How to get customers to read Newsletters
I’m going to go out on a limb during this Post – so you have been warning, all comments welcome, but bear with me.
Our recommendation for newsletters is simple:
- Keep it short
- Make it Personal
- Send it regularly
Keeping it short
You’re busy, your customers are busy, the last thing they have time for is reading some essay you’re religiously created, we should face facts – people are not interested.
We fundamentally believe that all websites are created to solve a problem. You have an issue, a compliant, are in need of help, or a specific product, or even just the answer to a question – then turn to the Internet, someone will have written something about it somewhere.
The same applies to Newsletters – you are addressing a problem that your customers need solving. If your solution matches their needs it will resonate. But you won’t be able to solve everyone’s problem and you’ll only get seconds of their attention, so keep it focused and short and those that want your information will respond.
The next reason for keeping it short is that if a customer gets all the information they need from your newsletter, well you have fundamentally failed, the mission is to garner a reaction and that probably means getting the customer to do something post-reading. Click the button, buy a product, find out more. Keeping it short is the teaser to a longer process and by longer it might mean years…
Make it personal
This is just psychology and sociability, based on research from almost every quarter it’s just a fact that if you write ‘Dear so and so…’ you’ll have a much higher chance of gaining someone’s attention.
Ideally, the best message you can send someone is the highly personal one, ‘Dear so and so, I was thinking of you, I know you were struggling with that problem and I saw this‘ – it all implies you know the person well, you know what they are dealing with and can provide the exact set of requirements to solve their problem.
This applies to an insatiable shopper looking for a discount as much as it does a specialist in engineering. You just need to know the person you are directing your attention to.
Blanket coverage emails working entirely on the principle of hit and miss – if you send a 1000 emails, you might get a 1% return… But it’s easy to work out if you sent 1000 emails individually to each recipient with a personal message then you’re more like to get a 50% or even 80% response rate.
Obviously a balance is required, but adding ‘Dear so and so’ is by far the easiest and most obvious step. You might call it getting your foot in the door.
Send it regularly
This is the crux of the whole thing… and also the hardest part, planning is highly recommended, you could actually write 12 months of emails in advance and it would work. The key is again psychology, people are delighted to sign up, you might offer an incentive, 10% off or something and people will happily take up that offer.
But if they then don’t hear from you until Christmas they will have long forgotten who you are, or if they get a flurry of emails – they’ll get bored and move away. You should also take into account that people go through phases of unsubscribing to everything. But if they like your short, personal emails – they might just think twice.
Sending regular newsletters also means familiarity, people get to know you, your branding, your design, and if they know you they will be well disposed towards you. Everything here is about building a rapport with your customers.
It is also about ‘surprise’ – oddly people just react badly to surprises, sure they can be fun, but generally, they get in the way of doing something else… Your newsletter arrives in someone’s inbox and the immediate reaction can be either… ‘oh it’s them, I’ll look later’ or it will be ‘annoying – not another one…’ You just have to decide which you prefer.
Our recommendation is to send every X day of the month or week… sending at a fixed time gives you a deadline, 3pm on a Thursday… also people work to ‘days of the week’ not ‘days in the month’, people like a ‘lunchtime read’ or a tea time break on Friday. Picking the timing is probably a crucial exercise in the success of your emails. It also means you need to get your content ready well in advance as well. Good planning means a better result.
Controversial Bit
Content – now you have a plan what do you say. Well the reason I am writing this blog post at all is that I received the latest Newsletters from YouTube and Microsoft… my choice of reading might be questionable, but I must have signed up to these things at some point.
The problem is they both spoke of the #blacklivesmatter movement and LGBTQ issues. Question – what possible relevance to me? Obviously I have nothing against either topic, but I’d hardly relate those issues to me. So why? Why do big companies feel it necessary to comment on all these issues? I have a whole folder devoted to Coronavirus updates from every company imaginable.
The answer to this question is actually psychological… If it is psychologically advisable to send short, personal emails every Tuesday afternoon, it’s also psychologically acceptable to talk about matters that affect society.
So how do we get from the LGBTQ community to buying discounted products… believe it or not it works… no-one reads this stuff… I, as a consumer, do not relate to everything that is sent to me, I glance at the headlines, I grab the bit that is relevant. But subconsciously I know that Company X has made a statement on Topic Y, even if I don’t know what that statement is.
All of this, means that I either think positively about that company or I unsubscribe.
In short, there is NOTHING wrong with stating your neutral and bland position on a topic that might affect a small part of your community, the point is you acknowledge that topic. That’s what creates a positive image to your clients.
If you write about #blacklivematter, it might have nothing to do with you – but it registers with your customers and it shows you have a opinion on it.
It’s easy to discard this sort of content as opportunistic and shallow, sadly however that is the society we do live in, we want to grab 15 seconds of someone’s time, we want to get them to push a button, we just what them to register we exist. Sadly this all works… a reaction is created.
So, I leave it to you to decide if you start emailing your customers about Statutes being toppled and I leave you with the thought – what if you say nothing… is that not just as bad?