With an internet user penetration of 91%, your company could be missing a huge opportunity if it is yet to invest in newsletter marketing in Singapore. Even better, this rate is expected to increase to a remarkable 97% in 2023.
Newsletter marketing in Singapore is a strategy that companies use to send informational and promotional email messages to their target audience. The recipients of such messages are either existing or prospective customers. Most businesses use this channel to sell their brand to consumers, establish authority in their niche and notify readers of newly launched products.
Unlike other strategies used for digital marketing in Singapore, newsletter marketing targets people who have asked for information or shown interest in your products and services. This explains why it is more effective than other forms of advertising.
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Many people often confuse newsletters with email marketing. Knowing the difference between these two is crucial in creating an effective email marketing campaign.
Email newsletters, as mentioned above, aim to inform leads about your brand after they express interest in your offerings. For this reason, they are an integral component of any email marketing campaign.
Newsletter marketing in Singapore requires time and resources to implement. However, you can make use of automation tools to simplify the task. Automation also allows you to focus on other areas of your business, such as SEO in Singapore.
The following are the steps you should when launching a newsletter marketing in Singapore campaign.
1. Set Goals
Before anything, you need to set the goals you aim to achieve with your newsletter. The ultimate objective for most people is to increase sales, but you should also set short-term goals such as generating leads, expanding your audience, and so forth. Planning is crucial for creating the content of your newsletters.
2. Define Your Audience
You need a target audience before you start sending email newsletters or implement your newsletter marketing in Singapore. The easiest way of building an email list is by offering a lead magnet. For instance, you could offer an eBook or a downloadable PDF that covers SEO in Singapore. Make sure that the lead magnet is compelling enough to convince your traffic to hand over their email address.
When building your contacts, you must avoid buying lists. Such lists contain people who have never heard of your business, are not interested in your products, and more importantly, they are likely to discard your email newsletters. By taking this shortcut, you risk being identified as a spammer which hurts your reputation significantly.
3. Nurture Your Audience
If you want to send email newsletters consistently, you need to launch a drip campaign. Dripping is a digital marketing strategy where marketers send a set of pre-written messages to their audience. In the context of newsletters, your drip messages should feature evergreen content that your subscribers start receiving once they sign up for your mailing list. Ideally, the messages should guide the readers through a defined path that you want them to take.
4. Find the Optimal Sending Time
Timing is crucial to your newsletter marketing in Singapore. You should send the message at a time that your audience is most likely to be using their desktop or mobile phone.
You can find the optimal time by sending multiple messages at different times. Take note of the number of responses and other forms of engagement. The timeframe that receives the highest number of replies is the best. You could also estimate the time based on the schedule of your readers. For instance, if you are targeting companies, you should send the newsletters during regular business hours. If you are targeting the working population, you should send the newsletters in the evening and during weekends.
5. Personalization
When creating email newsletters, you need to consider the future. After some time, you might need to customize your content to match different seasons and special events such as Black Friday and other holidays.
6. Promotion
You can send promotional messages occasionally over your email newsletters. The majority of the content should be educational, but you can always slip in some sales pitches. For every five newsletters, four should be informative, and one can be sales-oriented.
7. Use a Landing Page
A landing page allows you to dedicate an entire page and optimize it accordingly to generate leads for your newsletter marketing in Singapore. Since the pages deal exclusively with a newsletter subscription, users are exempt from distractions that characterize other pages on the website.
You should outline all the benefits of your newsletter on the landing page. Ensure that you tell the reader what they would miss if they do not subscribe to your newsletter without being too pushy. Some of the incentives you could include are offers and discounts, exclusive access to events, latest industry news, and so forth.
The primary objective of a newsletter marketing campaign is to provide useful information and increase brand exposure. That said, you need to ensure that your messages add value and avoid spamming inboxes with promotions and pitches.
By sending plenty of advertising messages, you risk destroying the trust that the readers have in your brand. The consequence of broken trust is unsubscribing from your email newsletter, which means that you will no longer send messages.
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Here are the tips you should observe before you start newsletter marketing in Singapore.
