You can save yourself a lot of time and frustration if you opt not to create completely fresh material for your email newsletters. Instead, you can reuse blog posts or articles from your website for the content of your newsletters, filling them out with high quality, interesting and engaging material without needing to come up with new topics.

Reusing previous content for email marketing newsletters

Now I certainly suggest that you do more than just copy and paste a random blog post into an email. You certainly won’t be showing much effort, originality or enthusiasm on your end. Instead, you can do any number of things that helps to make your newsletter engaging:

Showcase your latest material: If you frequently update your blog or your website then you already produce a great deal of content. Just because someone is on your email list, it does not mean that they religiously check out your website. Additionally, even if they do, they may not read each and every article or post.

Therefore, a great and simple idea for an email marketing newsletter is to include all of the posts from the last week or two. Include an introduction that talks about some of the important issues you’ve been covering, and then provide an intro blurb to each article, linking back to the article on your website for full reading.

Highlight older classics: We all have some of that content somewhere on our website that we are especially proud of. Maybe when it first was released it made a huge splash in your industry or niche and you received a ton of positive feedback. Or maybe it helped you create a good deal of fresh new customers and sales.

If you haven’t done anything with those gems from yesteryear, bring them back up into the mix. If they had a big impact then, they will still have a big impact now. If the information in the content was extremely time sensitive, just update it to reflect the latest news, information or trends.

Include an introduction with your newsletter about why these articles were so important when they were first released, and why they still apply today. You can even do a “lessons learned” update about something that was once accurate or successful and has since proven out to be flawed.

Make a theme: When you have a lot of content build up on your website or blog you can easily sort them into specific themes. If I was a guy writing about high school football coaching strategy, I could make a theme around unique defensive zone schemes or motivation techniques. If I was a home improvement expert, one newsletter could have a theme of upgrading your kitchen and another could be on cheap landscaping tips.

When you create a theme for one of your email marketing newsletters, you are showcasing each individual piece of content as well as showcasing your entire collection. They all will receive more attention and feed off the attention and interest that each one of them creates.

Additionally, the benefit of themed newsletters is that you can then create a series of newsletters separate themes, and you’ll be set on your content for quite some time. You can even turn the newsletters into pieces of a larger, all encompassing guide or tutorial program.

So for this email marketing tip of the week, I want you to stop worrying about how to fill out your newsletters with fresh content. Turn to the content you already have on your blog or your website, and fit it into one of the above strategies for easy and effective email marketing newsletters.

In this email marketing tip the point I’d like to drive home is that you can take this on from two approaches.

Starting with social media – If used correctly, your social media platform can serve as a great tool for producing email marketing leads, and drawing people into your overall campaign efforts.

Starting with email campaigns – For the email marketing lead you already have, you can effectively work on converting them into paying customers by including them in some of your more personal outreach efforts.

Let’s start with the second half of this equation, taking an email marketing lead and converting him or her with your more personalized approach on social networking sites. You have to remember that signing up for an account and creating a uniform, empty page doesn’t give you any “street cred”. If you are trying to send your prospects to your social media sites, you have to make it worth their time.

In other words, don’t make the mistake of saying the same things in the same ways on all of your different outlets. I like taking the approach of keeping email marketing campaigns personal, but focused on the task at hand, whether that’s selling a product or promoting an event. Then, I think it’s great to use social media sites for a softer approach, focusing on core values and missions.

I’d like you all to meet Bob from Bob’s Chicken Shack, he’s a small business owner and he’s delving into the world of email marketing and social media. Here’s how Bob can effectively tie together his email marketing campaigns with his social media platforms.

• Bob can focus his email messages on promoting next Friday’s buy one bucket, get one bucket free promotion.
• His Facebook page however can talk about how Bob always loved animals and therefore thinks they deserve proper treatment, which is why he only uses organic products and local produce and yadda yadda.
• His Twitter page can include quick blasts like, just talked with a customer about her stance on using eggs from caged chickens. I don’t do it, but what do you all think?

Throughout all of this he tied his business together and additionally, all of the outlets served a purpose rather than being repetitious, wasted rehashes. Well done, Bob.

Making the Connections

Now you’ve seen how you can differentiate your different strategies while still keeping them related and worthwhile, but how can you actually translate this into an effective strategy for cross-promotion?

Let’s go back to the two ways we looked at this in the beginning.

