back in the early days of email newsletters were mainly a thing for media companies.
It was all about sharing their latest news stories – a simple straightforward approach.
But things have changed drastically since then haven’t they? The email industry exploded with tons of new ESPs popping up making email more accessible and flexible for everyone.
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Newsletters: More Than Just Emails
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This shift in the email landscape also changed how we used email as a marketing tool.
Businesses started creating their own newsletters sharing deals and news.
Then as the power of email nurturing became evident newsletters went beyond just regular emails evolving into their own mini-media empires.
Remember when Insider Inc.
snapped up the majority stake in Morning Brew for a cool $75 million? Or when HubSpot acquired The Hustle for around $27 million? These acquisitions speak volumes about how newsletters have become independent media entities.
HubSpot’s statement about acquiring The Hustle says it all: “By acquiring The Hustle we’ll be able to better meet the needs of these scaling companies by delivering educational business and tech trend content in their preferred formats.”
It’s clear that an audience is the most valuable asset a business can have.
And the best kind? An email newsletter audience that shows up consistently.
With this audience you have their contact info and you get audience data that’s yours to keep unlike data on Google Facebook or Amazon which can be lost at any moment.
From Customers to Fanatics: The Power of Newsletters
An email newsletter gives you the opportunity to transform a group of customers or followers into a dedicated fan club.
Think about it: You have the chance to build a loyal base of people who genuinely connect with your brand.
But despite knowing this many brands still neglect their newsletters.
They add a signup box to their website but they never actually deliver a proper newsletter.
They go straight for the sales emails instead.
It’s a huge disappointment for those who signed up expecting stories entertainment and a glimpse into the brand’s personality.
Let’s be honest how often do you intentionally sign up for an email list just to receive sales emails? Not very often right?
The result? Instead of raving fan clubs brands end up with a list of frustrated subscribers who leave those emails to gather dust in their Promotions tab.
And guess what? This also hurts the deliverability of those sales emails leading to fewer people seeing them and ultimately fewer sales.
The Empire Flippers Newsletter: A Transformation
Now I’m not going to lie – at Empire Flippers we’ve had our own newsletter for years.
We could technically pat ourselves on the back and say we haven’t completely neglected our audience but it wouldn’t be entirely accurate.
We realized that audiences want to hear from brands.
They want to know what’s happening what content they’re creating and what the company culture is like.
We were doing that with our old newsletter but we weren’t putting enough effort into it.
Our old newsletter “The Friday Content Wrap Up” was just a list of four content pieces we published that week.
We’d write an intro with a description of each piece and then we’d repeat those descriptions again further down in the email.
It was just too much information – and frankly a bit redundant.
We saw that almost all the clicks were in the first half of the email.
This meant we were spending twice as much time creating the email each week as we needed to.
Plus it was predictable.
Every email had four sections all with the same types of content.
The result? The performance metrics were pretty dismal.
The read rate was around 60% and the click-through rate (CTR) for an email focused on clicks was only about 3%. We were essentially just sharing our latest content neglecting the real potential of a newsletter.
Setting Clear Goals for Newsletter Success
In 2021 we decided it was time to revamp our newsletter to align it with our business goals.
The biggest problem with our old newsletter was that it lacked a clear purpose.
It was based on the “Well we should probably share our content to our email list” mentality.
But without a goal a newsletter lacks direction.
How can you know what to write if you don’t know what you’re writing for? And how can you know what to include if you don’t understand the purpose of the content?
Five Types of Newsletters: Finding Your Purpose
Over the past two years of writing our newsletter I’ve identified five main goals a newsletter can have.
Each goal corresponds to a different type of newsletter:
1. Content Promotion Newsletter: Boosting Your Other Channels
Email newsletters can be a powerful tool for promoting your content across different channels.
Sharing content from your other channels in your newsletter is a great way to boost their performance.
For example if you share a recent YouTube video in your newsletter the extra traffic will help improve its ranking.
The reverse is also true: You can share a link to your newsletter signup form in your YouTube video descriptions to grow your list.
Important Metrics to Track:
- Click-through rate (CTR): Measures how many people click on the links in your email.