1. Assess the Need for an Email Newsletter
If you believe that newsletters are not critical to your digital marketing campaign, you should avoid wasting time and resources on them. First, you need to do research. Start by checking if your target audience would be interested in email newsletters. Later, you should see if such a strategy resonates with your business goals.
The findings from the research should tell if you need newsletters. If your audience is not interested, or if a newsletter cannot contribute to the attainment of your objectives, you should focus on other strategies, like SEO in Singapore.
2. Identify the Type of Newsletter You Should Send
A widespread challenge that affects email newsletters is cluttering. Most marketers make a mistake of covering multiple aspects of their business in a single message. For instance, an email could include links to blog posts, upcoming events, public relations stories, and so forth.
Your email newsletter should focus on a specific area to increase its effectiveness. A message that tackles one topic is likely to get more engagement than one that features a variety of content about a brand.
3. Prioritize Information and Minimize Promotions
The subscribers to your newsletters do not want to always hear about your products and services. If you continuously send promotional messages to your readers, they will eventually get fed up and unsubscribe from your mailing list.
You should instead prioritize sending informational messages. For instance, if your business deals with digital marketing in Singapore, you could send newsletters covering the latest trends in the industry, how to run marketing effectively, and so forth. Unless you are launching a new product or having an exclusive offer, avoid sending promotional content.
4. Disclose Newsletter Contents on Your Subscribe Page
Another way of increasing the effectiveness of your email newsletters is by revealing their contents on the subscribers’ landing page. You should also tell the readers the frequency at which you will send the messages.
The subscribers benefit by knowing what they will receive from you, as well as how frequently they will get the newsletter. In exchange, you will significantly reduce the number of spam reports and unsubscribe rates.
5. Use Creative Subject Lines
35% of people open an email based on its subject line. After people subscribe to your email newsletter, you should use creative subject lines to increase the open rates.
A popular approach employed by businesses that do digital marketing is using a similar subject line for all newsletters. While this is an excellent way of building familiarity, readers are likely to get bored with the lack of variation. It is advisable to use a different, engaging and compelling subject line for every newsletter you send.
6. Include a Primary Call-to-action
Newsletters usually have several call-to-action statements. This, however, does not mean that all of them should have an equal significance.
Your newsletter should have a primary call-to-action statement that clearly states the most crucial action that the reader should take. It should stand out from the rest of the content, and you can do this by using bolded text, contrasting colours or a large button. It could also feature at the header section of the newsletter.
The remaining call-to-action statements that you decide to use in your newsletter marketing in Singapore should feature optional actions. This way, the reader would not have to overlook the primary action to complete the secondary actions.
7. Use a Simple Design and Minimize Copy
As mentioned earlier, many marketers send newsletters that appear messy and cluttered. The best way of avoiding such a problem is by using concise copy and ensuring that the newsletter has sufficient whitespace.
The essence of minimal copy is to ensure that your newsletter does not interfere with the activities of the reader. A smart way of minimizing the copy in your email is by providing links to blog, landing page or website, where the reader can get the content in full. The concise text serves as a teaser that encourages subscribers to click and learn more about your content.
Whitespace, on the other hand, increase the visual appeal of a newsletter by reducing the cluttered appearance. It also ensures that mobile users click on the right link.
8. Use Web-safe Fonts
You should pay attention to the typography you implement your email newsletter. Your choice of fonts has an enormous impact on the reader’s perception one the email.
Keep in mind that newsletters render differently on different browsers, email clients and platforms. If you want to attain consistency across these, you need to use web-safe fonts. Also, you should not use more than two types of font. Anything more than that makes your newsletter appear uncoordinated and messy.
9. Include Alt Text for All Images
When people hear something, they can only remember 10% of it after three days. However, if the information contains a relevant image, they can remember 65% of it over the same period. Your emails should always include visual content to increase engagement and information retention.
The only challenge is that 43% of readers disable images on their email clients. For this reason, you should make sure that all the photos in your newsletter have alt text. If your CTAs are images, this becomes more important. Alt text enables readers to know about the contents of an image when it does not load correctly.
10. Make it Easy to Skim
Even if you use short newsletters, your recipient might not have enough time to go through it entirely. This underlines the importance of making them easy to skim.