Starting with social media to find email marketing leads - On Bob’s Facebook page, instead of saying “Sign up for my email list,” Bob could talk about how if people in the local area are looking for a healthy food establishment that treats animals correctly, they should look you up and they can receive discounts if they receive your email updates.

Starting with email campaigns and converting an email marketing lead – Instead of just including a link on the bottom of his email saying “Visit Bob’s Chicken Shack on Facebook”, Bob could place a blurb at the top of the sidebar in his email inviting people to learn more about Bob’s passion for organic products and animal welfare on his Facebook page.

Hey, take the analogy for what it’s worth. The point I’m making with this email marketing tip of the week is that you can effectively tie together your different online promotional strategies, including email marketing and social media.

When you do it the right way, you’ll be successful at producing more email marketing leads while also more effectively converting the email marketing lead you already have in your pocket.

I call this the “Hey what’s up? Buy this!” style of marketing, and it’s just not going to get the job done. Now, you don’t need to try to get all philosophical about trying to deliver exceptionally thought provoking messages. That wouldn’t be time or cost productive, and it still wouldn’t move your bottom line.

Giving Messages a Purpose

So how can you give each message you send out a purpose? As mentioned, you don’t need to do anything extraordinary in order to see results. If you’re trying to sell somebody a product directly, or get them to buy anything from your website, you need to entice them to do it. Don’t just say “Hey what’s up? Buy this!”, opt instead to try any of these tactics:

• Provide a detailed review
• Share a story about creating the product/service
• Share a story about someone else using the product/service
• Share any kind of story!
• Provide incentive to buy – Did you know that 80% of people on your list buy from a sale or from a free shipping offer?

Of course not all of your messages are targeted at creating sales. Some are targeted towards just sending people to your website, getting somebody to take another kind of action or just staying at the forefront of a person’s consciousness. The same rule applies, every message needs a purpose.

The only thing that’s as bad as “Hey what’s up? Buy this!” is the “Hey what’s up?” email that doesn’t seem to want to get anything done and isn’t even trying to sell me anything. Sure, what you sent out is claiming to be a newsletter, but did I receive any kind of news? Anything that is going to keep my attention, inform me, educate me, entertain me or be of any kind of use for me whatsoever?

If the answer to that was no, then why should I care? Listen, unless I work for your company or am prominently involved in it somehow, I don’t care that you hired a new VP of marketing.

Now, if Mr. or Ms. New VP of Marketing sends out a message with a nice little picture of himself or herself so I can see whose doing the talking and a nice little blurb explaining to me their excitement about the position, the changes I can expect to see, what else they bring to the table and so forth, I’m bound to be much more interested. The same message with a new perspective can change everything.

Don’t make one of the biggest mistakes in email marketing by not giving your messages a purpose. Even if your purpose is as simple as a sale on a new product or a free shipping offer, you’re still doing something more besides just saying “Hey, what’s up?!” Put this week’s email marketing tip to week regardless of what industry or sector you’re in and you’ll start to see improved results.

Don’t forget about our Race to 50 New RSS Subscribers with a chance to win a free email marketing consultation package.

The overlooked element that many individuals, small businesses and nonprofits miss is that you need to optimize your website as well if you want to turn those list members into customers, clients and supporters. This means using specific landing pages for different emails, offers and programs so that when somebody does click through to your site, you are much more likely to reach out to them effectively.

Utilizing Landing Pages to Maximize Conversions

Creating a perfect email message is only part of the battle. Let’s think about an entire list of goals you might have with one of your email campaigns. You want people to:

1. Sign up for your list

2. Open and read your messages

3. Click through to your site

4. Buy a product or service, or take another action

All too often, we all are guilty of focusing on the first three steps and then completely forgetting about the fourth. Sure, it’s great to see that people read your emails and click through to your website. But if they don’t take any other kind of action – signing up for your next webinar, buying a monthly subscription, registering for your forum… – then what was the point of it all?

Creating Targeted Email Landing Pages

So hopefully you can see the importance of targeted landing pages for your email campaigns, so how do you go about creating them?

The first step in the process is really thinking about what you are asking somebody to do. You need to have a clear picture of what kind of action you want a person to take and what it takes for them to do that. If you want them to sign up for a service, you should be linking directly to the signup form to cut out additional steps.

Brand a separate landing page including that signup form mentioning the email and your subscribers and you’re doing even better. Be sure you mention clearly whatever special offer or promotion you mentioned in the email right on the page. Be sure you are speaking about the same benefits, the same pricing and everything else as you did within your messages.

