Newsletters Are Helping These Companies Save Money And Bring A Personal Touch Into Their Marketing Strategies

• Small business owners say that email marketing is one of the most profitable ways to reach an audience.
• Newsletters are a more direct channel for customers and can sometimes get more attention than social media marketing.
• These growing businesses share how they saved money and built more personal relationships through email marketing.

Brandi Thomason McNair began sending out email newsletters shortly after launching her Bella Vita jewelry business in 2008.

"It was the right thing to do," he told Insider. "It was very green and I didn't have a driving school or anything like that. I just thought I had to follow people somehow."

To encourage early subscriptions to the newsletter, he posted a subscription list each week on a table he set up at a local farmer's market, and anyone who signed up for the mailing list could win a pair of earrings. Since then, McNair has created other ways to distribute the newsletter to customers, including a pop-up notification on the website and a mention of the newsletter when customers check out at its physical store in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Each Bella Vita newsletter, sent out weekly, features a piece of jewelry and features other products and announcements of events, new releases or sales, according to McNair. It has about 6,800 subscribers and a newsletter open rate of more than 50%, above the industry average of just over 20%, according to a 2019 study by Mailchimp.

"I see value in people letting me send messages to their inbox," McNair said. "I think it's special and important because it means they like what I do."

Email marketing can be a cost-effective way for small businesses to market themselves and share information with their target audience. According to eMarketer, 67% of marketers invest in email marketing and 48% of millennial consumers prefer to receive offers from brands via email.

Small business owners can create an email newsletter without a huge budget or marketing team. These growing businesses are discovering some potential benefits of email marketing.

This gives companies a direct channel to their audience.

Gathering customer information is one of the most valuable aspects of email marketing, according to McNair. "I feel like my mailing list is, in some ways, my most valuable asset. It's mine. I have full control of it. I know the emails will end up in someone's inbox. A."

He added that email has become more reliable than social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which often require businesses to pay for ads. Recent updates to Apple's iOS 14 have also made it impossible for advertisers to track users across mobile apps and websites, often preventing advertisers from targeting specific audiences.

"The importance of a newsletter is that you're actually building your audience," Anna Gorovoy, co-founder and chief brand officer of Shaker & Spoon, a subscription-based cocktail club, told Insider.

Possessing raw customer data collected from people who interact with websites or apps, as well as zero-side data, or information that customers voluntarily share with companies, allows them to provide content that is more personal to them, Gorovy said.

Shaker & Spoon, founded in 2015, uses a pop-up window on a website to collect visitors' email addresses and phone numbers. To encourage people to sign up, the company uses a "spin to win" game that people can play to get a discount code, Gorovoy said.

Data helps companies personalize content

According to a 2022 Merkle study, about 90% of consumers said they like receiving offers from brands based on their interests and shopping or browsing history, and are willing to provide more personal information to companies after an experience positive with them.

E-marketing platforms can help businesses understand what content recipients are engaging with, what items they're viewing on an e-commerce site, and what they're buying as a result. These metrics help businesses personalize content, such as product deals or offers, that are more relevant to customers.

For example, McNair used email marketing data to identify customers who hadn't returned to its website in recent months, then sent a discount code to encourage them to buy again.

According to Gorovoy, Shaker & Spoon uses the data to segment its newsletter subscribers and send different emails to different groups of people. He explained that some emails are sent to cocktailbox subscribers and others to newsletter subscribers, even if they haven't purchased anything. Some newsletters are targeted to specific groups based on past purchases and preferences.

Gorovoy's company sends out newsletters twice a week, and often includes information about the contents of the monthly subscription box, alcoholic drink recommendations, or information about discounts and events.

Businesses can attract customers and inspire purchases

Mailchimp experts say that regular emails can refresh a brand's products and services in your audience's memory and increase brand awareness.

Shaker & Spoon's email open rates are in excess of 50%, which Gorovoy says is a result of targeting the majority of email campaigns to subscribers who have reached out via email in recent weeks. The company also strives to send emails no more than twice a week to avoid bombarding customer inboxes. "Email marketing has always worked very well for us. You should always be looking to improve engagement and get higher open rates."

McNair admitted that while he appreciates the sales generated by his emails, he also appreciates the opportunity to interact with customers on a regular basis and loves it when people respond to emails with positive feedback.

"Not every email sent out will be successful or lead to sales, but I think it's still consistent," he said. "People know you're there even if they're not buying anything.

Newsletters provide ROI

According to a Litmus survey of more than 2,000 marketers, for every dollar spent on email newsletters, companies can earn $36 in return, indicating a potentially higher return on investment compared to other forms of digital marketing. .

Govoroy runs the Shaker & Spoon newsletter herself, with the help of the company's small marketing team. "Over the last eight years, I've honed my email marketing skills," he said, adding that he uses online resources like Really Good Emails and subscribes to other companies' newsletters for ideas and advice.

McNair usually creates the Bella Vita newsletter, but sometimes he hires a friend to help him out. She said she was considering hiring a marketing company to take over the newsletter, but thought it was more cost-effective to continue it herself.

Both business owners say the time they spend on their newspapers pays off in increasing sales. McNair said a recent posting on summer hats generated $550 in sales.

Email also builds and maintains customer relationships. Govoroy encourages small business owners to send out a newsletter and experiment to see what type of content works best.

"Don't let the best be the enemy of the good, just try to start and iterate as you go," he said. "If you're not doing email marketing, you're leaving some serious money on the table."

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