Dame Rebecca West said it best with “a community needs news for the same reason that a man
needs eyes...
it has to see where it’s going”.
Find out how this applies to newsletters and the top reasons to start a newsletter inside
the video...
Hey guys, it’s Chia from Brand24 and today we’re going to look at email marketing and
the top reasons to start a newsletter.
But before we get into why you need to start building an email list, I wanna just geek
out for a minute and look at how newsletters even became a thing in the first place
I do love a good origin story
and this one seems to be all about staying current
and up to date.
Newsletters go back!
In fact, between all the various methods of digital marketing out there, email marketing
and newsletters are considered to be the oldest forms around.
So, there are records dating all the way back to Ancient Rome, of public officials... they exchanged
periodic updates and reports on their latest activities, which is essentially what a newsletter
does… except, you know, these were carved in stone.
And then as time progressed, and hand-carved stone tablets gave way to paper and the printing
press, which also made it easier to produce more than one portable rock face of content
at a time, the newsletter evolved into the newspaper, which was ... which as originally based on a
collection of weekly local news reports and advice.
And, finally, with the advent of the Internet, and e-mail becoming a household commodity,
we began to see what most of us probably think of when we hear the word ‘newsletter’
today: which is basically, a simple but very well-designed HTML-based email that typically provides a
news update or shared insight that’s sent from an organization or a person.
Now, as the incomparable author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer, Dame Rebecca West
put it: “a community needs news for the same reason that a man needs eyes...
it has to see where it’s going”.
And the keyword here is actually ‘community’.
So, this is one of the key reasons why newsletters have... they've never really gone away, only changing
form with time… because not only does a digital newsletter help keep readers up to
date on topics that they care about, it also serves as a powerful way for businesses and
organizations to (1) connect with their audience, (2) increase brand awareness, (3) drive sales
and, of course, (4) build community — making that daily, weekly or monthly newsletter email
a staple in digital marketing.
But the top reasons to start a newsletter email are actually... they're a little more rooted in
technology and statistics, at least in my humble opinion!
So, for starters, one of the best reasons to start an e-newsletter (at least for me) is because
it provides a way for you to reach your audience without having to fight an algorithm!
It’s not all smooth sailing; you do have to consider your ‘open rate’, but not
having to worry about SEO and how to game the algorithm is already pretty huge.
Plus, there’s a massive number of email users, even compared to social media.
So, to put this into perspective, consider these stats: there are roughly 4 billion email users
worldwide, and about 5.59 billion active email accounts.
I'm differentiating between these 2 numbers because it’s not uncommon for people to
have multiple email addresses; like me, I have several: (1) one I use for business; (2) one
that’s personal (3) and one for…... reasons.
So these stats are compared to social media platforms like Facebook, which has 2.7 billion monthly
active users, YouTube: about 2 billion, Instagram: more than 1 billion, and Twitter… well,
they measure things a little bit differently.
They don’t tell us how many monthly active users they have; instead, they measure the
number of monetizable daily active users, or people and brands on Twitter who are able
to show ads.
So they currently have about 166 million monetizable daily active users.
So, now, another important reason to start a newsletter is because of how well newsletters render
on mobile devices.
This might sound purely technical, but mobile users currently account for 51.53% of all
web traffic; that’s more than half.
And because newsletter emails are so lightweight and download rapidly,
they also display just beautifully on mobile devices, which is something a lot of websites are not
able to do as well… making newsletters a really good way for your brand to offer something
to all those mobile users.
And the fourth reason to start a newsletter might be a little obvious — but it is really
important: it’s because your email list (which is all of your newsletter subscribers)
is something that you own.
So, since your email list isn’t platform-dependent and it basically goes where you go, you don’t
have to worry about losing your community due to a platform shutting down or making
significant changes... which can definitely happen.
So, for example,
there have been a lot of rumors lately about TikTok possibly getting banned from the US
market, which would be just devastating for creators who’ve put in a tremendous amount of time and effort
into building a community there.
And this is something that is just out of their hands (because this is what happens when you’re platform-dependent).
If the TikTok ban were to really happen, the only thing these creators could do is attempt
to migrate the community that they’ve built onto another video platform like Instagram
or YouTube… or try to maintain the community through an email list.
Alright, so… that’s actually it for today!
Next time, I’ll show you different kinds of newsletters for business and marketing
(including my favorite newsletter of all time)... I'll show you which types are best for you, and how often
you want to send a newsletter.
Alright, thanks a lot guys and I’ll see you next time, bye!
Alright guys, so if you have any comments or questions
feel free to let me know in the Comments section below
And if you feel like you learned anything new in this video
feel free to Like, Share and Subscribe to our channel
I'd really love that
So, again, thank you very much for being here
And I will see you next time, bye!