Monday, February 17, 2014

Why write a newsletter?

Sometimes there isn't much motivation to write newsletters, social media is much quicker and easier!
But there are many benefits to writing a newsletter over social media posts.

You may have many followers on social media, but they won't always see your posts
On any social media platform most people are following a lot of others, covering people they know and businesses. To be seen and have an impact your followers need to absolutely love you and make sure they see all your posts, otherwise your posts can get lost in the noise of other posts, or in the case of Facebook, may not be seen by many of your fans because of the tweaking Facebook often do to newsfeeds.
Sending a newsletter gives you permission to access your subscribers directly. They've signed up and want to hear from you, your email is always available to them, even if they can't pay attention to it for a few hours or a day. It's sitting in their inbox for when they have time to read it.

You know you have real fans
Signing up to your newsletter is a conscious decision, subscribers want to hear what you have to say. Social media is a mixed bag, some of your fans will love you, others may like you because they like some of your tips and photos or they've entered a competition you've run. Not all your followers like you because they are interested in your products or services.
I've always found I get more response when I send out a newsletter. Not necessarily with clickthroughs, but with phone calls and direct email replies (I believe his is because I'm a service based business not a product based business).

Subscribers are always available to you
Yes, there's always that chance that social media platforms will close down, a new platform will come out that people swap over to (meaning you need to work to get fans back on the new platform) and the one we all hate to think about, Facebook can block or ban us for not following a rule when posting or running a competition (always re-read the rules when running a competition!).
Your subscribers on the other hand are always available to you. You own your subscriber list, and even if the platform you use to send out your newsletters closes down you can easily export your list and import it into another platform and continue on.

You can mix it up a bit

Social media platforms are fairly static in what you can do. Twitter only allow short posts, YouTube is video only, Facebook is more adaptable but has a lot of rules that are always changing.
Your newsletters allow you to contact people and share what you want how you want. You can utilise your layout to benefit your branding, you can share long or short articles, competition details, blog post links, large or small photos, personalise them with subscriber names, or even segment them into products/services that your subscribers like.


If you would like to subscribe to the FeralArt newsletter, where you can get information that I don't post on social media or on my blog, plus links to useful websites, fill out the signup form below.
I send out a newsletter every three weeks and never share your email address with any other person or business.



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