Creating something that people would want to read in their email is difficult. However, if you want to take your business to the next level, having a regular email newsletter is a must.
This article will take you through the steps and considerations when you’re looking to succeed with a newsletter.
With the many emails a person goes through in a day, it’s challenging to keep them interested quickly with the 8 seconds you have to get their attention. Not to mention the fact that nowadays everyone tries to read on their multiple platforms, including on their smartphones, in the bus, on the train and all over the place.
Very commonly, many people try to eat while speedily going through their emails. It’s so quick and easy to just click delete if they are not interested, as people don’t like to ‘waste their time’. And so, the tendency would be to just quickly filter out what they think they would not be interested in.
You have that small window to make sure they don’t delete what you want to say about video production. And you have great things to say, right?
Having an email newsletter is your way, as a small business, to keep in-touch with potential clients (or even current clients), to show what you’re currently up to, as well as set yourself up as a subject expert.
You probably never really considered marketing online, or, you’re trying to get more visitors to your website. Perhaps you’re trying to reach a larger base beyond your regular audience.
I can relate to what you’re going through. I want to share my top tips on how to effectively get people to be interested in you, your newsletter and how you can strategically reach out to your audience.
1. Answer Some General Questions People May Have
First off, know your voice, your tone and your target audience extremely well. It really does help to know your readers, and speak as if you writing to an individual, not as a group.
Of course, your target audience are people who want to know more about video production. They may be business owners who are considering having promo video work done for sales purposes, for training videos, events or other video purposes.
They might even be production people themselves, who would like more tips about how to improve their filmmaking skills.
Target your writing towards an individual reader and pique their interest by writing to them as if you know exactly what they’re thinking.
For example, giving a regular dose of your research on the web about filmmaking and video production would be a good topic to regularly write about.
You also want to talk about all the projects you have going on. Include production stills, behind the scenes videos, interviews with crew and video subjects alike.
Sharing practical content will always be beneficial to your readers, as well. Tips and guidelines are always a noteworthy thing. Checklists are important for those managing projects and people get a lot of value out of these.
Sharing pointers on how to get organized with your video equipment, and how to schedule tasks and projects well are a few more examples that can be interesting for your audience.
Really, the world of content is your oyster here! Make sure you checkout what’s working and get some ideas from those who are already doing it well.
So write articles, blog about your production company’s happenings and then link out to those articles in your email newsletter. You can even include a short snippet in the email that previews what you’re going to talk about in the article you’re linking out to. That is always a smart way to get your reader’s attention and get the click.
2. Engage Your Readers With Fun And Interesting Subject Lines
What is the first line that a potential reader sees? The subject line, of course.
This is your first opportunity to draw in your readers into deciding whether to open the mail, or potentially move it to the spam box. With a good and attractive (or even potentially shocking) subject line, it can lure in your subscribers to open the email and see what’s in store for them.
You may use in a, “the Untold Secrets and Lies of video editors”, or “Surviving the 11th hour” kinda deal. Things like these subject lines may create some level of mystery that plunges one to opening the email and seeing what the heck it’s all about.
Now that you have gotten their interest, you definitely have to make sure that you do have an engaging email. Don’t use a captivating email subject line and then plow straight into a story that would make a cocaine addict fall asleep!
Remember that people get frustrated when they’re promised something and you don’t deliver. So, while you may want to have some wild, catchy phrase as a subject line, make sure your content inside the email is just as engaging.
3. Make Your Newsletter Friendly On Multiple Platforms
Speaking of eye-catching, I want to share with you some more advice on making sure you get to your audience immediately.
As we all know now, people read their emails on just about any platform possible, as long as it can be connected to the internet, right? Mobile smart phones and tablets use is higher than it’s ever been before and mobile marketing certainly is the future. Having content created that can adapt to these platforms, and be future proof, is a big plus.
Have you ever opened those emails where the images and words are all jumbled up, some fonts are noticeably larger than others and it looks like someone just puked all over the screen?
The lack of cohesiveness will just make you want to press delete even before you get the chance to see what it’s really about. Don’t resign your emails to people’s junk mail. Make sure your content is mobile friendly.
