In truth, newsletters have always been a crucial audience building tool, ever since the Acta Diurna were sketched in stone in Ancient Rome<\/a> in 131 BC. (H\/t to our friends at Nudge for digging that one up in their newsletter.) They became especially effective with the mainstream adoption of email in the 1990s, giving smart marketers and media pros a direct line to their audience. Even during the social media craze of the 2010s, these professionals built their audience via email, understanding the importance of building on owned\u2014not rented\u2014land.<\/p>\n Nearly five years ago, I wrote about why the email newsletter is the most important part of content marketing<\/a>. But 2021 begs a different question: How do you develop a great email newsletter?<\/p>\n Damn near every marketer uses email as a marketing channel. But a surprising amount of marketers I speak with aren’t investing in a newsletter as a core part of their content strategy. Sure, they send campaign blasts to their database, but they’re not developing a consistent newsletter with a clear value prop.<\/p>\n Your newsletter should fulfill three non-negotiable qualities:<\/p>\n The Nudge newsletter\u2014published by founder and CEO Ben Young\u2014is my go-to digest<\/a> for all the branded content and native advertising news I’d missed that week. GE Reports delivers my weekly dose of optimism<\/a> about COVID-19\u2014and the future of technology at large. The BRANDED newsletter<\/a> offers incredibly well-reported stories about the insane corruption inside ad-tech and programmatic advertising, giving me a sweet hit of dopamine by reinforcing my pre-existing prejudices against display ads while teaching me something new.<\/p>\n What sweet hit of dopamine can only you give your audience? What can you teach them that no one else can?<\/p>\n As online learning expert Brandon Jordan told me recently: “We’ve entered a golden age of educational content. Creative educators are about to dominate the world.”<\/p>\n I can’t tell you how many brand newsletters I come across that have a call-to-action like: “Sign up for the Bank A newsletter to get the latest financial news, advice, and company updates.”<\/em><\/p>\n If you fell asleep halfway through that CTA … well first of all: wake up, you’re at work, get it together. Secondly, I don’t blame you. And I don’t blame the 99.9 percent of visitors who read that CTA and say, “Nah, I’m good.”<\/p>\n Our best performing newsletter CTA\u2014which consistently converts visitors to subscribers at nearly a 3 percent clip\u2014is simple: “Escape content marketing hell.”<\/p>\n Turns out, a lot of marketers are feeling like Dante.<\/p>\n Now, an allusion to hell might be a little edgy for your brand. That’s okay. Your newsletter CTA still has to quickly communicate how signing will benefit your target audience.<\/p>\n The other big mistake many marketers make is burying a link to their newsletter in the footer of their website. Signing up for your newsletter shouldn’t feel like a treasure hunt.<\/p>\n Some things that have worked well for us:<\/p>\n 1. Put a clear subscribe button on your blog homepage and article page.<\/p>\n 2. Invite customers and prospects to subscribe to your newsletter as part of the thank you email whenever they download a piece of gated content, sign up for an event, or request a demo.<\/p>\n 3. Share your newsletter on social. (Every email service provider\u2014from Pardot to Mailchimp to Substack\u2014allows you to share your newsletter as a web URL.)<\/p>\n 4. Use a tool like Sumo<\/a> to hit visitors to your website with a pop-up offer to sign up for your newsletter, like the one above. Sumo drives 60 percent of our new newsletter sign-ups\u2014about 2,000 each quarter. It’s more than worth the $39\/month price tag.<\/p>\n If you want to dig in further, check out our free content strategy course on lead generation<\/a>. Newsletters are a big focus on the course, and you’ll get to enjoy some truly bizarre cold opens in which we pretend to be in Newsies. <\/em><\/p>\nStep 1: Develop a unique value prop that’ll give your audience a sweet hit of dopamine<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nStep 2: Communicate a clear value prop<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nStep 3: Make sure people know about it<\/h2>\n
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