These days, people often forget about newsletters. Yes, business newsletters are a heritage tool for marketing teams returning to the paper era. But the fact is that newsletters are still an incredibly valuable tool for your business, but only when done right.
Newsletters allow you to communicate directly with prospects and customers by delivering valuable content and relevant promotions to their inboxes. But approaching your newsletter like you did five years ago, or even two years ago, is a mistake many marketers make. To create an effective business newsletter, like any decent piece of content, you must create it with your audience's experience in mind.
This is by no means an easy task. But, with the right approach and the correct format, you can create a newsletter your readers will be excited to read. Let’s dive in.
Leveraging newsletters for business success
Business newsletters, whether to promote your product, build brand awareness authority or simply build relationships with your audience, can, believe it or not, be essential in bolstering business success.
Creating newsletters is a great way to keep your audience engaged and informed by delivering regular updates, relevant content, and exclusive offers. This can help you to build brand loyalty and trust over time, making them an effective avenue for driving customer engagement and retention.
Fun fact: The first electronic newsletter is credited to Gary Thuerk, who sent the first mass email promoting a product on May 3, 1978. While this is often considered the first instance of email marketing, newsletters have come a long way since.
Different types of business newsletters
There are various types of business newsletters, each serving different purposes based on the goals and target audience of the business.
- Promotional newsletters: Engage your audience with enticing offers, discounts, and exclusive promotions.
- Educational newsletters: Enlighten your readers with valuable insights, tips, and educational content in your niche.
- Company updates and announcements: Keep your audience updated with your company's latest news, milestones, and important announcements.
- Curated content newsletters: Deliver handpicked, relevant content from various sources to keep your audience informed and engaged.
- Event newsletters: Showcase upcoming events, conferences, or webinars, providing all the details your audience needs to participate.
- Internal newsletters: Foster internal communication and team cohesion by sharing updates, achievements, and important information within your organization.
- Seasonal/holiday newsletters: Create festive and thematic newsletters to celebrate holidays, seasons, and special occasions.
Discover: The 2024 Complete Guide to: Creating and Formatting Your Newsletters for Maximum Engagement
Business newsletter examples
The Content Round-up
If you’re a Foleon fan, you may already know we recently revamped our Content Round-Up newsletter. We wanted to ensure the newsletter would be infused with as much value as possible and to transform a regular email newsletter into an engaging, interactive content experience for our audience.
The result was a sleek, editorial-style newsletter talking about all things marketing. Every month, we now serve our audience the most relevant marketing news, tips, and advice and discuss what’s hot in marketing that month in an engaging content format.
Check out this month’s edition of the Content Round-up newsletter.
Acadia University Alumni Newsletter
Arcadia University’s award-winning digital bulletin is a fantastic example of an engaging, interactive newsletter that goes beyond traditional formats. Filled with media and packed with information, their alumni newsletter provides an immersive experience.
Like any good newsletter, this example maintains consistent branding elements, such as logos, colors, and fonts, reinforcing the company's identity and creating a cohesive user experience.
Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS)
Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. The company focuses on delivering safe, reliable, and efficient train services to commuters and travelers nationwide.
Their newsletter, NS Day Out, focuses on events, promotions, or activities that appeal to their audience. With compelling visuals, concise and exciting text, and, of course, interactive elements, this is an excellent example of an engaging newsletter.
Top tip: Take a look at this collection of interactive online business newsletter examples created in Foleon Doc format by our customers.
How to start a newsletter in 5 steps
Whether creating a newsletter from scratch or giving your old newsletter a new lease of life, starting from the basics is essential. Follow these five steps to start or revamp your business newsletter.
1. Define your purpose and audience
Starting off, you need to define your audience and your goal. Reviewing your inbox and assessing your subscribed newsletters is a good way to get started. Think critically about the content and the format. Is it engaging? Do they provide value? Are you excited to read it? What would make it more exciting for you?
Clearly outline your newsletter's critical goal to ensure a cohesive message. By tailoring content to the interests and needs of the audience, you can provide genuine value, positioning yourself as an industry expert or authoritative voice.
2. Select an engaging platform and design
Choosing an engaging format for your newsletter is a great way to stand out. We recommend opting for a content creation platform that lets you create interactive newsletters with engaging elements. If you’ve got the platform, you only need to get creative. Create an engaging design with clean layouts and visuals.
Many platforms offer user-friendly templates to streamline the design and content creation process. For example, for Foleon’s newsletters, our in-house designer created custom templates, and now our content team can easily recreate the newsletter every month.
3. Craft compelling content
Depending on how often you’ll be sending your business newsletter, ensure you always have a good number of compelling new content that you can repurpose. Focus only on developing content that adds value and resonates with your audience.
Whether it's informative articles, the latest trends or news stories, promotions, or a mix, ensure your content aligns with your goals and is attractive to your readers.
4. Establish a consistent schedule
Determine a regular schedule for sending out newsletters, whether weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. It's not just about sending out information; it's about creating a rhythm your audience can rely on and look forward to.
Plus, consistency helps build anticipation and keeps your audience engaged.
5. Encourage subscription and analyze performance
Now that you have a compelling newsletter, you must get people to sign up. Implement subscription strategies on both your website and your social media channels. You can offer incentives to encourage sign-ups.
Then, regularly monitor your newsletter performance using your platform's analytics. If you opt for an interactive format, your solution should offer in-app analysis. Based on these insights, refine your strategy based on the data.
Final thoughts
Despite claims of email marketing's demise, newsletters remain a powerful tool.
As we continue to navigate the digital landscape, business newsletters, when executed thoughtfully, remain a dynamic and indispensable tool for building brand loyalty, trust, and long-term relationships with your audience.
By embracing an engaging format and staying attuned to the ever-changing preferences of your readers, you can ensure that your business newsletter continues to be a valuable asset in your marketing arsenal.
