 It can be hard to find success as an entrepreneur. You may have heard the benefits of creating an email newsletter if you're running a small business. Although they seem like an outdated marketing strategy, newsletters can actually do a lot for your business. Learn more about why email correspondence is still a crucial tactic for keeping in touch with your customers and helping your business grow.
1. How To Use Your Newsletter To Grow Your Customer Base In today's social media-based world, it's difficult to connect with customers who don't use these platforms. Using an email newsletter gives you a chance to touch base with former customers, as well as those who are considering purchasing in the future, on a weekly basis. Try to limit your letters to once a week (or once a month, depending on your business). Experts recommend sending at least one a month to maintain contact with your customer base. Ensure that each letter has a purpose, such as promoting a sale, announcing drastic company changes, or alerting customers to a new product or service. There's a delicate balance between helping your customers feel like they're part of your growing enterprise and annoying them with too many emails that aren't relevant to them! 2. How To Write an Effective Letter As with any type of writing, there is a right and a wrong way to engage your audience. Don't use purchased lists to relay content and information to your customers. This will give the impression that you put little thought into your letter. At worst, it will make your email seem like spam. Use a branded email address to add authority to your content. Above all, don't add too much information to your letter. Keep things concise, engaging, and to the point. Include an "unsubscribe" link to allow people to opt out if they wish. 3. How To Get More People To Read the Newsletter First, make sure your prose is up to par. If writing content isn't your strong suit, hire someone who can make your small business sparkle with interesting, engaging content. It's fine to hire a freelancer, instead of a full-time employee, for this purpose. Promote your letter on social media, include a "subscribe" button on your company's website, and give customers the chance to subscribe to the letter after placing an order. Never spam your customers or force them onto the email newsletter list without their permission. 4. How To Use Data Visualization to Enhance Your Letter Data visualization can be a powerful tool for engaging customers and making them want to come back for more, according to DataJournalism.com. Use graphics, tables, and interactive content to let your customers get up close and personal with your company's mission. Reach out to a freelance graphic designer if you have trouble creating and utilizing these tools yourself. 5. Have Some Funs by Creating Memes While memes have been around for years, they've recently experienced a resurgence in popularity. And what better way to jazz up your email newsletter than by incorporating some timely, relevant memes? Not only will this help to engage your readers, but it can also convey complex ideas in a concise and humorous way. Best of all, creating memes is easy with any of the many online meme generators. Simply go online and research the best meme text generator, choose a template, add your text, and voila! You'll have a meme that's ready to share. So, go ahead and have some fun with your next email newsletter - your readers will be sure to appreciate it. Beautiful and Strategic Content A beautifully designed website with quality content will likely lead to an uptick in growth and customer engagement. Be sure to use tools like PDF converters and the help of graphic designers and content writers to develop something that is worth your customer’s time. And don't forget a prompt call to action at the end of all of your email newsletters! Do you need a great website to go along with your awesome newsletter? Get in touch with Waking Girl Web Design. Call 775-544-6612 today! Photo Credit: Magnus Andersson via Unsplash  Are you feeling neglected by your web designer? Feeling like you have to send 5 emails before you get a response? Panic setting in? Please take a look at these helpful tips that will give more insight to the world behind the computer screen and how to snap your fingers and get your web designer's attention--every time.
1) If your web designer is awesome, he/she receives at least 50-200 emails a day. These aren't annoying subscription emails; these are emails that need to be read, handled and responded to. Put concise instructions and a deadline in your subject line. Example: Add new events to Parade.com before July 4 2) Do not use the subject line "website." 3) Avoid small talk in the opening lines. Pretend your web designer will only read the first sentence. Make it count. 4) Praise your web designer with every new request! Tell your web designer that their hard work IS working. Example: We got 5 new clients today from our website! We want to add 3 fields to our contact form to process new clients faster. So excited this is working so well!!" See how it sounds when you don't praise? Why isn't the phone number field in our contact form? That should have been in there from the beginning. Now we have 5 clients with no phone number. We better add Birth date and Country fields, too. 5) Keep emails to ONE or TWO requests. Web designers want to feel productive. If they can handle a task in 5-10 minutes, they'll jump on it. Long lists of requests should be reserved for new projects or scheduled updates. 6) Put content directly into the email instead of attaching documents. If your web designer has to download and open a program just to read your update it will fall to the bottom of the to-do list. 7) If the budget and pricing has not been pre-arranged, include what you're willing to pay for the work. This will give the web designer an immediate incentive and save on the back and forth of negotiations. Example: I can pay $75 for this update. 8) Web designers love your audience and want to please. Use real deadlines like: Website will be shown at Conference on June 17; need updates completed by June 16. 9) Always offer to pay in advance. Web designers will often under-quote a project not realizing the work involved. To feed the family they may let your project drop to the bottom of the list and turn to the pre-paid clients. Clients who pre-pay allow the web designer to focus JUST on them! 10) Don't be picky until it counts. Web designers work with MANY customers; they focus on the emergency projects first. If your website hasn't launched yet because you can't decide between Lato and Roboto fonts, you are not a top priority. The top priority is the guy who is processing $15k+ on his website every month and the credit card processing company just went down, or the gal who is hosting a big event tomorrow and is doing a last-minute Facebook campaign to drive ticket sales. When your website is highly trafficked and bringing in sales, you can be picky! 11) Give 5 star reviews! If your experience is less than 5 stars, tell them gently and give them an opportunity to improve! 12) Always preface with: I'm not sure if I'm asking this the right way but... Web designers get bombarded with questions that do not make technical sense. It is really hard to answer an incorrect question if the client isn't willing to be educated. When a client confesses their lack of computer knowledge, it opens the door for education and will get you lots of free services. Web designers like being experts! And they like to help!! Know-it-alls put web designers in a corner, and their simple requests turn into challenging accusations. 13) Edit the text for us! Instead of describing the proof reading edits, just go ahead and make them. How to do it: Go to the page that you want to edit. Copy the text. Paste the text into an email. Edit the text. Change subject line to: Please replace text on ABOUT YOU page with text below. Send! The steps above will make this a 5 minute job instead of a 50 minute brain-numbing English 101 exercise. 14) Ask how your web designer prefers to receive large or mass amounts of files. Waking Girl despises Dropbox, and instead offers an easy upload widget on their website. 15) Give your web designer creative license! A web designer is an artist; they will pour energy and time into your project if it is their artistic work and something they can proudly show in their portfolio! |
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