4 tips for a kick-arse newsletter

4 TIPS FOR A KICK-ARSE NEWSLETTER

Newsletters give you a great way to connect with your audience delivered right into their
inbox (find out more about why you could skip anything BUT email marketing) but how do
you make your newsletter stand out from the rest…read on to find out MPRE Marketing’s 4
tips for kick arse newsletters.

Start with a catchy subject line

We all know how many emails drop into our inboxes each day so to make your emails stand out
from the rest you want a catchy subject line. Something short and snappy that fits in with your
brand values. Many of the email programmes will give you tips on your subject line so have a play
around with those. It’s worth spending some extra time on the subject line to get your audience to
open the newsletter. And while we have put this tip first on the list it might be one of the last
things you do after you have developed the content of the newsletter.

Follow with some great content

So now we a catchy subject line we need great engaging content. With each newsletter think about
what your main aim is? To sell something, to promote an event, to build brand trust ? Then go from
there. Creating newsletters easily is where cascading content comes into play – chances are you
already have a great blog or social media post that can be used as the basis for the newsletter.
Bonus tip: if you create new content for your newsletter consider whether it would make a good
blog post and making it a social media post to increase the touch points with your audience. Refer
to the cascading content for more on making your content work for you.

Get the tone bang on

As with all communication to your audience keep the tone of your brand in your newsletter. It
might be light and chatty or serious and scientific. Write for your audience in your brand tone and
that applies to the subject line and images you use too. And just on images, if you are a New
Zealand brand try and use New Zealand images to connect with your audience and make your
brand more relatable. Of course, if you are an international brand or you want to look like one
using more international images is fine.

Check, check and check again

We all know it can be exciting when you get your kick-arse newsletter ready to send but don’t
forget to check it! There is nothing worse than sending out a great newsletter only to find the
crucial link doesn’t work. Digital newsletter platforms have preview functions but if it’s a new email
format you are developing it might pay to do some test emails to your team or friends and family
just to check the images are formatting correctly and text can be easily read.


Now you have MPRE Marketing’s 4 tips for creating kick-arse newsletters it’s time to stop
procrastinating and go create your very own kick-arse newsletters. If you want help with
that you can contact us.

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Top 4 tips for great content

TOP 4 PROVEN TIPS FOR BANGING CONTENT

It’s late, you’re tired, and the last thing you feel like doing is reading a post by another ‘expert’.

Suddenly you find yourself mesmerised by a post that pops up: “MARNIE’S 5 TOP TIPS FOR GREAT HAIR”

It’s on! You’re activated, awake, and about to get GREAT locks!

What does Marnie have going on that others don’t?

  1. Marnie knows YOU
  2. Marnie has her own unique voice
  3. Marnie is fun, conversational and engaging
  4. Marnie knows how to hook. Line. And sinker!

Marnie knows YOU!

We are a time-poor, over-worked bunch. The last thing we feel like doing on our socials is being bored, spoken down to, or to actually have to think (too hard).

She knows you pretty well.

She knows who you are, what you are about, what you like and what you don’t like.

She’s done her background checks. Found out about you and is willing to bet on a few things before she starts speaking.

This makes her ahead of the pack. Because she has a fair idea of her customer, and is talking to you in a clear and concise way.  If you aren’t quite sure on how to do this here is a great article to help you.

Marnie has her own UNIQUE voice.

Want average results. Be average.

Want great results. Find a voice. Stick to it and be consistent with it.

Don’t be afraid to be unique, quirky, different, but find your own tone.

Be it conversational, sassy, fun, maternal, motherly, serious, Dad-like, brotherly.

The uniqueness of your voice will work as a filter to find those who you are really looking for in a sea awash with ‘similar’ content.

Marnie is fun, conversational and engaging…

If you are at a dinner party, and Bob starts talking very slowly and drearily about the weather, it is likely you will excuse yourself to powder your nose.

