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Newsletters have been surging in popularity. It’s not just because more companies are creating them, more consumers are signing up for them. This means you might already have a newsletter, or that you’re considering creating one to catch up to the crowd. Of course, anything that’s trendy might soon become stale. When you’re competing with the likes of theSkimm, The Hustle and The Muse, you’ve got to bring your “A” game. People have read so many emails, they’re not looking for another generic blurb, they’re looking for a unique experience only a human being can bring. To make your newsletters human, you have to focus on your connection with your consumer.
Write Like You Talk
You might work for a big company, but you are a human being, not a lawyer robot copywriter. Consumers get thousands of ad messages. It’s the human messages that really resonate. The second a consumer sees a standard “subscribe” message or headline, they tune out. Instead of asking people to “subscribe now” or telling them about “summer’s hottest trends in eye ware,” use words that talk to someone at an empathetic, human level. For example, The Hustle’s signup page is very clear; “We send a daily email with a handful of the most important stories in business, tech and culture that you should probably know.” It’s not perfect English, but it sounds approachable, and it’s very different than what you’d hear from The New York Times. They also show an example of the newsletter right on their signup form so you know what to expect, and the content has the same consistently friendly and simple tone. The same goes for the subject lines. Would you tell your friend to “take a bite out of these juicy decorating ideas?” Your voice needs to stay down to earth and genuine, or you’ll start to sound like a corporation, not a person.
Become More Personal Over Time
If you ask for someone’s state and zip code during signup (or even during an unrelated purchase,) they are going to assume that you know where they live. You might not think that an article about the top ten meats to smoke this summer needs to be personalized by geo – but there’s where you just lost a section of your subscriber base. A New York apartment dweller probably doesn’t have a meat smoker or even know someone who does. Yes, a more personalized message would be best, but you can also simply filter out groups of people who might see your general content as spam.
Also, don’t be afraid to ask how you’re doing. Personalization is famously tricky. PaperStyle simply asks people if the person is planning their own wedding or browsing on behalf of a friend or family member in order to make the personalization more accurate from the get-go. But you can just as easily ask a few weeks in. You’ll score big points by showing that you’re paying attention with messages like “We noticed you click on our clothing content a lot more than our home décor content, is that what you’d like to see more of?”
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To boost personalization even more, tag everything digital that you own, from content on your newsletters to content on your site. Putting content into categories will then make it easy to see what resonates with people. This also makes it easy to tell when it’s worth it to take time to create separate personalized content for different groups.
">Shutterstock
Newsletters have been surging in popularity. It’s not just because more companies are creating them, more consumers are signing up for them. This means you might already have a newsletter, or that you’re considering creating one to catch up to the crowd. Of course, anything that’s trendy might soon become stale. When you’re competing with the likes of theSkimm, The Hustle and The Muse, you’ve got to bring your “A” game. People have read so many emails, they’re not looking for another generic blurb, they’re looking for a unique experience only a human being can bring. To make your newsletters human, you have to focus on your connection with your consumer.
Write Like You Talk
You might work for a big company, but you are a human being, not a lawyer robot copywriter. Consumers get thousands of ad messages. It’s the human messages that really resonate. The second a consumer sees a standard “subscribe” message or headline, they tune out. Instead of asking people to “subscribe now” or telling them about “summer’s hottest trends in eye ware,” use words that talk to someone at an empathetic, human level. For example, The Hustle’s signup page is very clear; “We send a daily email with a handful of the most important stories in business, tech and culture that you should probably know.” It’s not perfect English, but it sounds approachable, and it’s very different than what you’d hear from The New York Times. They also show an example of the newsletter right on their signup form so you know what to expect, and the content has the same consistently friendly and simple tone. The same goes for the subject lines. Would you tell your friend to “take a bite out of these juicy decorating ideas?” Your voice needs to stay down to earth and genuine, or you’ll start to sound like a corporation, not a person.
Become More Personal Over Time
If you ask for someone’s state and zip code during signup (or even during an unrelated purchase,) they are going to assume that you know where they live. You might not think that an article about the top ten meats to smoke this summer needs to be personalized by geo – but there’s where you just lost a section of your subscriber base. A New York apartment dweller probably doesn’t have a meat smoker or even know someone who does. Yes, a more personalized message would be best, but you can also simply filter out groups of people who might see your general content as spam.
Also, don’t be afraid to ask how you’re doing. Personalization is famously tricky. PaperStyle simply asks people if the person is planning their own wedding or browsing on behalf of a friend or family member in order to make the personalization more accurate from the get-go. But you can just as easily ask a few weeks in. You’ll score big points by showing that you’re paying attention with messages like “We noticed you click on our clothing content a lot more than our home décor content, is that what you’d like to see more of?”
Shutterstock
To boost personalization even more, tag everything digital that you own, from content on your newsletters to content on your site. Putting content into categories will then make it easy to see what resonates with people. This also makes it easy to tell when it’s worth it to take time to create separate personalized content for different groups.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2017/09/12/newsletters-are-hot-yours-maybe-not-how-to-use-a-human-approach-to-stand-out/