How to distribute information. How to make an email newsletter yourself: step by step instructions, features and recommendations

29.09.2019

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways convey information to people. Bulk email should not be considered evil by definition. It's not the way of conveying information that is to blame, but the content that is delivered with its help. If in the next letter I am offered to lose weight in 60 seconds or increase something by the same number of centimeters, then I will get angry, but if in the same letter there is, for example, an offer to buy something interesting for me, and even with a good discount, then I will not be indignant. If you are a business owner and you have a subscriber base, as well as information that is really necessary and useful for them, then use the mailing list, just do it wisely.

In this seemingly simple matter, there are a huge number of nuances, given which you can get a positive return and not make people angry. You can spend time studying this science, but it is much more reasonable to turn to a specialized service that will do everything on its own and as competently as possible. You will pay someone for this service anyway, so choose the right one.

Lifehacker, by occupation, refers to email newsletters, and we have good experience work with similar services. Today we will tell you about one service we love under the cute name "Pechkin-mail.ru". It stands out from the background of others in that it takes into account all the subtleties of a competent mailing list and has an extremely low threshold occurrences - even a person who has never dealt with email marketing before can use it.

Quick and easy

Let's start with the fact that Pechkin is very friendly to new users. The import of the database is really fast, and the numbers “30 thousand subscribers in 1.5 minutes” declared on their website correspond to reality. Along the way, the service will take to itself for storage all the media content that is planned to be used in the mailing list.

Pechkin's coolest feature is the drag&drop editor for email body design. A beautifully designed letter, which is displayed correctly on a smartphone, certainly helps to read it and follow the link. You can not ignore the design in any case.

Once upon a time we thought that a WYSIWYG HTML editor was the height of convenience, but when you don’t encounter code at all when designing and composing an email, and any manipulations are carried out by simply dragging and dropping elements with the mouse, then somehow you don’t want to return to vizivigi.

In other services we tested, there were no such editors.

Paranoid Corner

The second point (and often the most important) is data security. Do you often think about future fate the address of your mailbox, left to the next good service? Things can be even worse if you are not a user, but the keeper of the subscriber base. Such information is a tasty morsel for both stupid spammers and competitors with a similar target audience. It needs to be protected, and in this regard, Pechkin offers a very convenient thing - confirmation of logging into your account via SMS. After entering the login and password, a message with a code will be sent to the number specified in the settings, which must be specified during authentication.

In fact, this reduces the risk of account theft to zero. All data that is transferred from the user to the service and back goes through HTTPS. Even if paranoia is off scale and anxiety keeps you awake, you can simply go to your profile and see the history of visits to the service from your current account.

The problem with the need to provide access to the service to one of the employees is solved by simply creating a subaccount for him with limited rights.

Knows everything

The third point is that very literacy - a set of actions with the help of which dull spam turns into an exchange of information useful for both parties (there are really a lot of them, we will briefly describe exemplary process work, but it is better to read about them in full).

We quickly upload the database to the service -> the built-in tool will check it for typos and, if desired, segment contacts into separate target groups according to any relevant parameters -> draw several options for mailing templates -> immediately check them appearance on all current browsers and mobile devices right inside the service -> along the way we run an A / B test, in which some of the recipients will receive an experimental version of the letter -> add a personalization element to the letters (we take the name of the subscriber and insert it into the body of the letter addressed to him). All this is done right inside the service. Without involving third-party utilities and tools, without leaving your Pechkin account at all. Cool? We like it too.

As a bonus, information is collected about geographical location addressee at the time of reading the letter, dead and inaccessible addresses are recorded, and all this is entered into the current database of recipients.

If earlier the user did not deal with mailings at all and did not collect data from subscribers, then you can upload a subscription form to your site directly from Pechkin. Thus, the data will go directly to the service, without unnecessary import procedures.

Outcome

What else is needed for a competent and efficient organization email newsletters? We do not know, but current funds are more than enough. With quite affordable flexible rates and such a huge number of necessary auxiliary tools that do not require any specific knowledge and skills, anyone can work effectively in this environment.