- Website traffic: Tracks how much traffic your website receives from the newsletter.
- Social media engagement: Monitors how your audience interacts with the content you share on social media from your newsletter.
2. Community Bulletin Newsletter: Keeping Members Connected
If you have a community a newsletter is a fantastic way to keep members engaged and connected.
Share popular conversations community events and announcements like a weekly bulletin.
This is also a great way to introduce non-members to what your community is all about and encourage more people to join.
Important Metrics:
- Open rate: Shows how many people opened your email.
- Click-through rate (CTR): Measures how many people click on links to your community.
- Website traffic: Tracks how much traffic your website receives from the newsletter.
- Community engagement: Monitors how your audience interacts with the community.
3. Product Update Newsletter: Improving Customer Retention
A newsletter can be a valuable tool to share updates about your product or service.
This is especially helpful for SaaS companies.
Keeping your audience informed about the latest features they can use in your software is a great way to improve customer retention lifetime value and satisfaction.
Your newsletter can also be a great tool for product development.
Encourage readers to share their feedback on existing features and what features they’d like to see in the future.
This approach is also beneficial for large B2B service providers who want to maintain strong relationships with their clients.
Important Metrics:
- Open rate: Shows how many people opened your email.
- Click-through rate (CTR): Measures how many people click on links to your product updates.
- Website traffic: Tracks how much traffic your website receives from the newsletter.
- Customer feedback: Gathers feedback on your product updates from your audience.
4. Offer and Promotion Newsletter: Rewarding Loyal Customers
Many customers and fans of your brand want to be notified about new products and offers.
A newsletter dedicated to keeping your subscribers up to date is a great way to stay in touch with your audience and reward their loyalty.
Important Metrics:
- Open rate: Shows how many people opened your email.
- Click-through rate (CTR): Measures how many people click on links to your offers and promotions.
- Conversion rate: Tracks how many people make a purchase after clicking on your offer.
5. Brand Love Newsletter: Nurturing a Long-Term Relationship
This is the most comprehensive type of newsletter.
It incorporates elements of the other types while adding an extra layer of depth and engagement.
Brands that nurture their audience are able to thrive in competitive markets.
They’re not solely dependent on quick sales from ads or sales emails which aren’t sustainable in the long run.
Competitors will outbid you ad platforms will increase costs accounts might get banned and audiences will experience ad fatigue.
By consistently nurturing your audience without expecting immediate sales you’re building a valuable asset that supports your business.
The aim of a brand love newsletter is to educate and entertain your readers.
Share valuable content like “how-to” articles explainer videos product demonstrations or industry news.
To connect with your audience share company events updates and even feature your employees to make your brand more personal.
Important Metrics:
- Open rate: Shows how many people opened your email.
- Read rate: Measures how many people read your entire email.
- Click-through rate (CTR): Measures how many people click on links to your content.
- Social media engagement: Monitors how your audience interacts with the content you share on social media.
- Customer feedback: Gathers feedback on the content and overall experience from your audience.
Choosing the Right Type of Newsletter for Your Business
No matter which type of newsletter you choose it should be tied to your business goals.
Whether you want to increase revenue boost product usage improve customer lifetime value enhance your product grow your community or achieve something else entirely your goals will guide you toward the right type of newsletter.
For us the This Week in M&A newsletter helps us achieve a number of business goals:
- Increase brand awareness and thought leadership in the industry: Sharing valuable industry news and insights positions us as a trusted source of information.
- Drive traffic to our website and other content channels: We strategically share links to our blog YouTube channel and podcast directing traffic to our other content assets.
- Generate leads and build our email list: By offering valuable content we attract potential buyers and sellers to our marketplace.
- Improve customer retention: Providing continuous updates and insights keeps our audience engaged and coming back for more.
- Promote our marketplace and generate sales: We showcase featured listings from our marketplace driving potential buyers to our platform.
Pre-Launch Research: Learning from the Best
Once we decided on the type of newsletter we wanted to create we embarked on a comprehensive pre-launch research and preparation phase.
We spent a whole quarter researching and preparing for the launch.
We analyzed newsletters in our industry and the most famous ones in other relevant industries.
