Each year, we find new ways to improve upon old tactics. Today, we’ll discuss how you can improve the effectiveness of your newsletter marketing by making it interactive. After all, newsletters are an excellent vehicle to grow sales, enabling you to cost-effectively keep in touch with prospects and customers alike.
Interactive newsletters offer many different ways to build stronger connections with readers and improve your ROI. If done correctly, they ensure your readers will want to engage with you.
So what makes a newsletter interactive? Chances are it’s not what you think. And surprisingly, an interactive newsletter can be done pretty easily. Below are seven great ways to make your newsletter interactive. Check them out:
1. Collect Feedback
Getting your readers engaged can be as simple as asking them for their input. For instance, in this month’s Strategic Vantage newsletter, we asked readers to tell us what topics they’d like us to cover in future blogs. That simple question will create engagement.
Surveys are also a great way to engage readers and get them thinking about your offerings. If the topic is interesting, newsy or controversial, they will be more likely to respond, even if it is just to see how other people voted.
There are plenty of online apps that enable you to poll readers on topics of interest. You can post the results in a future newsletter or let readers see the results in real time through a link to your website. We recommend keeping polls simple – one question is enough to draw someone’s interest.
2. Make a Video Connection
Would your product or service be better explained visually? Would you like to create a more personal relationship with your clients and prospects? Creating a bond with them becomes much easier with video. Try using videos and let readers download them from your newsletter.
Videos are great for not only showcasing products and services, but can also let readers “meet” the people in your company or visit your company’s headquarters. In fact, one of your staff members can easily create a Facebook Live video and you could link to it from your newsletter.
3. Share Specific Content
It may seem like a no-brainer to link blogs in your newsletter to your company website, but you can go further to create more engagement. For example, if your newsletter is about non-QM jumbo loans, you can direct readers to a page on your website that provides more detail on non-QM jumbo loans.
An even better approach is to hire an expert to have a white paper professionally written on a topic of interest to your customers. You can use the newsletter to give readers a “sneak peek” at the white paper’s contents, and then invite readers to download the white paper off your website.
4. Offer Online Demos
Hopefully you are using your newsletter to inform and educate people, not simply ask for their business. But it is also OK to discuss your offerings. If you are launching new software or announcing a new loan program, chances are your readers will want to know more.
By providing a link to an online demo, your readers can get much more information about your new product than you could ever fit in a newsletter. Your online demo can be a web page that describes how your product works through a combination of text, images, animation or video.
5. Hold Contests
People love giveaways and great deals. Holding a contest or creating a special offer on your product or service is a simple but effective attention-getter – and a smart way to build up contact lists of potential customers.
Offering a discount on your product by entering a special code or giving something away to the first ten people who respond to your newsletter can be great ways to get people to click to your website and build some excitement.
6. Let Readers Share
The vast majority of us use social media, and many of us use it daily. Why not make it easy for your readers to share your newsletter with friends and colleagues? By including social media buttons and links in every article, you can make your content easier for readers to share with their own followers. If you make it easy for them, your biggest fans will share your articles simply because they like you. We hope you’ll share this blog on one of your social media platforms!
7. Include Previous Blogs
Not every newsletter is going to interest every reader. By including links to previous blogs you’ve written, readers will see that your expertise is much broader. They will also be reminded that you are regularly sending out free, valuable information and advice.
The benefits of creating an interactive newsletter are many. An interactive newsletter will prompt your readers to take action, which creates deeper relationships and makes your readers more likely to remember you when they need help. But beware! Before you seek to make your newsletter interactive, make sure your current newsletter is representing your company well and is generating optimal ROI.
To ensure your newsletter is not an impediment to your company’s growth, click here and read our blog on 7 abominable newsletter marketing mistakes.
If you would like advice or help with your newsletter or any other marketing, public relations or social media project, reach out to us at (305) 971-6239 or Info@StrategicVantage.com. It would be our pleasure to be of assistance.
By Rosalie Berg, President, Strategic Vantage