Hello friends. Today I will tell you how to make automatic mailing of letters by e-mail. Sending letters has always helped entrepreneurs develop their business, but with the advent of the Internet, the possibilities of this method of promotion have become much greater - this is known to almost all readers of my blog.

I decided to post this article in an unusual way. First, I will talk about the technical side of creating a mailing list (for this, which describes the whole process step by step).

And after this technical part, I will tell you about the benefits of using this tool and how to work with it correctly.

1. Setting up a mailing list service

The whole process of creating your own mailing list will take only half an hour of your time, but it will work for you for years.

In the video tutorial, I will use the Smartresponder mailing service, therefore, before starting, go to its page using this link - Smartresponder.ru

2. What is mailing list for?

In the event that you still do not know what the mailing is for you and what benefits it can bring, I will tell you in an accessible language.

Imagine that you have an online store or . You attracted a visitor in some way. Perhaps you used paid advertising methods, perhaps free ones, it doesn’t matter. A person came to your site, he liked it, he thought it would be nice to visit again, closed the page and forgot about it forever. Unfortunately, this happens very often.

Now imagine how the situation will change if he has the opportunity to leave you his email in order to receive blog updates, special offers from your online store, any bonuses or a training course - if he liked your site, he will definitely leave his e -mail.

You will no longer need to spend money and time on re-attracting him.

3. Programs for mailing letters

So, you have contacts of your clients, but when there are a lot of them, problems will begin. If you send letters manually or use programs for sending letters, then your postal addresses and ip address of sending will quickly fall into the spammers' database. Secondly, it will be inconvenient to work with a large amount of data.

To avoid this, you need to create a mailing list using one of specialized services, for example, the one that I described at the beginning. Such services allow you to automatically collect contacts of subscribers (through a special form), track statistics, send letters, and perform many other functions. In addition, large e-mail mailing services negotiate with postal services and prevent your letters from getting into spam.

4. What does the mailing list give?

You establish contact with a person for a long time. Even if today you have not found common ground and you have nothing to sell to him, continue to give free useful information. In the future, you will have a good chance of making him your client.
There is no need to send letters to each person individually. It is enough to compose a letter and send it to all subscribers at once. Using the mailing site, we can supplement these letters with unique data, for example, address by name.
Using the mailing list, you do not engage in spam, because. the subscription procedure is voluntary and the owner of the mailbox agrees to receive information from you. It looks honest in the eyes of the recipient of your letters.
By giving useful information to readers (not a naked advertisement for your services), you present yourself as a professional, and people like to work with professionals.
By regularly composing letters, you increase your creative skills. A professional should be able to correctly express his thoughts and prepare commercial proposals with high quality.
By studying mailing statistics, you can learn a lot of useful things. What email headers catch your audience more, what words in the text make you click on links, what design style has a better effect on conversion, and much more.
The newsletter itself is your asset, it is a base of people who are always available for your offers.

By mastering this tool, you will get powerful weapon to develop your Internet empire.

5. Where can I get email addresses?

There are a lot of sources for replenishing your mailing list. I would not like to talk about illegal methods, but you yourself know that bases can be bought, although their quality leaves much to be desired. I will talk about honest ways to collect contacts.

If you have a company website, blog, or forum, then provide it with a subscription form so that each visitor can subscribe. Offer any bonus for contact details.
Using , drive traffic not to the main site, but to special pages - landing pages. These pages should be designed in such a way that people want to leave their contacts.
A good way to get a lot of subscribers for money is to buy ads from the authors of other mailing lists.
If you use the Smartresponder service, then place your newsletter in, this will give your newsletter a constant influx of free subscribers.
If your company also works offline, then invite your customers to visit your site or ask them to fill out questionnaires, in which there will be a clause on consent to receive email newsletters.

6. How to make money on mass mailing messages?

The main ways to generate income from bulk emails are by selling your own products and services, or by selling advertising space.

Sometimes, you can earn even more by selling ads, since you have what all your competitors need - a base of potential customers. For each one-time access to this database, they are willing to pay, while you do not lose this database.

Useful articles:

How to make money on the Internet for a beginner - 23 ...
What is a blog, how to create it, promote it and how ...

