Are you wondering whether or not it is worth investing time and energy to create a mailing list and regular newsletter?
Our answer is yes! And we'll explain why.
Personal relationships still matter a lot, in every field, even in online activities. They must be cultivated to be able to arrive at a real relationship of trust. And because face-to-face contact is lacking in online businesses, we need to use other tools to build the famous “know, like, and trust” factor needed to turn a potential customer into a customer.
The newsletter is a very useful tool to create and maintain a relationship with the people who follow you. The website is your showcase, you must have it and it is really very important. Social networks are essential to reach interested people and create a community, but keep in mind that not everyone is constantly connected to social networks. There will be someone who will never see your posts, which will be lost in the newsfeed.
Some prefer to read content that interests them at their own pace. For these, the newsletter is ideal.
The newsletter helps you to:
Keep in touch anytime, anywhere. With our smartphones we can read e-mails whenever and wherever we want. At AdminHelpSV we read most of the newsletters while standing in line or sitting in some waiting room.
Send updated information about news, offers, product and service promotions, tutorials, reviews, present or future projects. Quite simply, it's a way to start a conversation.
Drive traffic to your site. The message you send with the newsletter may contain links to your site or blog, to read the full article for example. Once on the site, the reader can take a look at the rest as well.
Building trust, providing quality information, giving advice, sharing aspects of your life, everything can help you "get to know yourself better". It is very useful for understanding who is behind the computer. People love to deal with people.
Building the mailing list
These days it isn't easy to obtain the e-mail addresses of those who surf the internet . We are all inundated with emails of all kinds. There is an overload of information and often, unfortunately, there is a lot of spam. In any case, we must find a way to convince someone to leave us their data to subscribe to our mailing list. We should try giving them something in return.
It could be a guide or a checklist in pdf format, a powerpoint presentation, a video tutorial, an audio file, anything that they may find useful.
Autoresponder
Your mailing list will need to be managed by an autoresponder. Mailchimp and Aweber are great tools. Your readers will then be added to your list and will receive the welcome message (which you have previously set up in the autoresponder service) along with the link to download the pdf, presentation, video, or whatever you have created for them. It is very important that you point out that they are also subscribed to the mailing list. The double opt-in (ie the request to confirm your registration by clicking on a special "confirmation link" sent by email as soon as they fill out the form) would be the most appropriate choice to satisfy the directives of the Privacy Guarantor.
The newsletter
With both Mailchimp and Aweber you have many templates that you can customize as you like, to create your newsletter. You can add images and links. At this point your creativity comes into play. You can indulge yourself as you wish, always keeping in mind your ideal customer and what they might find interesting.
So, if you ask us: is it worth using precious time to create and send a newsletter?
Our answer is yes, definitely! It's a very powerful tool when used correctly. Now it's your turn, you just have to break the ice and start experimenting even if you have "zero" subscribers.
And are you subscribed to many newsletters? If you analyze what those you find most interesting have in common, maybe you can take a cue to start creating your own, what do you think?