How to Step Up Your Newsletter Game

Newsletters are a great way to promote your business, side hustle, or blog. They allow you to have a direct line to your customers or subscribers and much like social media; they're another way to share your content with your audience while establishing a more personal relationship. Because of this, we wanted to share a few tips on how to step up your newsletter game.

"Newsletters are a great way to promote your business, side hustle, or blog."

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Content is Key

As with social media, the quality content you create and choose to share is incredibly essential. Whether you have a growing mailing list, or you're completely new to all of this, it's critical to make sure that the content you create for your newsletter is on brand and stays true to your business or blog. To do this, it's crucial to invest time creating exclusive content specifically for your newsletters. This means shooting quality images to share, and sitting down to thoughtfully plan out the written content for every single newsletter.

Design Matters

If you're not investing time in designing your newsletters, your content could be easily overlooked and ignored. Our culture has become excessively visual; therefore, you're doing your business or blog a complete disservice by having an unappealing newsletter. Think of your newsletter in the same manner as you do your Instagram feed - make it visually appealing to your audience by utilizing several images and take your branding into consideration as well. Designing your own newsletters can be quite the undertaking, so if you have the funds, it's always great to hire a designer to assist you in this area. Otherwise, if you're on a tight budget (we've all been there), we recommend putting in some time to get familiar with photoshop. You can also purchase pre-made newsletter templates which are always a great option if you're in a pinch since you can easily customize them to fit your needs. We always recommend sending out a test email to yourself and a friend to make sure your newsletter looks exactly how you want it to look on all devices. Check it on a tablet, mobile phone, and on a desktop before sending it out into the world.

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Engagement

While it's good to utilize your mailing list to share your most recent blog post, collection, events, or whatever is new with your business, it's also important to think about how you can create exclusive engagement for your subscribers. You want to make your mailing list an exclusive place filled with content your audience can only access by subscribing to your mailing list. This can be in the form of content that is not available on your site such as "tips and tricks", or you can promote deals, downloads, and special content you don't offer anywhere else. The possibilities are endless when it comes to designing exclusive content, so don't be afraid of getting creative!

Frequency

While it might seem tempting to send out a newsletter for every single sale, event, or blog post you've created, it's important not to overwhelm your subscribers. Instead, consolidate the things you want to share by sending out only a handful of newsletters a month. To do this, we suggest planning out your newsletters in advance to prioritize the content or news you want to share. Remember, quality over quantity is essential when it comes to newsletters.

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Promote

Use your voice on your social media platforms to get the word out about your mailing list. Without giving too much away (you want to make your newsletters seem exclusive), be sure to promote the benefits of subscribing to your newsletters. We recommend promoting your newsletters periodically on social media to try and get your followers to become your subscribers. People are far more likely to click the "follow" button on your feed than to become a subscriber so you'll have to put a bit more effort to build that mailing list.

Pro Tips

• Keep it short and sweet - Be mindful of your subscriber by keeping your content (visual and written) short. Remember you're not writing a novel here, you're simply putting together some information your subscriber will want to read.
• Ask a question - Grab your subscribers curiosity. Ask questions within your newsletter that makes them want to learn more about whatever subject you're talking about.
• Link back to your Instagram - If you're active on Instagram, make sure you link back to your feed by adding your most recent images at the bottom of your newsletter. It's a great way to encourage your current subscribers to follow you on Instagram.
• Plan things out - Running your own business or blog comes with it's challenges, but staying organized with your content doesn't have to be one of them. We suggest using a calendar to plan out your content (including your newsletters), much like our content calendar which you can download (for free) here. If you're part of our PLANOLYFam, you can also utilize our app to plan out content to promote your newsletters on your feed and on your Instagram Stories. Get ahead of the game by planning things out weeks in advance to save yourself time.