefully they’ll look forward to the next newsletter distribution.
Alright, let's sum up
Whatever industry your business is in, you more than likely have some sort of marketing system / setup and if you don’t already have a newsletter distributed, then I would highly recommend doing so. It benefits your business but engaging with your ongoing clients, keeps your organisation relevant and in mind with your clients (word of mouth is a brilliant thing) and lastly to show off what you’re up to … if you’re passionate enough it will wear off onto your clients / subscribers.
Keep an eye out either on my socials or website for my Bits & Bytes newsletters, or if you’re a client of mine, it’ll come straight to your email inbox.