We focused on replicating the best practices of these successful newsletters breaking down their anatomy in detail.
Here are some of the newsletters we analyzed:
- The Hustle
- Morning Brew
- TheSkimm
- Stratechery
- Recode Decode
- Axios Pro Rata
Our analysis included:
- Content: We examined the type of content shared whether it was commentary expert insight or overviews and whether it was original or sourced from other places.
- Formatting and Text: We looked at how content was presented – the number and types of design elements sentence and paragraph length and style and overall word count.
- Consistency Metrics: We analyzed open rates click-through rates and read rates to understand how effectively these newsletters engaged their audience.
- Tonality: We assessed how each brand presented itself in their newsletter how it matched their overall brand persona and whether it felt personal or more formal.
This research revealed some key trends:
- Trend of the Week: Many newsletters included a “Trend of the Week” section offering a brief overview of a current trend and its implications.
- Data-Driven Insights: Some newsletters provided data-driven insights from their industry offering valuable context and trends.
- Content Diversity: The majority of newsletters combined original content curated industry news and expert features.
We also paid close attention to how each newsletter promoted itself both internally and externally:
- Internal Promotion: We examined how each company used their existing audience to gain subscribers including referral programs website signup options and lead magnets.
- External Promotion: We analyzed both organic and paid marketing strategies:
- Organic Marketing: We reviewed social media profiles assessed their promotion efforts and measured their effectiveness based on engagement metrics.
- Paid Marketing: We used tools like Facebook Ads Library and Google Search to understand if they were running paid ads for their newsletters and we looked for retargeting ads on their websites. If they were running ads we analyzed the creative assets and signup funnels.
Setting Up the Backend: Building the Infrastructure
While we were conducting our research we were also preparing the backend for our newsletter.
Our CRM is HubSpot so we built the newsletter there to connect it with our customer data.
We created a campaign for This Week in M&A to track its performance.
This gives us a detailed view of our audience allowing us to track:
- Readership: We can see how much of our customer base reads our newsletter.
- Audience Insights: We have access to detailed information about our readers including their interests demographics and engagement patterns.
- Content Engagement: We can analyze which content pieces our audience interacts with most providing valuable insights into their preferences and what they find most valuable.
- Sales Conversions (Limited): While we can track website visits and signups directly from the newsletter we can’t rely on revenue tracking based on email influence on deals due to the length and complexity of our sales cycle.
Beyond the standard email metrics like open rates click-through rates and read rates we also track:
- Unique Clicks: We want to understand how many people are clicking on our content especially for our blog posts podcast episodes and YouTube videos.
- Links Clicked: We analyze which links within our newsletter are generating the most clicks providing insights into the content that resonates most with our audience.
- Time Spent Reading: This metric tells us how engaged our readers are with the newsletter indicating whether they’re finding it interesting and valuable.
- Feedback Submissions: We track how many readers are submitting feedback giving us valuable insights into what they like dislike and what they want to see more of.
These metrics help us understand how our readers interact with our newsletter and guide our decisions on formatting and content.
Launching the Newsletter: Sharing Our First Email
Once our research was complete and everything was set up we prepared our email template and guidelines.
We were ready to send out the first edition of This Week in M&A.
This Week in M&A is a weekly email newsletter that delivers the latest online business mergers and acquisitions (M&A) news industry trends and content.
We scour the web for the latest news stories and package them into a concise and engaging newsletter.
We also share content from our blog YouTube channel podcast and feature guest appearances on other podcasts and webinars.
The goal of the newsletter is to be an entertaining source of industry news.
We provide our readers with everything they need to know about what’s happening in the industry in just a few minutes.
We pack each story section with actionable knowledge so readers always come away with something useful they can apply to their professional lives.
Taking a Tour Through the Email: Breaking Down the Sections
Let’s take a closer look at the different sections in our email:
1. Trend of the Week: Setting the Stage
We kick off each email with a trending topic providing context and business ideas.
The Trend of the Week typically follows a three-part structure:
- Trend: We identify a current trend in the online business M&A industry.
- Context: We explain the significance of the trend and its potential implications.
- Ideas: We share practical business ideas or strategies based on the trend.