The two keys are 1) consistency and 2) eliminating unnecessary steps. Don’t send somebody to your home page if you want them to read a product review they have to then go find elsewhere. Don’t mention a free trial offer in your email and then send them to a page where credit card information is required and there’s no mention of a free trial.

If you effectively build targeted landing pages for your email campaigns, staying consistent with your message and eliminating as many unnecessary steps as possible, you’ll be much more likely to achieve that fourth goal mentioned above and convert your list members.

So instead I’ll be focusing on the strengths of marketing by email even if there is a slumping economy. Alternatively and in other times, your business may be going through its own downward sloping cycle as the economy is doing fine, making marketing by email all the more important.

Emailing Your Way out of a Recession

Whether the entire economy is sputtering or your business is the only one falling off the cliff, you need to turn to marketing by email to pull you out of the scrap head and ahead of your competitors. You can email yourself right out of a recession or downturn if you have the right tools in place.

What’s the most important thing you have to do when your business is struggling or the economy is suffering and money is tight? You need to find a way to control costs, while still finding new customers. This can seem tricky at best, but the truth is that there’s no more cost effective way of marketing than email marketing. This holds true for businesses and nonprofit organizations alike.

A 2005 study by the Winterberry Group found that for every dollar spent on email marketing, $15.50 was earned. This is higher than direct mail, and vastly superior to telemarketing. Many other studies turn up the same thing – marketing by email is more cost effective than other marketing mediums.

There are no large upfront costs associated with marketing by email. Many companies now offer free trials for checking out their services, and monthly plans start as low as $10.

Additionally, just as you are trying to find a way to make a better use of your money in a recession, so are your potential customers, whether you’re selling to households or to other businesses. That means you have an opportunity to see some fantastic conversion rates when you offer special deals and discounts to your mailing list. Free shipping is a go to offer if you’re selling physical products, but general discounts also work well.

Try hitting two birds with one stone by offering incentives to your email list for finding you new list members. Tell them for every 3 new list members they refer, they’ll receive a 10% or 20% discount on their next order, or will receive a special free gift with their next order. You’ll acquire new prospects and make more sales.

The importance of email marketing is also growing due to the prevalence of email itself. Email is the preferred means of communication not just for younger generations, but for professionals and executives as well. With mobile devices becoming more capable and accessible as well, people can now view and respond to their emails from anywhere.

You have to be able to reach out to consumers where they prefer to conduct their own communication. It’s not hard to see that people don’t run out to their mailboxes 20 times a day looking for letters from friends and acquaintances from around the world. No, it’s the email inboxes they check all day long, where they spend a lot of time and where they are receptive to communication. Meet a consumer on his or her own domain, and you’ll have a greater chance of success.

Maybe all of this helps to explain that while 60% of marketers surveyed by the Aberdeen Group in January 2009 said they will be decreasing their traditional marketing spending, 47% will be increasing their budgets for marketing by email.

Not juicy enough for you? Well, Forrester has projected that total spending on email marketing is going to increase to more than $2 billion by 2014, from $1.2 billion in 2009.

So let’s see… lower your costs, increase your ROI, take advantage of the preferred means of communication to make easier connections with your customer base and on down the line we go. No matter how bad a recession is or how badly your own business is suffering, some clever marketing by email can pull you right out of the red.

Some people are at a loss for how to do this but the truth is it shouldn’t be too difficult to change the style and focus of your messages in order to connect with your list at a much more appropriate and effective level. Here are some ideas you can use to reach out to your list more successfully.

Learn when they signup – Find out about your email list members when they signup for your list by providing a checkbox question where they can pick what kinds of messages they want to hear from you. This will help you segment your list (see below) but will also provide you with firsthand information on what your list members actually want to be receiving from you.

Conduct a survey – Most email service providers today come with survey features that will allow you reach out to your existing list with easy to use and effective surveys. Ask them straightforward questions without being afraid of receiving negative feedback. Ask them what they like and don’t like about your emails, what you should change, what’d they like to see more of and so on. Use a combination of multiple choice questions and open ended short answer questions for maximum results.

Segment your list – Using the above information or other data that you have on your list members you should segment them into smaller, more focused groups. This will allow you to send out specific newsletters or blasts that only the most interested people will receive. See last week’s email marketing tip of the week for more information on segmenting and targeting your list.