Marnie, on the other hand, is interesting, fun, and interested in you. Her stories are engaging, make you curious, and you just can’t wait to share them.

Be like Marnie!

Keep the conversation two-way.

Yes, talk about yourself, but also ask questions. Get curious.

Tell stories that people want to share. Fun short and to the point stories have far more punch then Bob’s boring weather report.

Marnie knows how to hook, line and sinker….

If you are telling a great story, there has to be a point.

That point might be for them to visit your store, check out your reviews, share your post, tell their friends, add a review.

Or it might be to keep you in their mind – e.g. HOOK.

Not every post has to be the ‘sinker’….but there has to be a combo of the holy trio…the ‘hook’, the ‘line’ and the ‘sinker’.

There is no point going fishing without bait.

At the end of the day you want results, and clarifying those, and being conscious of them is what makes all the difference. If you want to learn more about how to make this content efficient… check out our blog on cascading content.

To find out more about creating banging content that gets results, contact the amazing, (and fun!) team at MPRE Marketing contact us here.

A boutique company specialising in M = Marketing PR = Public Relations E = Events S = Sales

Empowering you to build your eMPiRE

www.mpremarketing.com

By: Gill Brown

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SEO- Help Your Customers Find YOU!

If you don’t have a website set up yet, we highly recommend taking a look at our breakdown of the pros and cons of the top website builders and Content Management Systems (CMSs) before reading this article.

A lot of marketing strategy focuses on how to find and communicate with your target audience.

But what about the other side of the equation – how can you help your target audience find you?

What the heck is SEO?

You may have come across the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO) before. SEO is a technique for making sure that the original content you put up on your website makes it easy for people to find you through search engines.

For example, if you are a hair salon owner offering a colouring treatment unavailable anywhere else in your area, you want to make sure that someone typing the name of that treatment + the name of your area into their search engine sees your salon in the top page of results.

SEO specialists are marketing consultants who are highly trained in understanding the complex algorithms search engines use to sort results and prioritise those which are the best fit. 

If this sounds complicated, that’s because it is! But fortunately, if you’re a small business owner using a third-party CMS (like we recommend), this process becomes much simpler.

Four Main SEO Concepts

We’re going to quickly walk through the four main ideas of SEO for small business owners today so you can take some of these strategies and use them in your own content.

 

  • Technical SEO: If you’re a small business using a site like WordPress (as we recommend) for your CMS, you don’t need to worry about this – it primarily deals with how the website is set up.
  • On-site SEO: Make sure your site is well-organized and easy to navigate. Use the words you most want associated with your business in page titles (services offered, location, brand etc.). 
  • Content: Your website content should highlight your services and location, establish your credibility, and position you as an expert customers want to work with. Use the keywords you want associated with your business throughout your content consistently (but in a natural writing voice), and especially in your page titles. Using our hair salon example, we might want to write a blog post or have a page advertising new services – making sure to use the name of the treatment in a header or page title along with the information that you are the only salon offering this service in a given area. 
  • Off-site authority building: Incorporate links to other websites (within reason), for example, to share a relevant article. Our hair salon owner could, for example, share a write-up about the popularity of the new treatment on offer.

 

These tips should help you get started and hopefully feel less overwhelmed by SEO. 

Remember, think about what your target audience might search for to find you and try to make your website match those words/phrases. That’s a great place to start! 

For more advice on how to make the most of your custom content as part of your marketing strategy, you can contact us here or check out our article on Cascading Content here.

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Hubspot. An All-In-One Business Solution

We’ve already talked about the power of email marketing and how Mailchimp is a great solution for small businesses or those just starting out.

However, if you’re looking to scale your client base to several thousand contacts, you’re having trouble manually responding to and tracking every new lead your business develops, or you simply have more budget than time – we’d like to take a moment to introduce you to Hubspot.

As business owners we can easily mistake sales and marketing as two separate things. To me thats like saying you’d like to take the rum out of a pina colada! They work beautifully in usison when they work together. Separately, meh not so much!

