How to write a small business newsletter that your customers will love

A small business newsletter is one of the easiest and most effective ways for small business owners to market their business online. Why?

• It’s once a month. By investing a small amount of time, you can create valuable content that builds trust with the people you want to do business with.
• It keeps you top of mind. As you regularly send valuable content, customers will have you in mind and have positive associations with your business.
• It’s a valuable place to get both direct and indirect feedback from your customers. You can generate customer surveys about your service through sites like Survey Monkey. You can also use your email service provider’s analytics to see what content gets the most clicks.

Check out the video above to join Invoice2go, a Bill.com company, Senior Content Writer, Daniel Ward, and Email Marketing Manager, Jell Khongkraphan, as they share how to set up, structure, and schedule your newsletter with MailChimp.

You’ll see how an email newsletter is a high-value tactic to meet your business objectives. Whether you’re looking to build stronger relationships with your customers or increase sales, it’s worth your consideration as a small business owner.

Email marketing works best when you’ve defined specific goals. This masterclass builds on our live presentation 8 Simple Steps to Better Small Business Marketing with Invoice2go’s own marketing guru, Nat Brown. Here, Nat shares a comprehensive strategy for the construction company, OCMS. However, no matter what industry you work in, this guide can help you build an effective system for your business.

If you’re new to email marketing, another useful presentation you need to check out is How to Get Started with Email Marketing. Here, Jell shares in-depth advice on setting up a professional email account and overall best email practices.  

Keep in mind that email marketing works at any budget. There are free options, and you can do all the work yourself. However, if you want to invest more, you can also hire freelancers through websites like Upwork to help you set up and manage your business email.

Let’s take a look at some of the key information from this live Q&A:

How to set up for your small business newsletter

Before you write your newsletter, you need to create compelling content that demonstrates your expertise and builds trust with your target audience. Remember: this is not a place to hard-sell your customers.

Be authentic and human in your writing. Use a variety of media, including text, photos, and video. Remember that this doesn’t need to be too fancy, and you can easily create great content from your smartphone.

Each month, decide on a few pieces of content to share with your newsletter audience. In our example newsletter, OCMS shares property management advice videos that they host on YouTube. They also include a before and after of a major construction project that they recently completed. Other suggestions that you can link to in your newsletter are:

• Behind the scenes of a job
• Real business advice/tips
• Contests, giveaways, and special offers
• Surveys
• Review requests

Watch the video to see several great newsletter examples and listen to Daniel and Jell explain what’s great about each of them. You can also visit www.reallygoodemails.com to get more ideas for your newsletter.

How to structure your small business newsletter 

Once you’re created and uploaded your content, you’re ready to put together your email. In the video, Daniel and Jell walk you through setting up an account with MailChimp and go over their easy-to-use email templates. Keep in mind that MailChimp has both free and paid templates, so you can get started even if your budget is very small.

If you’re a regular Invoice2go user, you can easily export your client list from the app and upload it directly to MailChimp. This allows you to create your newsletter email list or add it to an existing one. Daniel demonstrates how to do this, and Jell explains how to add a form to your website so you can continually grow your email list.

As far as your writing goes, keep your language simple and authentic to how you speak in real life. Use short sentences and friendly wording to share your ideas. Take advantage of services like Grammarly to ensure your content is typo-free and easy to read.

Don’t forget to include links to your social media accounts in your newsletter. MailChimp’s templates make these easy to add, and this is a simple way to help build your online presence.

Tips for scheduling your email

At the end of the presentation, Daniel and Jell review several email best practices. Be sure to pay special attention to your email subject line. Avoid using words that get your messages sent to spam and use a service like CoSchedule’s Email Subject Line Tester to help you write a line that gets more clicks. 

Also, make sure to send your email at a time when your audience is most likely to read it. It may take some trial and error, but when you send your message can significantly impact how many people read it. Tuesdays and Thursdays work well for many small businesses, but your best time will depend on your company and customers.

Review your newsletter email marketing analytics

Finally, Daniel and Jell go over some essential tips for reviewing analytics. They discuss benchmarks for open rates and click-through rates. They also emphasize that it will likely take a few months to see the impact of your newsletter on your business.

MailChimp makes it easy for you to review the success of your newsletter. This information can help you to improve your email marketing strategy over time and share more content that your customers are interested in. 

We hope you enjoy the presentation. To stay in the loop about all our live masterclasses and check out our Go Getters community.