Example:
Trend: The rise of “headless” eCommerce platforms.
Context: Headless eCommerce separates the front-end (customer-facing) experience from the back-end (order processing and inventory management) of an online store. This allows for greater flexibility and customization for online businesses.
Ideas: This trend offers opportunities for businesses to create unique shopping experiences integrate with other platforms seamlessly and scale their operations more effectively.
2. This Week’s M&A Data: Transparency and Insights
Below the Trend of the Week we list out the contents of the newsletter in bullet points before moving on to the next section.
We share data from our marketplace for that week including:
- Number of listings: This shows the current activity level in the marketplace.
- Average asking price: Provides insight into the current valuation trends for online businesses.
- Average sale price: Reveals the actual market value of online businesses.
- Average time to sell: Indicates how long it typically takes to sell a business in our marketplace.
We share this data because we value transparency and want to be open with our audience.
This is also why we publish our quarterly reports.
3. Big Story: Breaking Down the Latest News
We like to start the main body of the email with a bang so we feature the biggest story upfront.
This is usually a major news event that we break down and explain to our readers.
We share all the important information in a clear and concise way.
If the story topic is within our area of expertise we’ll include our own analysis.
This story can also be a recent big industry report.
Our readers appreciate this type of content because we pull out the most important takeaways from the report saving them from reading the entire thing.
If there aren’t any major news events or reports we’ll share our biggest piece of recent content with high educational value.
Example:
Industry Trend Analysis: The growing popularity of niche eCommerce businesses.
Analysis: Niche eCommerce businesses are becoming increasingly popular as consumers seek out specialized products and services. This trend presents opportunities for businesses to build loyal customer bases and establish strong brand identities.
Takeaways:
- Focus on a specific niche to differentiate yourself from the competition.
- Build a strong online presence and connect with your target audience.
- Offer exceptional customer service to create brand loyalty.
4. Opportunity Podcast Episode: The Best Bites
Next we share the latest episode of our Opportunity podcast.
We highlight the best bits of the interview in the email giving readers the full value of the content.
Our podcast episodes are usually our most clicked content as we have some fantastic guests.
5. Hidden Gem: A Featured Marketplace Listing
Each week we feature a special listing from our marketplace.
We share some details about the strengths of the business without using any sales copy.
The Hidden Gem section is a favorite among our readers.
We get great feedback and these listings generate tons of link clicks and Listing Unlocks.
6. Secondary Stories: Industry News Content and Updates
These stories can be content from other brands and sources news updates or content from our channels.
News stories take priority as the main purpose of the newsletter is to keep our readers informed about the latest happenings in the industry.
The length of these secondary sections varies depending on the content.
For example if there’s a Google update we’ll usually do a short feature.
Our audience loves this type of content because it directly affects them.
7. Company Updates and Events: Connecting with Our Audience
If we’re attending events we’ll let our readers know and invite them to come and meet us.
We’ll also share company updates including when we’re hiring and updates to our services.
If we’ve been featured on other podcasts or webinars we’ll share that content.
We also occasionally share promotions like our Shopify Seller Relief offer which gives Shopify store owners 25% more on the sale of their business.
This section helps readers stay updated on the most relevant news encouraging them to explore those topics further.
It also informs our content strategy by allowing us to see which news topics generate the most clicks each week.
8. Living La Vida Nomad: Showcasing Our Company Culture
Our audience is proud of its nomadic lifestyle so we celebrate that by sharing pictures of our team’s travels in our Living La Vida Nomad section.
This creates a connection with our audience showcasing the people behind our brand and giving them a sense of our company culture.
9. Meme of the Week: A Dose of Humor
We like to end the email with a laugh so we share a Meme of the Week.
This section reflects our company culture and personality.
We also invite readers to share their photos and memes.
10. Feedback: Valuing Reader Input
This is probably the most important section of the newsletter.
You need to know what your readers think about your newsletter.
With a feedback option they tell you exactly how to improve it.
Here’s why feedback is so crucial:
- Reader Insights: Your readers have a clear idea of what they want from your newsletter.
- Ideas for Everyone: Even if one reader shares a feedback idea it could benefit all readers.
