Email marketing is one of the most cost efficient and effective forms of marketing. According to The Herald-Mail, in 2010 there were about 1.88 billion email users worldwide. These users sent 107 trillion emails, with an average of 294 billion emails sent every day.
The magnitude of the importance of email is even more apparent when compared with social media. Social media may be getting all the buzz, but email is still the largest social network. While there are 800 million active Facebook accounts, email is still much larger with 2.9 billion accounts today. Twitter holds a distant third place with 300 million users. Each day users send 188 billion messages via email, 60 million updates via facebook, and 140 million tweets via Twitter. While there has been a decrease in the average number of emails sent daily from 2010 to today, possibly due to other forms of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, email still far overshadows other forms of online communication.
With such a vast number of email users, brands have long been able to depend on email to promote their products. Brands can successfully drive readership, create an audience, and generate revenue at a very low price. It all begins with users opt-in into an email list. Brands can manage their databases by using an email list manager such as Constant Contact or MailChimp. Both allow the capability to track the progress of email campaigns.
Collecting emails can be achieved by using web forms. Subscribers fill out basic information such as full name, email and topics of interest. A user can also choose to select multiple topics of interest which can then be used to target the subscriber by their interests.
There are many online and offline methods brands can take to collect email addresses. For newspapers there are many methods as well, and they are as follow:
- Circulation departments should have an opt-in option on subscription forms and invoices.
- Ad reps and classified departments can ask their clients to opt-in for them to stay up to date on upcoming deals and promotions held by the paper.
- Newsroom departments can ask their readers to opt-in for them to keep up to date on important matters affecting their community.
- Newspapers can take it a step further by gathering emails during local events.
- All web forms on a newspaper’s website should have an opt-in option.
- Newspapers should add an easy-to-find link or banner to their opt-in subscribe page.
- The sky’s the limit.
After a newspaper collects a solid list of emails it can then send out editorial and promotional content to its readers. Below is a list of e-newsletter content that has proven to be successful campaigns for The Herald-Mail.
- Breaking news
- Weather
- Top headlines
- Sports scores
- Obituaries
- Calendar
- Special offers
- Entertainment
- Food and dining
- Contests
- Favorite recipes
- Week in review
These e-newsletters can also be monetized by the newspaper. If the newspaper has a weekly or daily e-newsletter it can place advertising such as leaderboard ad/s on them. According to The Herald-Mail, Leaderboard ads have proven to be an effective size ad for e-newsletters.
There are many other types of e-newsletters a newspaper can send out to their subscribers, some of which have shown to have successful open rates. Examples include:
- Happy birthday e-newsletters have a 57% open rate; they help grow database, drive page views, and engage audiences.
- Snow poll e-newsletters help drive audience engagement.
- Open house e-newsletters make money, drive audience, generate leads, and provide an option that is “something different” for advertisers.
- Using the special interest categories for e-newsletters helps target subscribers with specific interests. These types of e-newsletters can be advertiser driven, so if the subscriber opts-in to promotional items they will then receive these newsletters.
Even if it’s not getting the same attention as newer forms of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, email marketing is both very cost efficient and highly effective. Newspapers can use email to drive readership, create and engage an audience, and generate revenue.