3 Key Elements to a Successful Newsletter

A big part of my plan for monetizing sites that haven’t done well with my usual tactics is to create a great opt in gift and get people on my list.

Once you’ve got them on your list there are 3 key elements to make that list successful. You have to KEEP them on your list, build trust and make some sales.  Let’s look at these three elements your autoresponder series must have to be successful, no matter what niche you’re in.

1. Keep them on your list:

It is easy to unsubscribe from a list ~ there’s an unsub link at the bottom of every single email. All your reader has to do if they get annoyed or don’t want to stay is click it and they are gone.

How do you keep them on your list?

Quality content. While I do plan to make money from my list, and I’ll show you how I plan to do it I am not now, nor ever, advocating you just send people offer after offer after offer. Think about how that makes you feel. You sign up for a list. The person sends you content 1 maybe 3 times and then forever after it’s offer offer offer ~ and of course it’s increasingly expensive offers as they work you up their funnel. No ~ not my plan at all.

Content: I plan to create a newsletter of sorts. This will work in just about any niche ~ there’s plenty to talk about no matter what subject you’re talking about.

This newsletter will go out regularly (for the simple chicken recipes site it will be once a week). The newsletter will have a new recipe I’ve tried, some sort of tip ~ like for saving money on groceries, cooking related ~ something related to the topic of my sites ~ which is chicken recipes, and a Q and A section where I answer questions people have about related topics.

So that’s the outline ~ is it a lot to do ~ yeah. It is. BUT… (and this one’s big) you don’t have to do them ALL before you get started. You can do a few to keep you ahead of your subscribers and then do one newsletter a week and put it in the que to go out automatically from there on.

Your content is what’s going to keep them. Think about the emails/newsletters you get now. Who do you always read? Who do you always open? Think about why that is? My guess is you get something great from them each time you do. BE that.

Build Trust:

Building trust is key ~ if you don’t build trust with your subscribers they just won’t buy from you. Would you? Would you buy from an email if you think the sender is untrustworthy? I know I don’t.

Thankfully building trust is pretty easy. Be you. Really, be a real person. Let people see that you’re a real person. Let people into your life a little.  For this recipe site I talk about my love of cooking, my cooking failures, the tricks I’ve learned to save money ~ all sprinkled with real stories from my real life.

I am a mom ~ my target market is busy moms trying to get dinner on the table. It’s pretty easy to connect with the market ~ because I AM the market. I let them know that, and that builds trust.

Another way to build trust is to NEVER recommend junk. No matter what kind of commission you can get. Never create or recommend junk. It only takes one bad taste in someone’s mouth for them to lose trust in you. Of course everything won’t work for everyone, but never recommend something just for the commission. Always think of your subscriber first ~ will it help them? Will it do them some good? Would you feel good if someone recommended it to you and you spent YOUR money on it?

Make some sales:

This is where it can get iffy for people ~ myself included! I know I have grown up thinking “sales people are smarmy” and I don’t want to be sold to. I told the story of the sales guy at the car dealership when my mom went to buy a car she really really wanted. No one wants to be that guy. However, you do want to make some sales.

To makes sales you’re going to have to make offers.

2 ways to make offers.

1. The soft sell: This is something you should do in EVERY email, from the very first one. I had a hard time swallowing this, but I’ve noticed a HUGE increase in sales since I started doing it.  If you soft sell them in the first email they won’t be surprised and indignant in the second or third or when they get an entire promotional email.

How to use the soft sell

At the bottom of your email, or even in the body of your email if the product is relevant,  slip in a quick note about something that might help them. It’s an offer to help them make something easier, quicker, whatever. This is not hard sell, this is just hey ~ I found this/know about this and it might help you.

In my first email of my recipe series I offer up a service called Tastebook. It’s an awesome site where people can pull in recipes from the net, their own recipe boxes ~ anywhere and create a real hardcover cookbook that is sent to your house. You can also buy credits for more pages, and keep adding to your cookbook over time. I mentioned this because I know that all the recipes I print off the computer and use in my kitchen get wet and blurry. Tastebook is a great way to overcome that problem. Tastebook pages don’t run. (and the book has all recipes my family will really eat)

Yes, I’m going to get a commission if they set up a Tastebook Account and make a cookbook ~ but the point is it will really help THEM get dinner on the table much easier if they don’t have to find/hunt down and replace messed up printed recipes.

Hard (er) sell:

There are people who will tell you to send your subscribers an email, give them a time limit ~ really hard sell them. I just can’t do that.

Instead I’ve chosen to create a whole promotional email. One email focused on one product. Of course, the product is relevant to the market (not necessarily specifically what the newsletter is about). I don’t hard sell it though. I talk about how it can help them, the benefits of the product and then link to it.

For my chicken recipes newsletter I really thought about what people who read that newsletter might want/need in life.  Here’s some ideas I had… meal planning, cookbooks, quick easy workout programs. Busy moms who are trying to get dinner on the table might be interested in all of these things. You can see they are not all about recipes… but all about what the market needs.

Don’t get stuck into thinking you have to sell exactly what your newsletter is about ~ think about your market, what they like, what they do, where they struggle, and then provide them product suggestions that can help them in their lives.

There you have the 3 key elements of a successful newsletter and autoresponder series.  I’ll be going into more detail about how I set my series up in my next blog post so stay tuned!

If you want to work with me to get your autoresponder series and newsletter set up join the KISS Club. We can brainstorm and get you up and running.

PS. As I was writing this post it dawned on me that most of what I’m telling you I learned from Affiliatenaire. A step by step list building course by Jimmy Brown. I took it a couple years ago and during the whole course I couldn’t see how I could make it work. Now it all makes perfect sense. I think I will review the course and see what else might work well now.