The first erroneous thought that occurs in the head of an inexperienced entrepreneur who decides to develop a business on the Web. It seems like a working site with information posted on it is enough. It may seem to you that you will be able to communicate, get the opportunity through the site to tell the audience whatever you want, but this is not so. Let's figure it out.

Let's say 100 people visit your site. You greeted them with your face. They looked around, read something (if you have a blog, for example), made a purchase (if you have an online store) and left. Everything. If they want, they will “contact” you - they will visit the site again. If not, then you've lost your audience because your visitors are still strangers to you. You can't contact them, they can. The same pager. Now imagine that these 100 people left you their email addresses.

Email is a direct analogue of a telephone number, a contact through which YOU can contact your visitors. True two-way communication, like a phone. It remains only to get an email.

How to get email

A fundamental problem that marketing gurus struggled to solve. To answer the question, you need to take the place of the site visitor. They just don't give out email addresses. Compulsion? Will not work. Deception? Worse.

The only one effective way get an email - make the person want to give it to you.

Stay up to date. In many cases, the user, if your site is relevant to his interests, will not mind subscribing to notifications about new events on the site, whether it is the release of new material, the appearance of a new product, and so on. The same function can be served under the “it’s more convenient” sauce.
All the best. good offer will send you a selection of the best of what's happening on your site. The best articles, the best products.
Exclusive. A more aggressive, but very effective method, referring to the peculiarities of human psychology. Access to something is provided only to subscribers. It can be anything: unique "most useful" materials, contests, special conditions and functionality. Think of a list of your offers that could be classified as exclusive, and give only to the “chosen ones”.
Discounts and promotions. This information is objectively useful to your audience. Who wants to miss out on a great deal? In part, this item overlaps with a more abstract notification function, but here the motive for the visitor is financial, more specific and attractive.

The motives for sending an email address listed above should be shown to visitors in a simple and visual form. Put static and pop-up subscription blocks on the site. No tricky long texts. Clearly, clearly, clearly, understandably. The effect will not keep you waiting, and soon you will have an impressive database of contacts.

What to do with email addresses

Having email addresses allows you to speak to your audience through a mailing list. You need to use this opportunity correctly, because inept work with subscribers will not only not help, but also harm you.

Rules for good email marketing

So you're talking to an audience. Address is speech. Speech should be beautiful and elegant, which means that your letters must attract with every element.

If the subject of the letter did not interest the recipient, then he will not get to the content. The theme should not repeat the past, but should arouse curiosity with the originality of the message.

Address I trust

Say which sender's name causes less doubt: [email protected]? Your company name is your name and should be in the sender's address. He must be recognized. That is why marketers focus on brand awareness.

Life is too short to read long letters

And in the mobile era, when people view your content on smaller smartphone screens, size requirements have become even tighter. No more than 50 characters per title - strict rule. Ideally key phrases, appeals and abstracts should fit in 28–39 characters.

WITHOUT CAPSLOCK

Too much uppercase won't help you engage the reader. Rather, on the contrary. It is necessary to take into account the specifics of perception. Caps can be perceived as a scream. Nobody likes to be yelled at.

I'm talking to you, friend!

Personalization in circulation is the strongest tool for increasing the loyalty and interest of the recipient of the letter. It seems as if the letter did not come from a soulless robot, but from a friend who knows your name. What attention! It's close, incredibly close. Offer personalization is an even more advanced tool that works based on the visitor's history of actions.

teaser letter

You can not consider email in isolation from the overall business process. The letter is the first stage in the chain, and therefore must fulfill a strictly defined goal. For example, a transition to your website, store, a specific page. The content of the letter must lead the recipient to this through a clearly formulated call-to-action (call to action). Typically, this is an element that stands out in the body of the email, like a button, and the text acts as a catalyst for attractiveness for clicking on it.

A/B testing

Have you decided to make several versions of the letter, because you are not sure which one will be the most effective? No need to doubt. Using the right tool, you can send all versions of the letter, distributing them so that, for example, 33% of recipients see the first option, 33% - the second and 34% - the third, and then evaluate the effectiveness of each option.

