Adding to your bottom line with email marketing

Just like with most forms of digital marketing, using an email newsletter to market your business can leave you in a rut. You can end up spinning your wheels and waste a lot of effort if you don’t have the right strategy in place.

Here are a few things you should make sure you’re doing if you want your email newsletter to add to your bottom line rather than subtract from it, not only in terms of money but also time and energy.

Email consistently

Being healthy requires eating right and exercising on a consistent basis, even though chocolate is great. Why should email marketing be any different? People need to trust you in order to pay you money, and trust is a result of consistency over time.

First, you need to email on a consistent schedule. You can’t expect to send out your newsletter sporadically and get any measurable return.

Second, the type of information and even format should stay consistent. You can’t build up the trust you need if you send something different every time.

Of course, it’s okay to occasionally change up the schedule and even send out different types of emails. But consistency should be your rule of thumb.

Look professional

Not everyone will judge you on how well your email newsletter is designed. Plenty of people won’t care at all. But some people will.

Some will assume your professionalism as an organization is reflected in how professional—or unprofessional—your email newsletter looks.

By making a one-time investment of time and possibly money to really make your newsletter look good, you can stand out from the crowd and have something that accurately reflects your organization.

Invest in building your list

An email newsletter is useless without a list of email addresses to send it to. In years past, you might have jump-started things by purchasing an email list. However, that’s typically considered spammy and—in extreme cases—even unethical. And more to the point, it’s less likely to be profitable.

Instead, offer some incentive for people to sign up for your email newsletter, and make the sign-up form prominent on your website. You can also email people directly to ask if they’d like helpful information via email, and then you can sign them up if they reply in the affirmative.

Have a call to action

Finally, if you want people to take some sort of action that adds to your bottom line, you need to let them know what that action is!

Of course, you shouldn’t be pushy about it. In fact, I really don’t even like calling it a Call To Action, as that can seem a little pushy. Instead, I like referring to this as a Clear Next Step.

Someone’s been receiving your emails for a while now, and they’re ready to do business with you. What is the Clear Next Step they should take?

To review: If you want your email newsletter to add to your bottom line, there are a few strategic things you should be doing. Be sure to be consistent, have a professional-looking newsletter, build your list, and have a Call To Action, aka Clear Next Step.

So what is your Clear Next Step? If you need help creating a professional email newsletter or help with ensuring it goes out consistently, let us know!