How to Build an Effective Newsletter Marketing Strategy

Email newsletters are one of the important channels of communication with users or buyers on the Internet. If the mailing is single, you can do without serious planning, but you should not hope for good results either because newsletter marketing involves painstaking, long-term thoughtful work. And that requires a strategy. This is a kind of road map which indicates the main goals, ways of communicating with customers, types of mailing lists, and other important points. When planning an email marketing budget, a strategy is indispensable - it will allow you to fully assess the project's scope and consider future costs.

Explore fresh and effective ways of marketing a newsletter for developing email communication and growing your business.

Table of contents

1. Why You Need a Newsletter Marketing Strategy
2. How to Build a Strong Newsletter Strategy
3. What Does a Good Newsletter Marketing Strategy Look Like?

Why You Need a Newsletter Marketing Strategy

More than 3.9 million people use emails, which is expected to hit the 4.48 billion mark by 2024.

Here's a good reason to try email marketing: it provides respectable returns. A successful campaign can return $42 on every dollar spent. This is a key factor in the widespread usage of email marketing.

To achieve your marketing goals, you need a strategy. In newsletter marketing, they can be the following:

• increase traffic to the site;
• increase conversions from the email channel;
• increase the number of repeat purchases.

Add numbers to them - and get KPI:

• increase traffic to the site by 5%;
• increase conversions from the email channel by 10%;
• increase the number of repeat purchases by 3%.

We can say that the strategy in newsletter marketing is about what and how to implement to achieve goals. "How" and "what" depends on the company's current situation. Here are five of the most common:

1. When there is nothing, you need to collect contacts and start email communication.
2. When there is a base, you must build up communications.
3. When there are a lot of communications and the base is large, you need to pump metrics.
4. When there are many segments and events and a large database, you need to do less with your hands and automate processes.
5. When there are a lot of purchases, you need to keep the client and increase repeat purchases.

How to Build a Strong Newsletter Strategy

Let's take a closer look at the steps to create a newsletter marketing strategy:

1. Audit of the current situation

At this stage, it is worth eliminating errors, finding growth points, and improving working methods.

Notice a few things:

1. Posting efficiency. Do an audit of all types of emails. Look at their deliverability, Open Rate, Click Rate, and conversion. That way, you will know how to move on.
2. Status and quality of the contact database. If there is no base, consider ways to collect it, if there is, determine the segmentation criteria. 
3. Client entry points. See how the user gets into the database and what percentage of the conversion of your lead magnets is.
4. Types of letters. Analyze what types of mailings you already send to customers: triggered, bulk, or transactional. You may have multiple segments that receive different messages.
5. Content and layout of emails. Pay attention to how you communicate with subscribers. Does the writing style match the portrait of your target audience? Check the layout too. It will be mandatory to have Alt for images, links under images, a prominent call to action button, etc.
6. Do an audit of your email topics. Do they intrigue, cause a desire to open a letter? If not, experiment with wording.
7. technical settings. Make sure your company is GDPR compliant. You should also use email opt-in.

But if you haven't yet done newsletter marketing before and don't have a database, analyze your competitors. Subscribe to their newsletters, and see how they communicate with their customers. Take good ideas and adapt them to your project.

2. Determining the goals and objectives of communications in the email channel

Goals are divided into two types:

Regardless of the goal, it is important to tie it to real and achievable numbers, as well as set deadlines for implementation. But if you are at the beginning of the journey and it is difficult to indicate the exact numbers, then put down indicative indicators. So you will only stretch the process for a short time and will be able to adjust the numbers after testing the first hypotheses.

In addition to deadlines, it is important to define KPIs. Write down metrics that will help you understand if you are moving in the right direction. Often they measure Open Rate, Click Rate, CTOR, and Conversion Rate. But you can have your own set of metrics depending on the stage of the customer journey and business goals.

A clearly defined goal is half the battle. So pay attention to this stage of your newsletter marketing strategy.

3. Description of the target audience and segmentation

Using segmentation, identify customer requests and needs, prioritize groups and provide everyone with a relevant offer.

You can segment the audience according to one criterion or combine several - below are a few examples.

1. Business model. For the B2B and B2C segments, there will be different offers, communication styles, and even designs.
2. Family status. Divide the audience into groups by status: parents, couples with or without children.
3. Activity. Depending on the position of your recipient, choose a communication style and persuasion leverage.
4. Prescription. Lead potential customers smoothly to purchase. Introduce them to the range and the company. But for the current ones, offer to buy a product and become a member of the loyalty program.
5. Site behavior. Depending on the user's action, send different emails. For example, send a welcome message to those who have just subscribed. Reminder about a forgotten item in the cart - for those who still need to complete the purchase.
6. Funnel stages. Based on the path of the client, divide the database into segments.

Potential customers are those who have started interacting with the company. They are already studying the offer, getting to know you, and deciding to buy or not:

• New - those who once used your product or service.
• Regulars are those who regularly buy your product.
• Departing customers - this segment has stopped opening letters and ordering services, but they can still be returned.
• Lost customers - those who could not be reactivated or unsubscribed from the mailing list. 

4. Base collection methods

Regardless of whether you have a base or not, you need to regularly update the list with new addresses to do effective newsletter marketing. You can get personal information if you give something useful in return, such as:

• discount on the first order;
• checklist, guide, e-book, or instruction;
• product test drive;
• gift for the first order;
• free shipping;
• unlimited promotional code;
• fresh news, interesting stories, useful tips in a convenient format.

Consider also where and what form will be placed:

• built-in form in the footer on each page;
• built-in form on the main blog and the page with articles;
• pop-up on all pages, which is triggered depending on the user's actions. For example, when trying to close a page or viewing content at 85%.

You can choose one of these options or combine several by placing lead forms on different pages.
Using Claspo pop-up templates, you can choose from various templates and integrate them into your website to make eye-catching images and convert your visitors into buyers.
Pro Tip
Think over the possible topics of mass mailings. Send them to the entire database of active contacts.

There are several formats:

1. Promotional mailings: promotions, week's products, sales, and special offers. For this type, the rule is one letter - one offer.
2. Content: guides, tips, useful information about the company, and infographics. For such mailings, the same rule applies to promotions.
3. Digest: a collection of the most interesting, relevant materials and proposals for a certain period. For a digest, three or four headings are allowed for one letter. Here you can find newsletter signup examples.

What Does a Good Newsletter Marketing Strategy Look Like?

So, let's consider four signs of a good newsletter marketing strategy:

1. Flexible. Even though a strategy is a specific plan of action, there must be room for maneuvering in it. Leave the opportunity to correct, supplement and delete blocks.
2. Realistic. Look from the sidelines at all business processes, the use of technology, your product, and your target audience. It is important to honestly assess the situation and determine where your advantage is and where there are gaps.
3. Results oriented. Everything you do must have a measurable result. If the goal is not specific, achieving it won't be easy.
4. It forms part of the overall marketing strategy. Newsletter marketing is not a magic pill. They will bring a full result in combination with other tools. Strengthen and complement email marketing with different communication channels.

Newsletter marketing is not just another technique to add to your arsenal. It is one of the most useful marketing tools that can increase your income to unprecedented levels. This line of marketing demonstrates incredible resilience to change and the ability to adapt to the ever-changing needs of today's users. Not everything in life is as predictable as we would like. But by using the tips above, you can optimize your newsletter marketing to reach new heights.