Newsletters are your online shop's magnet
Newsletters for your online shop are among the most fantastic things you can work with as an online retailer. I can hardly emphasise enough how important I think they are. With a good list and something worthwhile to say, you have your own medium and a direct route to customers.
The video is from April 2009 and introduces the Newsletters chapter in E-pusher. The figures and experiences are from that time and show why I was so enthusiastic about building a newsletter list.
Newsletters for your online shop can generate sales quickly
At that point, I had around 16,000–17,000 people on my newsletter list. When I sent it out, I earned tens of thousands of kroner. And I knew people who earned much more.
I give an example involving a conference in Herning. When I mentioned it in the newsletter, I could sell 200,000 kroner worth of tickets in 24 hours through the newsletter alone.
I also use Allan as an example because I knew his work and case studies well. He could generate 300,000–500,000 kroner in revenue in a few hours when he sent good offers in his newsletter.
Those are the specific results I describe in the video. They are why I believe you should take your newsletter work seriously.
Reach the people who are not ready to buy too
You have visitors who are not sure whether they want to buy from you right now. Try to get them onto your newsletter list. Then you have a chance to tell them something even after they have left the shop.
In the video, I encourage you to be a little more aggressive about making signup visible. It should not just be a small link somewhere. I mention a popup or another clear invitation.
But give people a reason to say yes. If you sell grass seed, for example, you could offer a free ebook on how customers can get a lawn that looks like a golf course. A five-step guide with something you know a lot about yourself.
People want help with the things that interest them. That is the knowledge you can use to get them to sign up.
Allan went from 3,000 to over 30,000 readers
Allan had around 3,000 people on his list. I suggested creating free ebooks and giving them to people who would sign up for the newsletter.
In the video, I also say that an exchange like that needs to be set up correctly in terms of the rules. I refer to the example in E-pusher. It is part of my explanation from 2009.
Over two years, Allan went from around 3,000 to over 30,000 people. That gave him a medium the size of regular magazines. In the video, I estimate that creating the ebooks may have taken him fifty hours of work.
You can also get a journalist to help with the writing. But it does not have to be a major work. A short guide can be something you create yourself because you know the products you sell.
A good guide starts with the customer’s questions
If you sell wood-burning stoves, you could create a ten-step guide to getting the best fire and the most heat into the living room. You could also write about cleaning a wood-burning stove or choosing the right one.
Those are specific examples from the video. You need to find ideas within your own field. If you sell something for the garden, you can share knowledge about caring for a garden.
What matters is that the topic interests the people you want as customers. A guide that helps with something relevant is appealing. And of course people need to be able to unsubscribe if they no longer want the newsletter.
E-pusher light built my own list
I released E-pusher light myself and grew from around 3,000 to 16,000 people on the list in two and a half years. That was for a relatively small and narrow target audience: Online retailers.
In the video, I estimate the target audience at perhaps 15,000–20,000 people and say I had more or less got them all on board. That says something about the importance of the free edition to my work on the list.
If you have a larger target audience, the potential is larger too. I use the example of an audience of 300,000 people and the possibility of getting 100,000–150,000 onto a list. That is the scale of opportunity I see in the newsletter.
Send something when you have something to say
You need to write the right copy and send the newsletter properly. In the video, I recommend not promising to send it once a week if you do not have enough material.
Send it when you have something to say. When there is something you want to tell people. People can tell the difference between having something relevant to share and just needing to get an email out.
Good material helps make them want to stay on the list. That is what you need: For them still to want to hear from you.
The list is your own medium
Your visibility on Google and your ads can disappear. If you get kicked out, it can hurt your business. But if you have, say, 25,000 people on your newsletter list, you still have a way to reach them.
That is why I call the newsletter your own medium. You are your own boss and decide what to say. I am enormously enthusiastic about the value of the time and money you put into building the list.
So get started on giving people a good reason to sign up. Enjoy building your newsletter.