- Content Preferences: Feedback helps you understand what content your readers want to see more of.
- Quality Assurance: If you’re not getting feedback and relying solely on data it’s difficult to know if readers genuinely enjoy the content. Positive feedback confirms what you’re doing right.
- Accuracy: While you might not get feedback on minor spelling or grammatical errors someone might point out factual inaccuracies ensuring your content stays accurate.
Continuously Iterating and Refining: Making it Better
We’ve had sections in the earlier editions of our newsletter that we’ve decided to remove including a humorous ad section where we audaciously tried to sell our services to our audience.
We removed it because it took too much time to craft with minimal reward.
We found it more effective to focus on keeping the overall writing entertaining.
Based on the feedback we’re currently receiving and the engagement metrics we’re seeing our readers seem to enjoy our newsletter as it is so we won’t make any drastic changes.
We’re always testing small changes to make improvements though.
Our primary focus is on the quality of our content and writing.
The Story Atom: A Content Selection Framework
Since our newsletter aims to educate and entertain our audience with the latest and most relevant news and content from our industry I needed to develop a system for identifying the best content to achieve that goal.
I call this system the Story Atom.
It consists of four key elements:
- Important: Is this content important for our readers to know about? Does it have a significant impact on their lives now or in the future?
- Actionable: Does this content offer actionable information that readers can apply to their lives? Does it provide practical tips or advice?
- Relevant: Is this content relevant to our audience’s interests and needs? Does it align with their professional goals and challenges?
- Interesting: Is this content engaging and interesting for our audience? Does it have an element of surprise or intrigue?
You can share content that has only one of these elements but your best content will include them all.
Judging Importance:
To assess how important a piece of content or story is for our readers I ask myself how big the story is and how much it will impact their lives.
Think about it this way: if you were scrolling through news on your phone in a café next to one of your readers how quickly would you rush to tell them? Would you hesitate whether it’s worth starting a conversation over? Or would it be somewhere in the middle?
The more you feel the need to tell them the better the story is.
If you’d hesitate then maybe reconsider whether it’s content worth including in your newsletter.
Factors to Consider:
- News Impact: How significant is the story for the industry?
- Reader Impact: How will the story directly affect the reader’s work business or decisions?
- Long-Term Implications: Does the story have long-term implications for the industry or the reader’s future?
Actionable Content:
Actionable content gives readers information they can directly apply to their lives.
This often comes in the form of step-by-step guides or how-to’s but if you interpret a news story and give practical advice based on your expertise that can also be actionable.
Relevance:
Relevance is a bit subjective because your audience likely has a diverse range of personas.
Some stories will appeal more to one persona than another.
While your content doesn’t have to appeal to every persona all the time be sure to include everyone regularly.
Mix up the content each week so your newsletter doesn’t become repetitive.
The relevance of content is judged by how closely it relates to the reader’s life.
Interesting Content:
This is the least important element because readers don’t need interesting content but they do need content that’s important actionable and relevant.
However it’s important to make those other types of content interesting.
And you might find content that’s so fascinating and relevant that your audience would benefit from reading it purely for entertainment.
Focus on These Elements:
- Storytelling: Use a storytelling approach to make content more engaging.
- Humor: Inject humor or wit into your writing to make content more memorable.
- Uniqueness: Share content that’s not commonly found elsewhere offering a fresh perspective.
- Personal Anecdotes: Include relevant personal anecdotes to add a human touch to the content.
The Story Atom in Action: Crafting Engaging Copy
The Story Atom can be used for sourcing content and crafting your copy.
- Importance First: When writing identify what’s most important first and foremost and then craft the rest of your copy around those core points.
- Include Relevance: Ensure the information is relevant to your audience.
- Actionable Takeaways: After finishing a draft think about any actionable takeaways you can provide for the reader.
- Add Interest: Finally add an element of interest to make the content more appealing.
For example in a previous section we shared a piece of content from a podcast episode about an entrepreneur who created a system for 7-figure business owners to scale their operations.
While listening to the podcast I heard her say that she created the system to overcome her own unorganized personality.
I found that interesting so I decided to include it in the story.