The wizard always comes on time

And in the context of an email campaign, “on time” means best time in terms of response activity of recipients. There is no perfect moment when all the people in the world suddenly want to read emails and click on links. Everything is very individual, and to find better days and watch will help simple practice and follow-up activity monitoring.

Thanks to these not-too-tricky tricks, you will turn your email newsletter into an effective communication channel through which a loyal audience interested in your offer will come to your site.

However, there is a problem, and you already understand it well. How, for example, to personalize hundreds and thousands of letters? How beautiful to write a letter? The same goes for A/B tests and analytics in general. In the end, not every entrepreneur ALREADY owns his own website, and therefore the first task for him is to find a simple and inexpensive way to get a high-quality beautiful “digital office” for his business.

With the advent of website builders, the life of small businesses and entrepreneurs has become much easier. No need to contact programmers and designers. You don't need a sysadmin to maintain the server. It is enough to choose one that does not require specific skills for customization, and independently modify it to fit your needs.

It remains only to add an email application to the site. A minute to install, a couple of clicks to create a beautiful letter, a convenient choice of recipients, and your newsletter is ready to be sent.

To make an effective email campaign, you must follow the basic steps correctly: choose a reliable email service, adapt content for reading from mobile screens, write catchy texts, collect a sufficient number of addresses of potential and existing customers, and segment the audience. But sometimes this is not enough: your competitors do similar mailings, so you cannot surprise subscribers with something new and interesting. In this article, you will find 20 tips to help you figure out what to write to your clients and understand how to make your promotional emails stand out and be commercially successful.

Let your subscribers feel like they've been chosen. Encourage them to sign up for an exclusive newsletter for best clients. You can nominate regular customers, consumers with a certain check amount, owners of a certain product as the best ones.

Offer membership in an exclusive club to subscribers in personal letters. At the same time, make sure that they do not look like the so-called "Nigerian letters". Ask the client to confirm membership in the club.

Include great deals, discount coupons, new product pre-order offers, etc. in your mailing list for exclusive club members. With the help of word of mouth, this will make membership in the club desirable for all your customers. They will strive to fulfill the conditions necessary to receive an invitation.

Your subscribers receive dozens of emails a day. They hardly pay attention to every offer to download something for free, take advantage of a 3% discount on the purchase of a turbojet lawn mower with a mid-range air travel function, and also ignore questions about the desire to earn millions without effort and initial investment. Advertising noise does its job - people develop deafness to marketing messages.

Another thing is if you manage to show care for the client in a letter. How to do it? Here are some ideas:

Report that special offer stops working after a day. Perhaps the customer forgot that he wanted to buy a lawn mower at a discount.

Explain why it is important to use your product.

Offer subscribers valuable information. For example, imagine how many men will thank you if you offer them gift ideas for their loved ones on March 8th.

Pay attention to the subject line of the email. It should let the subscribers know that you have written something of value.

The secret to this tip's effectiveness is personalization. You should personally approach the client and ask them to explain their choice, provide feedback, or help you conduct your research.

Score e-books Litres asks to leave a review for each purchased book. Moreover, the authors of the first reviews of new works receive bonus money to their account.

The ReadRate service offers to take a thematic test.

And Optimizely marketer Jessie Becker offers to ask her anything.

These include reviews, research results, cases, awards, ratings. Please note the following letter:

Litres announces a book that takes first place in the ratings the best works 2014 of well-known publications and the Amazon online store. The Russian-speaking audience did not have time to read this book. There are no reviews on the book sites Litres and ReadRate, one super positive review on LiveLib, no one on Facebook knows anything.

Social Proof Works: Audiences Love Amazon's Rankings and the Word "Super Bestseller" Though real reviews There are still very few Russian-speaking users about the book. The book is sure to sell well.

It is said above that personalization of letters helps to receive feedback. The possibilities of personalization are not limited to this: it increases the overall effectiveness of the mailing. Email created for correspondence between people. Keep this in mind when writing sales letters. Use the following guidelines:

Write on behalf real person, not a brand.
Make sure the messages are relevant to the specific person.
Contact the user personally.

Another example of personalization is the ability to receive personalized recommendations from the LiveLib service.

