How To Write A Profitable Newsletter Readers Love

- In this video, I'm gonna walk you through how to create a newsletter for your business. One that will get you great returns on your bottom line. Plus, one of HubSpot's own email marketing experts is gonna show you how easy it is to make and send a newsletter.

We're also gonna reveal a major piece of data that completely changes one of the most common pieces of advice you've likely heard about email marketing. I honestly can't believe no one is talking about this. What's up?

It's Jamal from HubSpot. Now, if you're like me, your inbox gets filled with dozens, if not hundreds, of emails every single day. Many of which are marketing emails that get deleted or ignored.

Which might make you wonder is anybody reading all of these emails? Fair question, but it actually should make you wonder am I missing out by not sending a newsletter for my business? And the answer is yes.

Because email marketing generates an amazing 36 to one ROI. That is a higher return than SEO marketing or pay per click advertising. To see those kinds of returns for your business, you need an email operation that is efficient and effective.

That's why I have a free newsletter guide that you can download for free available in the description. Really just giving away the keys to the kingdom with this guide. Seriously, check it out.

Now you might be wondering, what am I gonna put in my newsletter? That can really depend on your business, but there are some important rules that I can share with you when it comes to newsletter content. First, the content has to provide something useful for the reader.

And that doesn't just mean telling them how great your product or service is. In fact, the first rule of thumb that your newsletter should follow should be 90% educational and only 10% promotional. Yes, there are other types of sales and marketing emails that have more promotional content.

And you can learn more about those by watching other videos on our best email marketing tips playlist. But when it comes to newsletters, you want to convince users to click open. Even if a sale isn't immediate result.

Maybe they just wanna read a piece of blog content, a quick how-to guide, or maybe a collection of industry news. It really depends on your niche. If you need some inspiration to help you imagine what newsletter content might be right for your business, that free email newsletter guide I mentioned a few minutes ago, includes dozens of examples of effective newsletters that work for a wide array of business.

Truly magical, honestly. Rule number two of newsletter content, keep it brief. An email is not the place for article length content.

Remember that most people learn what they need from headlines. So make sure your content is simple enough that the reader can skim it and still get the point. That's why the New York Times sums up its headlines at the very top of its daily newsletter.

It's also why these two newsletters include charts and infographics for readers to quickly digest the main message while Shopify, for example, uses its newsletter to lure readers into conversations taking place on the company's online community forum. If the reader is interested in learning more, they'll click to find it. And speaking of clicks, that takes us to newsletter content rule number three, pick one primary call to action.

This goes along with keeping it simple. You don't want to overwhelm the reader with too many options. Of course you can have additional links, but every newsletter should have one main action that uses a prominent CTA button to hammer home.

And lastly, your email needs a good subject line. If you're not sure what the difference is between a bad subject line and a good subject line, don't worry HubSpot published a free ebook, 100 hundred subject lines we actually clicked that you can grab down in the description. You find examples for every type of marketing email including newsletters that subscribers just have to.

And I know this seems like a lot of stuff to download, but I swear using these tools is the fastest way to launch your newsletter. So like I said, it is pretty easy to launch a successful newsletter, but as anyone who's been responsible for keeping up a regular email cadence will tell you coming up with new content week after week or month after month can be a lot of work. The best way to not get overwhelmed is by having a content calendar that you can follow.

That's why I've got one more free download for you to grab. Just click the email planning template kit to get what you need. So now that you've downloaded all these tools, I think you're ready to start creating an awesome newsletter.

The next question is, how are you gonna send it? You never wanna send a newsletter from your personal or business email. Why not?

For starters, you risk your personal email being labeled as spam which can hurt delivery of all your emails in the future. You need a professional email tool to handle all of the backend legal requirements for sending promotional emails. HubSpot has an email marketing tool that will let you send up to 2000 emails a month for free.

Features all the bells and whistles of more expensive email platforms and it integrates with HubSpot's total CRM marketing hub. So you can grow all of your marketing initiatives with one centralized system. The next question is, who are you gonna send the newsletter to?

Hopefully your business already has a list of past clients and potential leads just waiting to hear from you. Just eagerly waiting in the wings being like I sure do hope that I hear from you soon, you know? But no matter if you're starting with 10 emails or 10,000, our channel has a video dedicated entirely to building and growing your email list.

So I'm gonna throw a link to that video, you guessed it, in the description. But there's one tip you need to know now. One that you literally won't find in any other email marketing video out there.

Trust me, I've looked. Here it is. For years, it's been widely accepted that the best email lists use double opt in to ensure a high quality list even if it means sacrificing the size of your list.

But a 2020 study reveal that businesses that use single opt in lists see an ROI that is almost double the ROI using lists that are mainly double opt in. Seriously, why is no one talking about this? Look, setting up a confirmation email isn't a bad idea when collecting new subscribers on your site, but the point is, if you already have a collection of legitimate emails that are single opt in, go ahead and send them your newsletter.

The data proves that your overall ROI will be higher. Now, speaking of data, there's one last thing I wanna talk about and that's email analytics. Like everything for your business, you need to monitor the ROI.

And for a newsletter, it's pretty easy. Start with the number of emails you send then multiply it by the open rate, the click rate and the conversion rate. Then multiply that number by the average dollar value of each conversion or the lifetime value of a customer, if that makes sense.

Next, calculate the cost of sending each email. Be sure to include the cost of any email tools, your internal hours to create the email, and any exclusive content and any external costs. Finally divide the cost per email by your net conversion revenue and multiply by 100.

You probably won't hit that wonderful 36 to one ROI right away. So I'm gonna explain a few more analytics and what they mean for your quest to get maximum returns on your email newsletter investment. If you want to get a higher open rate, focus on writing better subject lines.

Improving click through means working on your email copy and CTAs. And low conversions mean your landing pages aren't working as well as they should. And finally track your list growth and encourage your current readers to forward the email to their friends if you want a boost in readers.

Follow these steps that I laid out, download the free tools, and in a matter of days you can be sending out your first newsletter. If you want more guidance, HubSpot Academy offers a free online certification course that will take you through each step. That 36 to one ROI is closer than you think.

And until then, I'm looking forward to seeing your newsletter in my inbox. I'll see you next time. - Our software's the worst.

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