You can definitely design your newsletter to have a responsive email design. This allows your newsletter to quickly adapt to the many different platforms your subscribers are viewing it from, whether it be from an Apple iPhone, an Android tablet, and so on.
4. Work With Your Visuals
The filmmaking and video production industry is a highly visual industry. So use images to your advantage to attract your readers.
Have you thought about taking images yourself and creating your own stock photo portfolio that you may use for your newsletters?
Don’t be afraid to task someone in your team with the job of chronicling projects via still photography (and video, of course!) This kind of content is perfect for your blog posts and makes great fodder for your email newsletter. Your potential clients want to read about and see what you’re up to, after all!
You can also take advantage of some stock photo repositories online to give some visual aid as to what you are writing about.
5. Create A Special Feature In Every Issue
This is another great way to retain readers and potentially even build new ones. Including something that gets your readers to interact is key. This could be a series of questions, or some kind of challenge (ongoing or one-off works).
You can make it as interactive as possible, like asking them to respond to the challenge, and the results will be posted in the next issue of the newsletter.
This type of engagement really helps in keeping the existing base, as well as potentially influencing new ones, especially if the feature, trivia or content, can be shared with other people.
A pop quiz is an idea, too. Trivia questions could be as simple as:
- ‘What movie was this scene taken from?’,
- ‘What are the names of the characters in so-and-so movie?’,
- ‘What location was this scene shot in?’.
These can not only initiate interaction between you and your existing readers, but may also take a step further, by getting your readers to discuss these topics with their peers, colleagues and friends. That’s a top way to attract even more people to subscribe to your newsletter.
Industry news and views is always a good choice to talk about, too. Say you work mostly with companies in the tech industry. You could roundup tech news each week, or cover topics relating to video production technology. This is a sure fire way to get into the hearts and minds of your readers.
6. Ease Of Subscription
Now, knowing that your content may easily get shared with other people, and the great value that you’re no doubt offering, conversations may come up between people who subscribe and people who don’t yet subscribe to your newsletter.
It may easily get forwarded to other people. So why not give them the opportunity to subscribe to you as well?
A good practice would be to have an easy method in the newsletter that lets anyone subscribe a new email address to receive the newsletter in future. A simple link at the bottom of the email that leads to a signup page on your website is a brilliant idea.
Label the link as something like, “Been forwarded this email and want to receive them yourself? Just click here.”
7. Set A Regular Pace
Do you want to have your readers get a daily update on what you have to share about your knowledge in production, or a review of the latest gadgets?
Well, unless you have enough resources and time, or someone else who can handle the updates, maybe a daily update may not be useful.
Something like a newsletter every week might be better pacing. With more to share due to more time passing, you’ll have more valuable content for your readers than if you did it daily. Likewise, your readers won’t be bombarded with a ton of updates, as you won’t be hitting them up daily.
Or, perhaps, even just once a month may be good. The most important thing to remember here is that you actually want to get your readers informed, and you have to be able to set a regular pace for it. Something that your readers look forward to every week or monthly.
If you are unsure about the success of the frequency of readership, you can reach out to your readers and ask them what kind of frequency they prefer.
Building Your Business With An Email Newsletter – Conclusion
I used to go with sending a weekly email newsletter with updates on our latest projects, industry news and views, and even semi-regular reviews of movies that I found to be very enlightening.
Over time, I received feedback that weekly email newsletter updates were too hard for people to follow. So I changed things up to be monthly instead.
So many people start an email newsletter in ernest, but then taper off their updates as their interest wanes. That’s such a shame. To effectively market, you have to keep going at it, even when you are tired. This is all about consistency.
When you’re building your business with an email newsletter, ensure that you remember these key things:
- Answer general questions people may have.
- Engage your readers with fun and interesting subject lines.
- Make your Newsletter friendly on multiple platforms.
- Work with your visuals.
- Create a special feature in every issue.
- Ease of Subscription.
- Set a regular pace.
We hope you’ve found this article on starting & growing an email newsletter for your video business helpful. Have you had success with a company email newsletter for your business? Let us know in the comments below.
tried it… did not work
Hi Varun,
What did not work?