I also learned that she was only 21 years old so I included that as well.
Those extra details aren’t essential for the reader to know nor are they actionable or relevant but they make the story more appealing.
Adding that element of interest actually makes the reader enjoy the content more because it adds a story element.
People love stories and remember them so the reader will remember the content more and be more likely to share it with friends.
My ability to identify these four elements when crafting copy stems from a deep understanding of our audience.
I know what they’re interested in their humor their likes and dislikes.
This understanding allows me to write copy that resonates with them.
The length and detail of each section are determined by the depth of the content we’re reporting on.
Some stories cover a lot of important topics and have a lot of detail so they require more coverage.
Others are more straightforward with less interesting or important details.
Every sentence should provide value to the reader.
If a sentence doesn’t add much value or isn’t very interesting I’ll tend to leave it out.
Our focus for every email is to ensure it delivers a ton of value to our readers.
The Impact of This Week in M&A: Beyond a Weekly Email
The day we launched This Week in M&A our audience was thrilled.
It went viral across the industry with big personalities sharing it on social media.
The biggest names in the industry were reading it (and still do).
It’s become so much more than just a weekly email.
We collaborate with brands on exclusive features.
When we share content from other brands we let them know which opens up opportunities for conversations.
We believe our readers love the newsletter because it gives without expecting anything in return.
And we think this is the future of content marketing.
The Shift in Content Consumption: From Click-Bait to Value
How people consume content is changing and how platforms allow you to deliver content is changing in tandem with that shift.
The online world went through a “click-bait” era where all content focused on getting people to click through to see a blog post YouTube video podcast or something else.
Social platforms and emails were flooded with dramatic headlines and bit.ly links to questionable content.
People were constantly sucked into watching long videos or reading long posts just to get a small piece of value.
A 40-minute video might have 35 minutes of a cheesy sales pitch before finally delivering the promised information in the last five minutes.
The online population grew tired of these marketing tactics and became more selective about what they clicked on.
Social platforms with their vast data on user engagement took notice.
Facebook and Instagram don’t allow you to share links in posts and other platforms penalize posts with links by limiting their visibility.
Email is the only platform that can’t be regulated in this way but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t adapt to this change in content consumption.
The Power of Nurture Marketing: Giving Value Without Expectation
While all your competitors are still click-baiting people you can stand out by giving people what they want without expecting anything in return.
This might sound counterproductive when you’re marketing your content to generate sales but don’t underestimate the power of nurture marketing.
With online business being so fiercely competitive you have to give away as much value as possible to stay ahead.
It’s no longer enough to pour thousands of dollars into Facebook ads and outbid your competitors for ad space.
Someone else will eventually outbid you.
To win the long-term game you need to build an audience that visits you frequently not the other way around.
Once you have that audience it’s very difficult for competitors to take it away from you.
After all if you’re giving people valuable content every week why would they go anywhere else? And when it’s time to buy your product which brand are they going to choose? The one that’s been bombarding them with ads for months or the one that’s educated and entertained them for years?
As a customer which brand are you more likely to buy from again? The one that took your sale and did nothing else? Or the one that rewarded your custom by providing helpful tips and information about how to use their products every week for free?
Brand Loyalty: The Ultimate Business Currency
For these reasons we’re not tracking revenue from our newsletter.
In fact it’s not tied to any financial goals at all.
In a time of inflation where the dollar is weakening by the hour brand loyalty is the ultimate business currency.
Conclusion: Your Newsletter Your Winning Tool
Hopefully this zero-click article has given you a clear understanding of what makes for a great email newsletter.
After you define your business goals and how email marketing fits into your plans start considering how an email newsletter can be your winning marketing tool.
If I were to add a cheeky little call to action I’d invite you to sell your business newsletter if you already have one.
We have business owners in our buyer network who buy email lists to grow their businesses.
Or if you’re a buyer looking for an audience create a free Empire Flippers account and browse our marketplace to find a healthy and profitable content site you can bolt onto your business.
(that was technically two calls to action!)
Let me know what you think in the comments!
🔥 Want to build a loyal audience and become a thought leader? Get insider secrets and industry trends delivered straight to your inbox! 🔥