Effective emails provide a high click-through rate of links in messages and the conversion of subscribers into consumers. Look at the design of the letters from the Death to the Stock Photo project. The conversion button here is located above the message itself.

What happens if the client is not interested in the offer? The authors of the following mailing list provide the user with an alternative.

What for? This increases audience engagement. Above is an example of a Death to the Stock Photo email asking the subscriber to download the package first. free photos and then start reading the letter. There are other successful examples of mailing with downloadable content.

Readers will surely pay attention to the financial forecast, beautifully designed in the form of white paper.

Do your customers want discounts? Let them download.

Do it with calls to action. They significantly increase CTR and email conversion.

You can use more aggressive CTAs.

Use the urgency factor, the words "free" and "no registration".

On the one hand, your subscribers need to understand the meaning of the message by reading the topic. On the other hand, you should intrigue them and force them to take the necessary actions out of curiosity. See how the subscriber is motivated to open the letter by the magazine "Behind the wheel".

Howard Zoss is intriguing fellow marketers with the unprecedented rise in online video.

Tip #10: Use the same subject line for all emails

This recommendation is suitable for you under two conditions. First, your audience must trust you implicitly. This is possible if you have been working in the market for a long time and have an impeccable reputation. Secondly, the content of the letters should be like a friend on a friend. For example, you could send a weekly email to your customers with the subject line “5 the best goods of the week” or “Most Popular Content of the Last Week”.

This tactic has a simple meaning: subscribers get used to receiving emails from you with a certain subject, they are easily recognized and found in their inbox.

Referral links work because their use benefits all parties: the referral, the referrer and the business. First gets profitable terms service, the second tries for the sake of bonuses, and the third stimulates sales.

Tip #13: Offer your audience a lot of useful information

Regularly surprise your audience with big letters with useful information. Do this once every two weeks or once a month. This way you teach users to wait for your messages and pay attention to them. Remember, you don't have to make each letter huge. For example, you can send standard messages to users twice a week, and once a month create a large digest of publications on the site or an analytical report.

Large letters are difficult to demonstrate with an illustration, so check out the examples at the links:

Tip #14: Remind Users What You Do and Who You Are

If you work for Google or Sberbank, skip this step. And if you have a small or medium-sized enterprise, be sure to follow the recommendation. Remind users how you can help them.

Litres Bookstore includes a reminder in every letter:

The Advego exchange in one of the letters made a detailed advertising cheat sheet:

Tip #15: Leverage Your Partners' Brand Awareness

Imagine that you have just opened an online store where you can buy electronic gadgets. Naturally, the audience does not know the name of your project. But she knows brands that produce gadgets: Samsung, Apple, LG and so on. Use it in your mailing list. Here is an example implementation of this tactic:

And here is an example of a more subtle use of brand awareness:

No, you don't have to be a god or a billionaire to do it. To make subscribers happy, it is usually enough to give them some kind of modest gift. The main thing is that users do not perceive it as a marketing ploy.

These are the gifts people don't need:

And this is better:

And Privatbank successfully used significant event- Soccer World Cup.

"Litres" timed the sale of books at a discount to the premiere of the film adaptation of one of the works.

Say "thank you" at every opportunity. Thank users for purchases, for reading emails, for leaving a review, etc. This has a positive effect on your subscribers and builds loyalty.

For example, "Svyaznoy" thanks even for adding products to the cart:

And the FotoMag store is not limited to gratitude in words:

Users do not like to read promotional emails. You can solve this problem by making commercial messages look like neutral ads. For example, say that a new product is on sale, prices have been reduced, and delivery terms have been updated.

A bookstore you know regularly sends out neutral emails when new books are on sale:

The household chemicals store reports that products that the client was once interested in are back on sale.

Today I will give you instructions on how to create an email campaign yourself in just 90 minutes. I tried to make it as simple as possible so that you can understand the basic steps of working on an email campaign.

Please note that each of the stages can and should be greatly improved, complicated and brought to perfection.

So, we will need:

own database of email addresses of subscribers (mail address or email address and subscriber name),
an account in the UniSender service with a replenished balance (at the rate of 0.005 USD per 1 subscriber),
desire to learn something new and 90 minutes of time.

