Super Basic Intro to Newsletters

You may have heard it before: The money is in the list!

That’s a little crudely put, but if you’re running an online business, even if you’re still in the planning stages, you need to have an email list. In fact there is potentially no bigger asset for your business. Here’s why.

An email list is the only digital marketing channel you truly own

Of course you can amass followers on all the social media platforms, but they can change their algorithm and wipe away all of your painstaking work in the blink of an eye. They can also throw you off their platform, sometimes even if you didn’t do anything wrong. The social media algorithms also pick and choose who sees your content.

With Email you know the sender received your message. Once someone has given you their email no one can disrupt or alter your communication channel with them (assuming you don’t violate spam laws).

People that sign up for your email list are really interested in you and your business.

It’s easy to hit ‘follow’ and even if someone does follow, as I said above, you can never be truly sure if they’ll see your content. With Email, on the other hand, someone has gone through the effort of entering their Email address and going through a confirmation mail sequence.

This is a person who has raised there hand and said ‘I want to hear from you!’ In today’s noisy world, that is worth it’s weight in gold.

Email is an intimate way to keep connected to your audience

An Email doesn’t have a comment thread. An Email usually involves a story or a more coherent thought. It’s processed by the reader in a more quiet or engaged state of mind (rather than just passively scrolling). It’s a totally different relationship between publisher and reader than social media. A stronger one.

It doesn’t take that much time to maintain an Email newsletter

You decide how long or short you want to keep your email newsletters. If you think about it as literally ‘just’ writing an email, it doesn’t take that much time.

Of course writing to an email list is a craft and an art and there are blogs and seminars and courses dedicated to doing ‘right’.

Here’s my advice: Just decide on a regular sending schedule, stick to it and get started. You’ll figure it out as you go.

What should I send to my Email list?

There are so many ways to tackle it. You can simply send your latest blog post(s), answer a question a customer or client recently asked you, share tips and resources your target audience will find useful.

I find it easiest to set up a format and stick to it.

In my email newsletters I include one thought, idea or blog post followed by 3-5 fun non-business related links, that’s it! Sometime I’ll add news about my business or calls to actions for services as a ‘P.S.’ but that’s it.

How often should you send a newsletter?

You’ll find every answer under the sun if you Google this. Some people suggesting sending emails to your list multiple times a week, some once a quarter and others everything in between.

I have two email lists: A ‘general’ one and one for past clients that I move people onto after we’ve worked together.

I send the ‘general’ list an email twice a month and the past client list an email once a month.

I didn’t choose this frequency based on any statistics or best practice, it just felt right to me and is a schedule I knew I could stick to.

What email newsletter software should you use?

There are so many. I started with Mailchimp and now use Squarespace Campaigns. There are pros and cons to all services.

If you see a complex email marketing strategy in your future go with a tool like MailChimp or Convertkit. Otherwise look into options like Squarespace Campaigns (if you have a Squarespace site), MailerLite or Flodesk.

These are just some of the more popular ones. There is an entire universe of email marketing tools out there. Do your research.

I hope this has demystified the basics of managing a newsletter. If you haven’t already, you can sign up to mine below!