An email newsletter is one of the most effective online marketing tools with possibly the highest conversion rate of any alternative (pay per click, inbound marketing, etc). Admittedly that isn’t fair to the other methods because email is farther down the funnel – people had to sign up for your newsletter from somewhere, after all, in most cases through a form on your website.
Email converts so well because people already know you. They went to your website, read a bit about who you are and what you do, and willingly gave you access to their inbox in return for something special.
Disclaimer: Talking about how great you are isn’t special. Linking out to your TV commercial on YouTube isn’t special. If you don’t think anybody would pay for what’s in the email, it probably isn’t worth sending.
That may seem excessive – why give away something people would pay for for free? – but that’s what marketing has come to. Think of those few lost dollars as a part of your marketing budget. Rather than paying for direct-mail pamphlets or a billboard you can use that money to send out something really useful to people on your email list.
Most email newsletters are either educational or provide some kind of discount (e.g. coupons). The latter is generally easy to implement (and sell!) but good educational content is more challenging because it can be difficult to avoid excessive self-promotion. A well-crafted how-to video is a perennial classic, but it should be more “documentary” than “infomercial” if you don’t want people to unsubscribe en masse. Don’t squander that precious mailing list once you’ve built it!