Getting Serious About Email Newsletter Marketing

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Getting Serious About Email Newsletter Marketing

Posted in Email Marketing Tips	August 22, 2005

Permalink: http://daily.mequoda.com/i//email_marketing_tips/email_newsletter_marketing_42-1.html

Executive Summary

Successful Email Newsletter Marketing Programs are Editorially Driven
Effective Email Newsletter Marketing Programs Have High Contact Frequency
Editorial Quality Drives Free Email Newsletter Retention Rates & Profits

The publisher of a small group of B2C print newsletters and other related information products decided to get serious about her email newsletter marketing efforts. She had a free, opt-in, monthly email newsletter on the same topic as her print newsletters, but had never put much effort into it. She was serious about sending promotional email to the email newsletter list, and did so several times per month with some success. Her email newsletter annual retention rate was about 48 percent, with more than 90 percent of the unsubscribe requests coming from the promotional emails.

Opportunity: After studying a number of other publishers with successful free (or controlled circulation) email newsletter marketing programs, she came to a number of conclusions:

First, she needed to dramatically improve the quality of the editorial in her email newsletter and give readers a reason to read them. To this end, she hired a new email newsletter editor with news experience in her market.
Next, she noted that successful email newsletters were weekly and often daily. She decided that daily was the best option, as she could offer breaking news to drive her email newsletter content.
Finally she noted that most of the successful email newsletter marketing programs she studied limited the number of promotional emails to less than half the frequency of the editorially-driven email newsletters. She decided to limit the number of promotional emails to two per week, meaning that five out of seven emails sent would be primarily editorial in nature.

Results: Her email newsletter marketing program is now 17 percent of her revenues—an increase of more than 900 percent year over year. This, with continued steady growth in her other direct marketing sources. Her email newsletter retention rate is now averaging 70 to 75 percent, and increasing slowly as she fine-tunes the email newsletter content based on reader feedback. Her email newsletter marketing database has tripled. She is just beginning to market her email newsletter directly, and is seriously considering spinning the email newsletter out into its own Mequoda Editorial Hub to accelerate the growth of her email newsletter marketing database.

Lessons: Successful email marketing is about getting qualified, opt-in emails addresses and then getting your email opened and read on an ongoing basis. An email newsletter relationship that is no more than a steady stream of ads won't work any better than a magazine with no editorial content and only ads. Further, Mequoda research shows that readers will bond with the author of a daily email newsletter in much the same way that they will bond with the author of a daily newspaper column. This is a very powerful branded content relationship.

Mequoda Library Members Only: For in-depth reporting on Internet Strategy visit the Internet Strategy for Publishers and Authors TOC Page, or check out these related reports:

The Mequoda Method™ A Seven-Habit Website Management System, by Don Nicholas
Generating Website Revenue, by Don Nicholas
Mequoda Habit #3: Building a Website Network, by Don Nicholas
Your Traffic Building Checklist, by Ali K. Brown
How to Get E-zine Subscribers From Live, In-person Events, by Ali K. Brown

COMMENTS

As a publisher of print newsletters, I'm concerned that giving away a free electronic newsletter with high quality content will hurt sales of my print products. Is this a reasonable fear? Was the client mentioned in this case study concerned about it? Did creating the new e-newsletter hurt sales of the print pub?

Comment by: Steve M | August 22, 2005

No it will not hurt your products at all. At http://www.psychotactics.com -- we give away tons of information. You can see that each newsletter/article or piece of information is complete, often exceeding 1500 words or so. Yet all it does is reduces risk, and increases customer trust.

For all the electronic information we sell, there is a whole chunk of people (me included) who want to read when they're not at the computer. I think you need to create a system, where a customer can choose the online newsletter or the online + print.

You create the 'Yes and Yes' Factor. Read: http://www.psychotactics.com/artyes.htm

So they choose between online and online/print -- and they come back to buy even more of your products.

Sean http://www.psychotactics.com

Comment by: Sean D | August 22, 2005

It is a logical fear, but it turns out that giving away free content is the best way to sell information products online.

Free content attracts search traffic and build a loyal readership.

We've documented many publishers who give away 1,000s of pages of free content that then sell millions of dollars in print newsletters, books, eBooks, and other information products.

It does require a strategy for what you give and what you sell to maximize the effect. Peter Schaible's Case Study on the Motley Fool details how they generate 700 pages of free content every month to sell the 70 pages (seven 10 page newsletters):

http://www.mequodalibrary.com/i/2_28/fool_internet_strategy_case_study_716-1.html

Jane Zarem's case study on the Daily Reckoning tells a similar tale:

http://www.mequodalibrary.com/i/2_26/dailyreckoning_website_profile_711-1.html

Happy Reading...

Don

Comment by: Don N | August 22, 2005

Also try free with restrictions.

Customers love what they can't have :)

Sean http://www.psychotactics.com

Comment by: Sean D | August 22, 2005

I presume 17% of revenues is a substantial amount, and exceeds the added costs of fulfillment and the considerable additional editorial expense associated with a daily enewsletter.

This is a great, inspiring case study which I will file away for future reference. When I read cases like this, I am always reminded of the "it depends" factor. There are many considerations when determining frequency of any publication, free or paid -- news flow, demands and interests of the audience, urgency, revenue potential, subscriber burn-out/opt-out rates and lifetime value, etc.

Comment by: Ed C | August 26, 2005

Hi Ed:

It is an inspiring case study.

The program will do north of $1M in revenue for 2005. And the margins are very good. Oddly, the email newsletter marketing program is also having a positive impact on her traditional DM program by increasing the size of her buyer file.

To your other very valid comment: I'm always impressed with the number of right ways to run a business. As author Jim Collins points out, executing a strategy well is much more important that which strategy you choose.

Thanks for the feedback,

Don

Comment by: Don N | August 26, 2005

Hi! Do you have a product or content similar to Alexandria Browns E-Zine marketing e-book? Lots of people recommend her e-book, and price goes up substantially the 1st. Any thoughts? Thanks, David Scott Lynn

Comment by: David L | December 26, 2006

Hi David,

The closest product we have would be our Special Report titled How to Start and Run an Effective Internet Marketing System <http://books.mequoda.com/mequoda_books/hsreims_landing.html>.

The best content you'd get for your buck though would be to join the Mequoda Library <http://library.mequoda.com>, where you get immediate access to that report plus literally hundreds of others for one very low price. Library memebership gives you full HTML and PDF access to every report and case study we publish for the price it'd cost to buy 2 or 3 reports individually. Plus there's a 3 day free trial - you should check it out!

As for Alexandria's prices going up on the 1st, there's a chance that if you call customer service and mention a lower price you saw earlier, they may just grant it to you.

Hope that's helpful. :)

Kim

Comment by: kim m | January 4, 2007

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