How To Start a Newsletter and Earn Subscribers

1. Develop an email marketing strategy

Every successful email marketing strategy will do the same things well, but it'll do them in a way that's on-brand and appeals to its target audience. You'll want to set up a list of standard newsletter prerequisites while remaining true to your branding and message.

You’ll need the following components in your strategy:

• Goals: Know whether you want to drive website traffic to social media platforms, a website, or achieve some other attention-related goal.
• Email frequency: While many companies send monthly newsletters, you may decide to send your email campaign less or more frequently.
• Audience segments: You need accurate customer profiles that are segmented into subcategories that match the various types of people who engage with your brand.
• Brand guidelines: It’s important to ensure that your newsletters remain on brand and are consistent.
• Software and tools: The right email marketing tools can help you deliver newsletters much more efficiently and provide insight into which elements worked well.
• Templates: Your template should clarify to those who will fill it out what goes where, what tone to strike, and where to source information. The template you use will also determine your email newsletter format.
• Send time: Sending emails at the right time ensures your subscribers will actually open the newsletter they receive instead of letting them sit in their inboxes.

While this isn't a complete list for creating a good newsletter strategy, it'll get you off to a strong start and put you ahead of the competition. In addition to the components above, you may also want to consider adding key performance indicators (KPIs) and campaign metrics to your strategy.

2. Use the right email marketing software

The best email marketing software for you will suit your budget and be easy to use and integrate. It may also be rich in features to ensure that it meets your specific needs and offer accurate and actionable analytics. It can also provide top-quality customer support at all subscription levels and offer constant updates to meet your future needs.

Email marketing software takes a lot of the heavy lifting off your hands while enabling you to focus on what you do best–serving your customers and upholding your unique value proposition.

3. Make an email subscription form

Unfortunately, one can't simply start sending newsletters to people who didn't ask for them. There are many regulations and anti-spam laws in place that protect consumer data, so asking for permission before sending email marketing messages is vital.

For this reason, you need a newsletter subscription form that has the following:

• A simple sign up process: The quicker your sign up process is, the more likely individuals will fill it out and submit it.
• A streamlined design with no distractions: By limiting the distractions on the page, you can increase the likelihood of people completing the form.
• Content selection: You may want to give them the chance to opt for or against different types of articles and marketing materials.
• Form fields as needed: Provide a field for all the information you want or need from the subscriber. Make sure to keep it simple.
• Accurate contact lists: Contacts should be verified and high quality.
• Confirmation emails and messages: New subscribers should get a message confirming their subscription.
• Compatibilities: Your newsletter sign up form should be able to be embedded on websites and other locations.

4. Encourage site visitors to subscribe

Anyone who makes a purchase, visits your site, consumes content, and so forth should be given an opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter. Any action that resembles a move toward the end of the sales funnel could be considered a qualifying action.

Attention to your brand should trigger an opportunity to subscribe. The more value you provide in your newsletter content, the more likely this kind of effort will turn visitors into customers.

5. Create a landing page for your newsletter

Landing pages are simple things. They tell the user that they have arrived at the place they expected to go and are about to get what they were looking for. The amount of content on your landing page should be minimal but on-brand.

Images are an essential part of a good landing page. Images should be high quality and high resolution. They must also reflect the character of your organization, products, and services.

Also, it's important to make sure your landing pages are mobile-friendly.

6. Build segmented email lists

Segmenting contact lists can prove challenging for many people. It takes effective metrics and customer feedback to develop a functional email segmentation strategy. The good news is that we can help you easily create audience segments using your existing email analytics.

So that's a big help. We'll take much of the burden off of you in the early stages, and it'll give you valuable experience as you continue to develop accurate audience segmentation. This process will persist for as long as you want to curate effective contact lists and maintain a strong loyalty base. Plus, you can continue to focus on learning how to start an email newsletter instead of spending hours segmenting your contacts.

7. Design your newsletter

Just as every news program, magazine, and book - even on the same topic - will have a distinct look and feel, your newsletter should also reflect your brand and be different from all other newsletters. While you can work with a professional graphic designer, you can also use a drag and drop editor to create a unique design for your newsletter.

Whether you decide for someone else to create your newsletter design or do it yourself, it's a good idea to have the following elements:

• Subject line
• Pre-header
• Body
• Graphics
• CTA
• Footer

8. Write the newsletter content

Now for the hard part, developing valuable, actionable content. The material you fill your newsletter with should be timely, relevant, and offer real value to your audience. It should match the tone they prefer and understand.

After all, more than 300 billion emails are sent and received daily, so it’s important to stand out from the competition as much as possible (via Statista). You can distinguish your newsletters in a sea of emails by creating a unique, clear, and engaging subject line.

Ideally, your newsletter content should answer questions and concerns that are currently preventing returning customers from making another purchase. Are they concerned about potential flaws in an upcoming product model? Is there an issue a previous purchase isn't designed to meet? What new laws are or will affect the ways your customers use the things you sell?

If you master these, you're well on your way to knowing everything you need to know about how to start a subscription newsletter.

9. Preview, test, and send

Now that you have content to fill out your newsletter, allow trusted friends and partners to review it. Do they like the way it looks? Is it slick and informative? Does it exude professionalism?

Try viewing it on multiple platforms. Try it on both desktop and mobile devices. Having done all of that, sit down with your team and brainstorm ways to improve and simplify your newsletter's look, feel, and responsiveness. Most importantly, is the content well-written and concise, and does it impart valuable information that your audience will want?

If you and your team agree that it meets all these standards, then the time to start sending it to real contacts has arrived. Go ahead. Put on a brave face, and click "Send."

Send email newsletters with Mailchimp

In reality, starting a newsletter is easy. But making a quality newsletter that curates brand loyalty and gains subscribers takes work. The good news is that what goes into a quality newsletter is well established and proven.

Mailchimp is an award-winning, multi-channel email marketing platform with a wide range of services and subscription levels to suit your needs and budget. So, if you want to enhance your email newsletters, get started with Mailchimp today.