eMail Newsletters - Develop Your Strategy First


The process of starting an email newsletter for your small business involves focusing on these aspects: strategy, tactics and tools. It makes sense to approach them in a logical order from high-level thinking through to detailed work.

Strategy First

This is where you consider that your newsletter strategy flows from your overall marketing strategy. These are the goals typically related to email campaigns:
  • Build relationships, community
  • Grow your reputation, sphere of influence
  • Be seen as an expert
  • Share valuable info, products, services
  • Increase your social media following
  • Give value to your customers, prospects and colleagues on a regular basis
From that list, identify 2-3 goals that relate directly back to your marketing strategy. These will guide your thinking and planning moving forward with your email campaign.

Aside from goals, your newsletter strategy also needs to consider 'who'. Depending on the breadth of your target market, this might be a subset of your overall market. This step is important - your newsletter campaign will be more successful if you figure this out now rather than later.

Now that you know your goals and who you want to talk to, it's time to figure out what content would be valuable to them. Value generally means useful or interesting - or both! The trick is to pinpoint your unique content marketing opportunity. Here is an example of how to do that.

Developing your newsletter strategy before you start into detailed work will help to shape your next moves. You may not know all the "best" answers now but working through this process means you'll be alert to information that might impact your strategy going forward. A good strategy always needs review and maybe revision.

Download a fillable worksheet to capture your thoughts now.

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