When people want to get in touch with you,
what do they do?
Many may call you if they have your phone or cell number, but more often they will EMAIL you. Hands down email is still the most powerful tool in communicating with your customers and followers, and something we probably all do daily (check email). So, why not use that technology and create an email newsletter!
GETTING SUBSCRIBERS: Link Building
First, is getting subscribers. I, like many other bloggers, have a Newsletter Sign Up Box in my blog's sidebar (here's how to do that in Constant Contact), and do mention occasionally big articles I will be releasing just for Newsletter Subscribers. However, many newsletter programs now have code that you can place on your site so a "pop-up" appears asking if they would like to subscribe to your newsletter. This method may annoy some, but surprisingly many get a huge increase in subscribers when putting the option to join up front and center.
GIVE SOMETHING OF VALUE
Giving subscribers a reason to join your newsletter is an effective way of getting them to sign up! We all love to get something good for FREE especially. For me, I offer my newsletter subscribers exclusive articles and on desired topics. For example, the next one is on many tools for Facebook – how to create your own customer facebook pages, how to schedule FB posts and more!
Others offer a free e-book or PDF to download to those joining their email newsletter!
NEWSLETTER FORMAT AND DESIGN
Create bite-sized content. It is easier and faster for your subscribes to read. You can also use it to link to "hidden" pages on your blog, recent blog posts, or other people's sites you find of interest on a related topic.
It is also important to have a professional look, nice format, appealing to the readers (your audience). It's also fun to change it up here and there; where some people change things up for different seasons, especially the holiday season (the month of December-January).
Constant Contact Newsletter Design
In addition to Constant Contact design, I do design newsletters for other programs such as MailChimp, iContact and Aweber. Here are some newsletter design samples although I have many more I can forward you if you'd like. Here is my page and pricing on Constant Contact Newsletter Design. The bad news is I do have a waiting list. So it will be a few months before I can get to your project.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Make sure you include links to share your newsletter or forward to a friend. Constant Contact has an option to include Share links at the very last step of scheduling the email. MailChimp has text links to share on Facebook and Twitter, and most all have some form of "sharing" available. Take advantage of that!
PROMOTIONAL NEWSLETTER
Once you build your following and build trust with your audience and customers, you can then occasionally send promotional newsletters; such as when you release a new product or service. This would be a separate newsletter solely focused on the news and in addition to your other main monthly or bi-monthly newsletter.
For more information:
Click here to read the entire article and tips by John Jantsch.
Emal Newsletter Resources:
- For help in deciding which newsletter program is best for you, read more here!
- For more email marketing tips, click here!
- Need to know how to add your blog banner to Constant Contact, click here!
- Want to know to upload an image without having to use up or pay for storage in Constant Contact, click here!
- Here's another way to archive your newsletters.
Wishing you much success!
Heather Wright-Porto
www.BlogsByHeather.com