Your newsletter subscribers are the most important fans of your blog. They have given up the most valuable item in the digital age – their email address! You have to make sure that you are treating them well. But one of the things that people have when starting a newsletter is less about how often to email, but what to write to their subscribers.
What To Write To Your Newsletter Subscribers
Here’s the thing. The more people have given to me, the more I want to give back. If you’ve given me your email address, then I want to thank you by giving back as much as I can. There are a few elements to this that I want to talk about.
Respect
Before we even talk about what to say to your newsletter subscribers, it’s important to talk about respecting them. Of course this means using a reputable email marketing provider (I currently use MailerLite, but also previously used ConvertKit and MailChimp), but it goes further than managing data legally. One of my biggest marketing pet peeves are people who only email you when they have a sales funnel. I’m not only talking about having signed up for a list, never heard from them, and getting a sales email. That is annoying – but what bothers me more is when it is “hidden”. Sure, the sales funnel of emails has semi-decent content. But you still only hear from them in the lead up to a launch. Then they go quiet for another 6-12 months. It feels like getting your hopes up about good content, only for it to stop when there’s nothing to sell. Respect your subscribers and don’t use them. One of the many consistency goals I have this year is in emailing my subscribers (you can join my blogging newsletter here, which also gives you my free 3 day eCourse) regularly. I don’t want people to only hear from me when I’m selling. I want you to hear from me year-round. I want to help you year-round. In fact, I rarely mention my eProducts in my emails. If I do share something, it’s usually a link to something at the bottom of the email.
Content
Your content needs to be a step above your blog. That’s my main take-away here. I don’t always do that, but it’s something I’m aiming to improve on. And practice makes …well not perfect, but better. Of course it’s fine to email your latest posts and news, but to me, a newsletter subscriber is your best online friend, so you want to give them more. What does that mean? Once when I was planning my weekly tasks, I typed out my scribbled notes and shared them with my newsletter. Why? Even if it wasn’t a finished list, I hoped it would give my subscribers an insight as to how I manage my blog, as well as some ideas of how they could organise themselves to make blogging smoother. Of course, the specifics of what you send your audience will vary by topic. But the main questions is: what can you give them that is of big value?
Do you have a newsletter? What do you share with your subscribers?