There’s a reason email marketing is so popular among small business owners: It works. According to Hubspot, each dollar spent on email marketing will net you a staggering $42 in return.
That’s not chump change.
You can do a lot with email marketing. It’s useful for nurturing leads, making sales, sharing exciting company news, getting the word out about your current promotions or touting your latest blog post.
You could create separate emails for all of these things. Or you could create one email containing them all. We are, of course, talking about a newsletter.
What Is a Small Business Newsletter?
Think back to your grade-school days. Once a month, your teacher would hand you a newsletter to take home to your parents.
If you didn’t immediately turn it into spitballs or a paper airplane, you’d see that it had plenty of information printed on it. There was a message from the principal, a recap of the second-grade trip to the farm, a calendar of upcoming events, some candid photos and maybe even instructions for a fun art project to do over the weekend.
In short, it was a cohesive way for the school to communicate information to your parents without having to make individual phone calls.
The same concept applies to your small business newsletter. Instead of having to send 10 different emails — potentially annoying your audience in the process — a newsletter allows you to distribute a ton of different information in one streamlined email.
Do You Need a Newsletter?
Creating a regular newsletter can be labor-intensive. If you throw it together quickly, it’s not going to be good. And if it’s not good, there’s really no point.
To decide if your small business should spend the time and effort to create a newsletter, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I have enough news to share? A newsletter that exists just for the sake of having one isn’t going to do you any good. You need enough “news” to make it work. That’s not to say that you can’t occasionally rerun, refresh or recycle a video or blog post. But for the most part, it needs to be fresh.
- Can I commit to the schedule? If you subscribe to your local newspaper and the paperboy doesn’t deliver it on a consistent basis, you’re probably going to cancel your subscription. The same goes for your subscribers. If you can’t commit to a regular schedule — be it weekly, monthly or quarterly — try something else, instead.
- How many emails am I already sending? If you’re already sending a bunch of emails each week, one more might push your audience over the edge. While beginning a newsletter doesn’t mean you can’t send any other emails ever, you might need to reduce the number of other emails you send and possibly include that information in the newsletter, instead.
- Do I have the know-how? A newsletter requires much more formatting and attention to detail than a regular marketing email. Do it poorly, and your audience will notice. If you want to pull the trigger but don’t have the skills, there’s no shame in enlisting some outside help!
Is Your Small Business News(letter) Worthy?
A small business newsletter is a great way to get your message to the masses without overwhelming your audience. It’s not for everyone and it does take some work, but in most cases, it’s worth it!
Need some help making headlines? Team up with Mischa Communications. Together, we’ll make the front page. Get started today!