What makes a good newsletter

Marketing campaigns and newsletters are an indispensable part of every business and a perfect way to reach out to your customers, leads etc. Grabbing your audience’s attention with the help of email campaigns can be game-changing for any B2B sales strategy. But are they easy to create? What are the basic components of a good marketing email?

A right goal

1. Setting a purpose is the first thing which should come to one’s mind before launching a campaign: why do you want to run it? How will your business profit from it? A monthly newsletter aimed at sharing the product novelties will not be created in the same way as a marketing campaign to drive leads or to gather customer feedback. That’s why it’s so important to define above all your campaign’s goal and then to check that it’s actionable and attainable. This will eventually determine the email content. 

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Proper target audience definition

1. The first step to define who your audience are, is to figure out what stage of the buyer’s journey your campaign is targeting. Are you trying to just get some feedback or, on the contrary, to attract new customers? Is the buyer in the awareness, consideration or decision stage right now? Once you get the answers, you can start refining your marketing message so that it gives you the maximum conversion.

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Proper KPIs determination

1. How are you going to measure your marketing campaign? Again, it depends on your end goal and on the channels you’re leveraging. For example, you can run your campaign on social media, email and blog. For each medium, there are different KPIs. They can be: 

   • Email open rates and click-through rates

   • Facebook & Instagram engagements (likes and comments, as well as profile tags)

   • Blog views & social shares 

   
   

   To achieve your SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound), define your primary KPI - in our case this will be Facebook & Instagram profile tags. All the other above mentioned KPIs will, in their turn, show how well your campaign is going. All this together will always remind you of what you’re aiming at and boost your determination.

Choosing the right channels for the campaign distribution

1. There exist nowadays dozens of media channels that can be used to promote your product/company. The choice depends only on your company’s budget, brand engagement level, preference etc. In a nutshell, all the promotion channels could be split into a PESO model: 

   
   

   • Paid (native advertising, pay-per-click like search engines, display ads, paid influencers)

   • Earned (PR outreach, influencer marketing)

   • Shared (forums, social sites, word of mouth)

   • Owned (your blog, website, newsletter, email campaign)

Choosing the right hook

1. The most well-known example of the Coca-Cola marketing company, with a chant that became a hit, shows us the importance of adding a special feature to your campaign. This hook will grab customers’ attention and can even make your ad go viral. 

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Setting a timeline 

1. Creating a visual map with a deadline for your campaign will help you evenly disperse your promotions and publish equally on each medium. It will also make you constantly be aware of where your time and energy are going, which will be extremely helpful when looking back and evaluating how your campaign’s effectiveness turned out to be in the end. 

   
   

   In a nutshell, email marketing allows you to build relationships with leads, customers and past customers. It's your opportunity to speak directly to them in their inbox, at a time that is convenient for them. That’s why, coupled with the right messaging and goal-setting, emailing can become one of the most impactful marketing channels.