Get personal – Far too many businesses try to take the approach of providing a completely impersonal message or service. Customers want to buy something, not have a friend, right? Well it’s actually far more effective to personalize all of your communications. Show a small picture of yourself in every newsletter so people can associate a name and face with your business. Share a short anecdote. Take questions and answers. Be honest. Show some personality.

Switch your perspective – Hopefully you view all of your newsletters when they go out. Next time, don’t view them as the satisfied creator, view them as the skeptical list member. If you received this message from another company, what would you think? Would you want to buy something or take another action? Would you roll your eyes at all of the self promotion or ineffective sales tactics? If you can’t give yourself an honest review, have your friends or family members do it for you.

Remember, you have to reach out to your list members on their level. Provide them the information they want in the way they want to get it. Segment your group, get personal and view your emails critically.

Hopefully this email marketing tip of the week can help your organization more effectively connect with your list members and improve the success of your email campaigns.

Reasons to Segment Your List

1. Compare strategy success – If you breakdown your list into targeted email marketing groups, you’ll be able to try out different strategies and compare the success of one another. Divide your group randomly into three smaller sections. Send out different versions of the same newsletter to each group, featuring perhaps different calls to action or different designs. Keep track of the click through and conversion rates and apply the principles of the email that worked the best from now on.

2. Customize your content – The purpose behind email target marketing is that you want to be able to provide the most personalized and customized message that you can to each member on your list. Somebody on California probably doesn’t care that your store in Pennsylvania is having a blowout sale this weekend. An individual household member probably won’t care that you’re offering 25% on all weekly fulfillment orders that exceed $2,000. The name of the game is sending out your messages to people who will be receptive to them.

3. Set upfront guidelines to keep list members happy - One of the most important takeaways for this week’s email marketing tip should be this: your email list members will be happier and more satisfied if you set upfront guidelines for the content they will be receiving. Give new signups the option to select the categories of messages they want to receive, whether its promotions, new products, newsletters or anything else. List members who can select the information they are going to receive will naturally respond better to those messages. Plus, they did the hard work of segmenting your list for you!

Ways to Segment Your List

• Geographic location
• Age
• Household/business
• Type of information requested
• Previous response history
• Prospects/previous customers
• Purchasing history
• Any variable that will help you deliver more specialized and targeted email marketing messages to your list members

If you get started putting this email marketing tip to work now, your results will begin to improve immediately. A segmented list that allows you to achieve email target marketing will be vastly more successful than a generic, one size fits all list.

When in doubt, try reversing the situation. If you received this email from some company, would it be compelling to you? Would you delete it or open it? If you opened it, would you really read through it and consider taking some kind of action – clicking, making a purchase, visiting a website – based upon it?

Considering all of that, this week the email marketing tip I would like to talk about concerns whether or not your list knows who you are. The bottom line is that if your list does not know who you are, you’re in a world of trouble, and you have to get to changing that as soon as possible.

When you’re in the midst of an email marketing campaign you can ensure that your list recognizes you and your emails in a variety of ways. It really comes down to paying attention to all of the small details you may be overlooking.

To begin with, be sure that in the “From” field, you make sure that your list is going to see something they are familiar with. It shouldn’t be your personal name unless you truthfully have that kind of recognition with your customers, clients and prospects. Additionally, you need to be careful even when it comes to your company name. If  your company’s full name is “John Miller’s Snow Blowing USA Incorporated” but all of your advertisements, invoices and marketing materials reference you as “Snow Blowing USA“, than that is what needs to be in the from field.

Continuing along the same path for this email marketing tip, you also need to pay attention to the “To” field. Whenever possible try to address your emails to the name of the person you are sending it to, not their email address or a generic phrase. If I’m John Miller from Snow Blowing USA, I know I look much more carefully at an email that is talking to John or John Miller than an email that is talking to jmiller43301921@yahoo.com or “all”.

Finally, one last thing I would like to cover with this week’s email marketing tip is that you also need to be careful with your subject line. Always avoid all spammy phrases such as “free free free” and use proper punctuation and capitalization. Additionally, keep the subject short and sweet, try to max out around 60 or 70 characters. Finally, make sure the subject line is intriguing and is on topic. Somebody glancing at the subject line should be able to quickly spot what the message pertains to.

Paying attention to these small details not only will improve your email campaign performance but will also help you avoid the dreaded SPAM filter. That wraps of this week’s email marketing tip of the week, enjoy.