Opinion: Newsletter Subscription ≠ Promotional Materials Subscription

10.24.2014 | in Tips | by Benjamin Sullivan

The life of an email newsletter subscription is an unusual thing. It begins at that moment of success, when your website has been influential enough that a reader is willing to pay, with their email address, for access to additional content.

Unfortunately, some calls to the subscription field house offers that border on bribery, with ‘included in every newsletter is this month’s giveaway’ or ‘subscribe for a chance to win’. Not an uncommon tactic, this may saturate an email list for a time, but is the source of the mountainous highs and lows on internal subscription reporting. Like any long-lived interest, the audience must genuinely want what you’re offering; readers can’t be bought for long. Direct them to the subscription field often, and let your work do the talking.

Once you have access to those inboxes, the game becomes radically different. Here, you’re no longer the host to your traffic; you’re the visitor, and there are certain formalities that you must adhere to if you ever hope to be invited back. It serves most content distributors well to remember that the inbox is a precarious setting, and that although there are many opportunities present for both sender and recipient, it doesn’t take much of a push for that unsubscribe button to be actuated. Only the most loyal readers will persevere through a bungled newsletter campaign.

The occasional promotion or advertisement should be accompanied by a gallery of interesting content. Do not consider a newsletter subscription to be a promotional material subscription. A blanket offer or ad will see extremely low conversion rates, and will damage your brand much faster than it will fund it. If you’re in the market to talk business, bring some wine and have an interesting conversation before you get down to it, so to speak. Aiming solely to secure potential customers with deals might be viable for some businesses, but offer a promotional materials subscription field, and reserve those efforts for the deal-seekers who are already interested in your product. Anything more than a subtle nudge in the right direction will be the only nail your newsletter's coffin needs.

The beauty of a monthly newsletter is that most of the skeleton is easily populated by the content you’ve created in the last 'x' days. Think of it as a landing page; study what made a splash, and upload links to those pieces of content. By rallying all of your value from every platform you publish on, you'll create a one-stop source of links to every corner of your network. Include a giveaway, a call to action ad, a link to a video and a few articles, and you’ll find you’ve got a highly diverse and interesting email on your hands. This isn’t an exact recipe, but it establishes a line between promotional spam and content delivery, and will garner the interest of the readers who aren't active on every one of your publication platforms.

In September we wrote a post on how Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) had changed the face of newsletters and corporate emails. It’s a good read on email etiquette, but the message here is the same: even if a reader subscribes to your content, you are a guest in their inbox - a space reserved for productivity and meaningful communication. If at any point you make the jump from visitor to intruder, then you’ve stumbled in offering something of value, or your interest in the sale has overwhelmed your understanding of what your contact wants to see. Strike the balance, and keep the pitch integrated with the newsletter content, not running it.

Do you send a newsletter that's been particularly successful, or do you receive one that really knocks it out of the park? Leave a comment below or check us out on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. It's not without a sense of irony that I direct you to our subscription field below. Rest assured, blanket promotional materials are not on our agenda! Instead you can expect digital design and development tips, news, and infographics right to your inbox.

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