Stage 1. We create a base of subscribers in Unisender

The first time you enter a new email in this field, Unisender will ask you to confirm it. This is a standard procedure for verifying an -address, you will quickly cope with it.

Field " From whom". We recommend that you fill out the field in the format name + company name. So the letter will look personal and remind you of your company. Try to fit in 20 characters.
Field " Letter subject". As you can see in the screenshot, the topic starts with the construction ((Name|Attention)). It is needed to address the subscriber by name, if the "Name" field is filled in (if not filled, then "Attention!" will be written).

The subject line also conveys the main essence of the letter to the reader and contains several numbers that will attract attention.

Try to fit the main essence of the letter in 35-50 characters. Please note that long threads may be cut off on some devices.

Filling in this field is a separate topic for discussion and experimentation. In the future, we will write instructions with more full recommendations for the subject of the email.

After filling in the three fields and selecting a mailing list, click on "Continue".

Step 2.2. Design and content

This seems to be the most difficult part of creating a mailing list. However, let's use the special "Block Editor" and quickly make a simple and meaningful letter.

After selecting the completed template in the block editor, all you have to do is:

remove blocks you don't need
fill in the required blocks with your content,
mark all links to the site with UTM tags according to the instructions.

So, here is an example of quick editing and filling of this template:

Please note that the height and padding of some blocks have been changed, and some blocks have been completely removed. Changed font size and line spacing, added P.S. and a "View All" button.

To understand what you need to write in a letter, at this stage I will recommend that you do two things:

Look at the letters of other companies: what language they are written in, what they focus on and how they arrange the content. Surely you can mark something useful for yourself.
Read a book " How to write to be trusted"(K. Roman, D. Rafaelson). Great book adapted for modern means communications.

I advise you not to linger on writing a letter. This stage can take several days, and in some cases even several weeks. Keep your first letter simple. And you will gradually improve the second and subsequent mailings yourself or make a beautiful design and layout by contractors.

After finishing editing the letter, see how about it will look on computers and smartphones, and don't forget to send a test email to your mail using a special button:

If some elements have moved out, then you need to edit them: change the padding, height, add empty blocks, etc.

I am sure that if you have done all of the above and read the article up to this point, then you will need 10 minutes to master the block editor. J You can do it - your first mailing list is just around the corner!

Step 2.3. Sending letter

If you have already looked at the test letter and it suits you, then let's proceed to the final stage - sending the letter. Make sure all fields are filled in correctly. Click on "View" to take another look at your letter.

All. Now it remains to wait until Unisender makes the mailing. Usually this does not happen instantly, but once every 10 minutes. However, it doesn't take long.

Stage 3. Analysis of mailing results

And to assess the quality of the title, the content of the letter and the offer itself, use the open rates (Open Rate) and click-through rates (CTOR). In Unisender, you can view these statistics on the "Mailings > Sent Reports" page by going to the desired mailing list.

If any of the indicators is significantly lower, then the matter is most likely due to one of the following reasons:

Your offer is too weak. People don't like what you offer. Perhaps even more benefits need to be made.
Your audience is not interested in this offer. In this case, try to understand how else you can attract your subscribers, or divide the audience into segments in order to send only the offers they are interested in.
The title is not attractive. As a rule, this happens if it does not reflect the benefit or looks suspicious. Try to completely change the heading structure.
Poor presentation of content inside the email: the text is difficult to read, links are not highlighted or absent at all, the essence of the proposal is not clear, there is no call to go to the site.

Try to find weak spots in your mailing list and eliminate them. Remember that the main task of the headline is to encourage the reader to open the letter, and the task of the letter is to interest and "sell" the transition to the site.

So why 90 minutes? In fact, all the described stages of work take me from 30 to 180 minutes. The final time depends mainly on the complexity of the letter itself. If the content of the letter is not very complex, you can definitely meet 60 minutes.

If you have any difficulties or have questions about how to organize an email campaign for your database, then look for answers to them on the Tactics blog or write me about it in the comments. I'll try to help you. Good luck!