Share the Good (E-)News

While these days there are a myriad of ways to stay virtually connected with your customers, sometimes the simplest approach can be the best. A good old-fashioned newsletter (albeit one that’s delivered through email) is still a warm and friendly way to stay in touch with your customer base—and possibly drive new business as well.

At Articulate Solutions, a creative services agency based in the Bay Area, California, we prepare e-news campaigns for many of our top clients. Here are some tips we’ve learned to help your business get the most out of this platform:

1. Share some good news!
   Now more than ever, people are hungry for good news. Though your e-news can be a marketing tool, try to avoid any kind of “hard sell.” Instead, just share positive stories about what you and your company have been up to lately. Include business accomplishments (like awards you’ve won or recent projects you’ve completed) as well as stories about your team. All of this keeps your company top of mind, fosters positive associations, and helps build a stronger relationship with your client base.
   
2. Showcase cool stuff you’re doing.
   The people on your email list are probably current clients; they already know and (hopefully!) like doing business with you. But they might not know the full range of services you offer. Use your e-news as a platform to highlight different types of projects you do. For example, at Articulate Solutions we have designed websites and logos for many of our clients—but they may not know we also design large out-of-home projects like billboards and bus wraps. Showcasing different types of projects in your e-news might lead to new opportunities.
   
3. Create engaging content.
   People get a lot of email these days, so you want to be sure yours is worth reading. Try to come up with short, catchy headlines and write content that is interesting and engaging (and grammatically correct, too). Keep it short and sweet; a paragraph or two per story is usually more than enough. Include photos of your team at work or projects you’ve worked on whenever possible, but avoid generic stock-type images. These days, educational content that offers insights, analytics and other intriguing information that might not be easily found is another great way to get your audience to look forward to your e-news.
   
4. Drive traffic back to your website.
   Ultimately, you want to have some way of measuring the success of your e-news campaigns, and the best way to do that is to include links to content on your website. If you have blogs or videos on your website, find ways to link to that content from your e-news. If you want someone to contact you, send them to the Contact Us page of your website. Then check your analytics to track how many people actually click through and how long they spend on your site.
   
5. Every-so-often is just fine.
   Many times, a company will declare they’re going to send out an e-news campaign every month—and then find after one or two months that it’s too hard to come up with fresh content, or that other work gets in the way. Since they can’t stick to the monthly schedule, they stop doing anything at all. Sending an e-news campaign quarterly is certainly sufficient. The goal is to have a regular schedule, however that best fits your business. But you don’t need to publicly announce how often you’ll be sending it out. Let that be a surprise!
   
6. Stay on brand.
   Popular email marketing platforms make it easy to set up a clean, professional template for your e-news. It’s fun to be creative, but don’t go too crazy. Include your logo in the header and use colors and fonts that align with your organization’s brand. The overall style of your e-news should look and feel on brand with your website and other marketing communications. (To learn more about the important of a strong and consistent brand, read our recent blog about branding.)
   
7. Encourage people to share.
   Toward the end of your newsletter, include a button or link that makes it easy for people to share the newsletter with anyone they think might be interested. This is an easy way to generate referrals, increase your exposure, and create new business opportunities. 

Setting up an e-news campaign is an easy and affordable way to stay in touch with your clients—and can help create new leads too. We encourage you to give it a try!

See the Articulate Solutions Featured News page for more blog articles about creative branding, marketing, communications and more.

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For over 25 years, the creative experts at Articulate Solutions have been helping our clients communicate and build their brands. We’ve created many e-news campaigns and are familiar with popular email platforms like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor, and Constant Contact. We’re happy to help you get started too—whether that means just designing a basic template that aligns with your brand, setting up your mailing lists, helping write and edit content to drive real results, or managing the whole project from start to finish. Contact us today to learn more!

Posted on June 2, 2020