Thinking of running your own newsletter?
It’s never too early to start your newsletter and grow your newsletter community. If you haven’t got a newsletter already, start now! Go for it.
It’s the ONE thing I wish I had done when I started my business.
Instead, I was a bit slow to the whole newsletter thing. I thought that with social media, who would need one?! But actually, it’s because of social media you should have one!
What are the chances of your twitter update being seen? Pretty damn slim if your followers are following a lot of people?
What are the chances of your facebook page update being seen? HA! Facebook just LURVE to play around with and right now there’s a slim chance (6-12%) chance of your update being seen. Unless you pay them of course.
HOWEVER….if someone, say, gets 20 emails a day, and your newsletter is one of them, how big is the chance of it being seen…and read?!
A whole heap BIGGER! Whoop, whoop!
On average 20% of newsletter members will read your email.
My average is 34% – so I know I’m doing something right!
And talking of Doing The Right Thing. Let me share with you the No. 1 Rule Of Running A Newsletter…
ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS…….GET THE PERSONS PERMISSION TO SEND THEM YOUR NEWSLETTER!
That’s it. That’s THE no.1 rule. Pretty simple, but you would be amazed at how many people ignore that in the rush to try and grow their newsletter community.
To not get permission is rude, presumptuous, and because you haven’t got permission AND you could get into a sticky situation if you don’t know the law. You really don’t want to be ‘that guy’.
OK! Cool.
Newsletters are so powerful because people have OPTED-IN and deliberately registered to receive your news and updates to their email addresses.
It’s a really simple way to deepen the connection you have with your friends, followers, fans, clients and customers.
It’s also a place you inspire/help and support them too. And not just once. You can do this again, and again. For as long as they are subscribed. Of course, people can change their mind and unsubscribe too.
In fact, another thing you MUST do is make it EASY for people to unsubscribe. NEVER try and hide the unsubscribe link. If people want to leave, although it may break your heart just a little, let them go! If they love you they will come back 😉 Or not. Either way, don’t get hung up about it, just move on.
Another thing I want you to do is to STOP asking people to subscribe to your RSS feed. A more powerful action is to give people a reason to subscribe to your newsletter instead.
How do you get people to subscribe to your newsletter?
Fab question!
A really effective way to encourage newsletter subscriptions is to GIVE SOMETHING AWAY! Yes. Give something VALUABLE away.
What would your customers/followers really want?
What would have them SO excited to have right now?
What can you give them INSTANT ACCESS to as soon as they subscribe?
Create something really exciting and packed with value. And don’t do that just once, create new things every month. Keep your opt-in gift fresh, exciting and new!
When you ask anyone to do anything the first thing they are doing to ask themselves is ‘What’s in it for me?’
And you’ve got to have an answer it. Make sure that when you ask people to subscribe, you tell them what they will get and tell them all the BENEFITS and results they will receive to.
We often really neglect our social media bios when it comes to letting people know about our newsletter. Don’t miss that opportunity. Obviously with twitter there is a limited amount of space, but do what you can with what you have & the same for your other social networks etc.
And I’ve got 26 more ways you can grow your newsletter membership in my Newsletter A-Z training. Plus I share my NO.1 way to build my newsletter membership FAST!
Even if you REALLY want a huge membership NEVER be tempted to buy a newsletter list.
It’s not against the law, but you will end up wasting your time and money as you will just end up with confused and unqualified members who won’t know who on earth you are! And guess what. They will UNSUBSCRIBE, and you’ll end up back at square one, or worst, blacklisted by your newsletter provider because 1000’s of people have reported you for spam.
You need to build your list authentically, and take the time to build trust and establish yourself.
It’s better to have a really strong list of 100 people who know you, like what you do and want to hear about from you than a list of 10,000 people who are complete strangers wondering who you are and how you got their information.
Remember; authenticity, trust, relationship.
I’ve got TONS more newsletter building advice and tips in my Newsletter A-Z training and I cover a LOT in a 60 my minute training.
- The system for building trust, developing relationships and providing value for your newsletter members
- 13 rules of newsletter etiquette
- Set up a system that creates sales for you in your sleep
- The rules you must abide by to keep your newsletter healthy and your customers happy.
- 10 ways of creating content for your newsletter so you never run out of ideas
- This training will work whether you are an individual or a large business.
You will love this training if…
1. you want to attract more ideal customers, and you want to start a newsletter.
2. you already have a newsletter but you aren’t really sure what you should be doing with it
3. you want to learn more methods to strengthen your existing email marketing activity
This is NEWSLETTER A>Z and it’s jam-packed with my top advice!
After 60 minutes you will be armed with the know-how and the how-tos of email marketing! 🙂