So why Hubspot?

Hubspot is an industry-leading all-in-one software suite for businesses. It has a huge range of tools, including social media marketing, content management, web analytics, landing pages, customer support, and search engine optimization. You will still need to design like a pro though! 

 It is a great solution for businesses looking to make the most of their teams’ time by automating out much of the drudgery of scheduling marketing communications and tracking sales leads. If you find yourself struggling to follow-up with potential leads or close deals as you scale, Hubspot might be the perfect solution for you.

Hubspot also offers integration with hundreds of applications and will likely complement software your team already uses.

If you’re interested in learning more about Hubspot and whether it is a good fit for your business, check out their assessment tool here.

A word of warning

We should probably note that we have no affiliation with Hubspot and are not getting paid to write this article – we’re just big fans!

But just because Hubspot has the functionality to do everything under the sun does not mean it is the right solution for everyone.

If you are just getting started or have a small business, the pricing and seemingly limitless features of Hubspot may be overkill for what you need. Furthermore, if your business is largely offline or you aren’t comfortable with using complex software tools, you may feel overwhelmed by Hubspot.

If you aren’t going grey and tearing your hair out, you aren’t doing it right!

We recommend taking a look through their site and thinking carefully about how the software fits into your business plan before spending the time and money needed on getting set up.

Lastly, any implementation of any system is always difficult. If you aren’t going grey and tearing your hair out, you aren’t doing it right! Don’t believe what they say about how easy the transition is because there is always something that you need that you may have to find a workaround for! If you get stuck or just need to commiserate, you can always give us a call on 0274 38 20 38. or pop us an email here. 

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Skip anything BUT Email Marketing

Whether you are just starting out or already have a dedicated customer base, email marketing can be a powerful tool to build your brand and encourage customer retention.

Email can be easy to overlook in favour of social media, but if you ignore the inbox you could be missing out on one of the best channels to engage with your target audience.

Let’s take a look at the numbers:

  • 99% of consumers check their email every day
  • 59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.
  • >59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI.
  • 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-stats

Pretty impressive! And it makes sense – if someone is subscribed to your newsletter, they are either an existing customer or have expressed interest in your product. 

Compared with paying to advertise to a group of people who may or may not care about your business, with email marketing you are talking directly to someone who has told you they care about what you have to say.

Email marketing should function as a tool to maintain that relationship with your audience by keeping your communication consistent and valuable. This means reaching out consistently with information that people actually care about.

So what is the best way to start marketing through email?

Most email clients (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook etc.) offer some form of mail merge, which will allow you to email, multiple people, at the same time. 

However, these platforms have limited functionality and if you are serious about scaling your business we recommend using Mailchimp for your email marketing unless you are looking at an all-in-one system like Hubspot. If you are looking into that kind of set up check out our blog on Hubspot here. 

Mailchimp is a dedicated email marketing system which will allow you to create mailing lists (so you can send some email to existing customers vs. prospective customers for example), create professional newsletters, automate your email campaigns (set it and forget it), and integration with your e-commerce platform.

It also offers templates for all kinds of email communications, as well as signup forms you can drop on your website to collect new email addresses for your database.

Mailchimp also tracks what happens with your emails (e.g. which emails were opened, which ones went straight into the trash) and provides you with analytics to help you make more informed communications choices. It can be a powerful source of sales leads.

Most importantly, Mailchimp is affordable for small businesses and those just getting started.

Important tips:

  • You should have an existing relationship with anyone in your database (in other words, they should have “opted-in” to your emails), otherwise, it is probably not legal for you to be mass emailing them
  • Resist the temptation to pay for databases of contact information online – these are unlikely to convert to sales and may be a violation of the terms of service of your email provider
  • Take time to familiarize yourself with the features and look for articles online to walk you through the most commonly used features.

While we’re on the topic of email, don’t overlook one of the easiest ways to look professional while maximising free advertising… setting up an email signature!

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