Five Reasons Why Your Startup Is Putting off an Email Newsletter—and Why You Shouldn’t


startup

In today’s world, it is impossible not to know about email newsletters. You have probably subscribed to a few yourself! You know your startup should start one, but you keep putting it off.

There are a lot of reasons why you might keep putting off that email newsletter, but you shouldn’t. Chances are, the reason why you have been putting off that newsletter isn’t a very good reason at all.

You Don’t Want to Spend Time Personalizing Emails

In order for email newsletters to work, they have to be personalized to each recipient. After all, no one wants to read an email that sounds like it was written for hundreds or thousands of people. The trouble is, personalization can take a lot of time—time you don’t have.

It is true that personalization takes more time than not personalizing your emails, but it can take a lot less time than you think. GMass recommends focusing, “on a few personalization tactics that will net you the majority of your results with the least amount of busywork.”

Focus on just one or two ways to personalize your newsletter. Then, when they’re successfully integrated, try adding one or two more. It takes a lot less time when you take things slow and use technology to your advantage.

I Don’t Have Anything Good to Say

A lot of features go into a successful newsletter. Personalization is one, but no amount of personalization can make up for bad content. You know this already. That’s why, when you think you don’t have anything good to say, it means not starting a newsletter at all.

Although sticking to a schedule can be convenient, there’s no hard and fast rule that says you have to. Simply send an email newsletter when you’ve got something you want to say.

Need some topic ideas?

  • Highlight a product or service
  • Throw a contest or giveaway
  • Make a company announcement
  • Announce a new blog on the website
  • Highlight customer testimonials

Getting People to Sign up for Your Newsletter Is Hard

The only thing worse than wasting time creating a newsletter that people don’t read because the content isn’t any good is a newsletter that no one signs up to read in the first place!

It’s true that people don’t just sign up for newsletters out of the blue, but that doesn’t mean finding readers has to be hard. There are quite a few ways you can boost readership.

A few ideas include:

  • Create a landing page on your website
  • Make signing up easy with a widget on the side of every webpage
  • Offer a coupon in exchange for signing up

Don’t think you have to have a huge readership overnight. Even getting just one or two people to sign up every day or two is better than none at all. Play the long game, and you can build a massive readership in just a year or two.

There’s No Need for a Newsletter If I’m on Social Media

Creating a newsletter is a way to connect with your target audience on a regular basis. If you can do that with social media, why would you have a newsletter at all?

There are a surprising number of reasons why businesses don’t need a social media account. One of the biggest reasons is that it contains content you don’t own.

What happens if the site goes down, or for some reason your page is deactivated? Or, what if a large chunk of your audience deactivates their profiles? You will suddenly lose access to your list of contacts. An email newsletter allows you to maintain a list of contacts that will always be there.

No One Reads Newsletters

Many people think that no one reads newsletters. The truth is, no one reads bad newsletters.

Newsletters can really stink, but that doesn’t mean they all do! If you create a newsletter with tons of value, not only will people read it, people will be excited to sign up for your newsletter.

Informative content is great, but it can be time consuming. If you’re looking for a quicker way to provide value, give readers special discounts and insider access to keep them coming back for more.

Email newsletters don’t have to be a terrible, time consuming burden on your startup. They can be an extremely effective way to connect with customers and clients, and when the right tools are used, creating them doesn’t have to be terribly time consuming either.