The structuring of your email newsletters determines this ease. Images and other visual content attract the most attention, meaning that their positioning affects what people see. You should divide the content into sections, starting with the most important to the least important. Remember to include subheadings and bullet points to increase engagement and lead people to the call-to-action button.
11. Make it Easy to Unsubscribe
Simplifying the unsubscribe process is vital if you want to maintain active and engaged members on your subscription list. The link should be straightforward. Do not use vague terms and ensure that you use alt text if your unsubscribe button is an image. Using a complicated unsubscribe process could increase the spamming reports made against you.
Usually, the unsubscribe button is placed at the footer section of an email newsletter.
12. Create an HTML Email that Displays Plain Text
Despite their similarity, HTML emails have significant advantages over plain text emails. It is easier to track clicks, and you can adjust designs and enhance the appearance of links, all of which are not available for plain text messages. Even better, hybrid HTML plain text emails get a higher click-through rate by 64%.
13. Make it User-oriented
You cannot maintain and improve the readership of your newsletters if you mostly focus on your brand. You should include information that is useful to your audience.
There are three ways of aligning the contents of your newsletter to resonate with the needs of your audience.
Include Third-party Content
Featuring content from third-parties such as influencers, partners, and leading experts in your niche is an excellent way of providing value to your subscribers. It is also an effective channel for cross-promotion since the third-parties have a following that shares similar interests to yours.
Include User-generated Content
Another way of making your newsletter more valuable to the user is by featuring user-generated content. In this case, you can use content created by fans and previous clients. Besides adding a personal touch to your message, it also increases the popularity of your newsletter.
Share Trending Topics
A newsletter can be useful in sharing the latest developments in your industry. People love it when their favourite brands update them regularly of the prevailing trends in the market. However, it is essential to make sure that the trends you share are unique.
14. Conduct Regular Tests
Similar to other strategies used for digital marketing in Singapore, you have to conduct regular tests for your newsletters. Measuring the progress of your newsletter marketing campaign allows you what is working and what is not. You will discover that different segments of your audience have varying preferences.
Here are some of the tests you can conduct to improve the effectiveness of your newsletter marketing in Singapore.
A/B Testing
Most email marketing platforms have an inbuilt A/B testing feature that allows you to evaluate the subject lines, content and links that work for your audience. Once you have a substantial number of people in your mailing list, you should make use of that functionality.
Use Short and Funny Subject Lines
People generally prefer short subject lines over long ones. You can further boost your newsletter open and click-through rates by infusing humour into tour subject line and copy.
Call-to-action Copy and Design
Testing allows you to know whether your readers prefer dull CTA buttons or bright colours. Concerning the copy, you will see if they like a direct and action-oriented language or a fund and engaging statement.
Images
Although images are useful in increasing engagement rates, you can run a successful campaign without them. You should test if removing images and replacing them with an exciting copy works for you. Fewer or no images mean more whitespace, which reduces clutter and makes it easier to click links on mobile. It also makes the message to feel less promotional.
Mobile-Friendliness
4.6 million Singaporeans access the internet using mobile devices. You should test your newsletters to confirm that they display correctly across all platforms. This ensures that both desktop and mobile users can read and engage with the contents of your message.
Personalization
An email newsletter that features the name of the recipient on the subject line has a higher click-through rate than that without. Personalization shows customers that you care about them and increases the open rate.
Sender Name
Besides the name of the recipient, you should also consider including the name of the sender. There is no consensus over whether you should use a corporate or personal approach when writing the sender’s name, so you should test different versions and see what works for your audience. The tests results will help to move your newsletter marketing in Singapore forward
The main goal of investing in any form of digital marketing is to grow a business and boost the revenue generated from sales. Newsletter marketing in Singapore is one of the most cost-effective strategies for building and maintaining a connection with your audience.
If you are yet to start sending newsletters, here are the top reasons why you should start.
Stabilize the Flow of Information
You might have a fantastic website or blog, but people rarely spend hours browsing through a website. In stark contrast, 99% of consumers check their emails every day.
Another shortcoming of blogs and websites is that they require your audience to initiate contact by visiting. As a business, this often results in inconsistent returns. If you have a newsletter marketing campaign, you can continually interact with your audience and improve engagement levels. Moreover, emails are a more efficient channel for informing your audience about the latest offers, product and promotion.
Increase Brand Awareness
A newsletter contains a lot of information, which make them a useful platform for increasing awareness about your products and services. Sending messages to your audiences makes them more familiar with your brand. It is an effective and proven way of reminding people of your existence. If you get the timing right and use compelling messages, it will encourage your audience to act.
Connect with New Prospects
53% of shoppers conduct research online before purchasing a product. During this phase, people look at the items passively but fail to complete the purchase due to the lack of money, time, or a reason to buy. A newsletter provides in-depth information about your products which can motivate the reader to purchase them. You should use the newsletter to keep in touch with potential customers until they are ready to complete the purchase.
Keep Existing Customers
Although gaining new prospects is exciting, you should always try to keep your existing customers. A well-written newsletter can prove useful in retaining your client base. By regularly informing them of the latest products and offers, as well as getting their feedback, customers will feel appreciated and are more likely to remain loyal to your business.
Stronger Credibility
When you send educational and engaging content to your audience, you establish yourself as an authority in your niche. People will start seeing you as an expert in your area of specialization. As a result, they are likely to prefer your brand over your direct competitors.
Opportunity to Integrate with Social Media Marketing
Another advantage of newsletter marketing is that it can seamlessly integrate with other marketing strategies. For instance, you could incorporate social media links in your newsletter and use the email to cross-promote your other marketing campaigns. Likewise, you can use social media networks as a means of building your list.
How to Avoid Being Reported as Spam
Besides low click-through and open rates, being reported as spam, perhaps the most significant challenge to a newsletter marketing campaign. By March 2019, spam messages accounted for 56% of global email traffic. This is a considerable improvement on the 90% that was reported back in 2012.
The primary reason for the reduced spamming is the improvement of spam detection and prevention features used by email marketing software. However, these technologies can, in some instances, wrongfully mark a genuine newsletter as spam.
Here are some proven ways of avoiding being reported as spam.
1. Use Double Opt-in
The majority of email automation platforms require subscribers to confirm their subscriptions after joining your mailing list. Usually, this is done by clicking on a link included on the first email.
The problem comes with the feature that allows you to add addresses manually. If you add unverified addresses, you are likely to send messages to disinterested people who will report you as a spammer.
2. Use a Business Email Address
Business email addresses ensure that your message gets delivered to the right destination. This avoids a situation where your newsletter is automatically moved to the spam folder because the sender address was previously used to send spam and malware.
3. Avoid Misleading Subject Lines
Misleading email subjects are annoying. Spam detectors can now identify such lines and quickly send the messages to the spam folder. Some of the commonly used click baits include ‘you have won,’ ‘urgent,’, ‘thanks for completing your order,’ and so forth.
4. Provide Accurate Information
The anti-spam laws in most jurisdictions require the sender to provide an accurate email address, their physical address and an option to unsubscribe from the mailing list. If your newsletter lacks any of these, it is likely to end up in the spam folder thereby making your newsletter marketing in Singapore efforts fruitless.
Conclusion
Now that you know how to plan for and implement newsletter marketing in Singapore, you should invest in this strategy to increase brand awareness and potentially boost your revenue.
Regardless of the format of your newsletter, make sure that it is short and concise. Do not overdo either test or visual content – if you opt for a plain text message, be straightforward to ensure that the reader remains engaged. High engagement level will boost the success of your newsletter marketing in Singapore
Additionally, the content you use for your newsletter marketing in Singapore should be valuable to the reader. Nobody likes a newsletter that has multiple adverts. Make sure that you include informational content that expands the knowledge of your audience. This way, they are more likely to remain subscribed to your mailing list.
Lastly, you should always test your emails. You do not want to send a newsletter that has broken links and an uncoordinated design. Before you send the final copy to your audience, seek feedback from colleagues and make any necessary adjustments. Check across desktop and mobile platforms to ensure that it renders correctly.
Get in touch with us for more expert advice on newsletter marketing in Singapore. We will help you come up with an ideal plan that will catapult your business to the next level of success.
