5 Strategic Goals for Your Email Marketing Newsletter

As a copywriter, the most effective marketing tool at your disposal — hands-down — is an email marketing newsletter.

Sometimes known as an “eblast” or “e-newsletter,” an email marketing newsletter is a simple and usually short message that you use (with the help of email marketing software like MailChimp or MyEmma.com) to stay in touch with everyone you know — prospects and clients, of course, but also colleagues and peers, family, and friends.

Why?

Because timing is everything when it comes to getting clients and you never know who will have a need for your copywriting services and when they will need you.

Sending a regular newsletter keeps you top of mind so that when someone is in (or near) their “moment of need,” your name will be familiar and your message handy.

Plus, an email newsletter is the perfect marketing tool for writers. It showcases your writing, which means it doubles as an example of your work, and that’s especially important when you don’t yet have many samples to show off your talents and skills.

Once you have decided to commit to a regular newsletter (and don’t be “fooled,” it is a commitment), the next question is, “What should the content of your email marketing newsletter be?”

Many copywriters use it to show samples of what they’ve been working on. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that can be boring, especially if not done strategically.

And just because “email newsletter” has the word “news” in it, doesn’t mean it has to be “new” or have “news,” as long as it’s strategic.

“Strategic” means it does the job you need it to do. It has a purpose and that purpose dictates the content.

Here are five possible purposes (aka, goals) to help determine the type of content to share in your email newsletter. Use it to:

  1. Reinforce awareness that you exist. If nothing else, it keeps you on the radar of the people you know. In fact, whether they read it or open it doesn’t matter. As long as they receive it consistently, register that they got it, and know another one will come.
  2. Catch prospects in their moment of need. Don’t worry if no one responds when you send it out or even if they delete it. Staying in regular touch increases the odds of catching them when they need you — that’s when it matters if they respond.
  3. Attract the work you want. If you know what kind of copywriting is most lucrative (or challenging or satisfying) for you, you can use your newsletter to attract more of it. Here’s how: if you’re looking to write more landing pages, white papers, or even email newsletters, then feature or lead with that, whether it’s a project you did recently or a self-initiated project. By showing and referencing the kind of work you want, you attract and drive that kind of work in your direction.
  4. Allow people to get to know you better. There is an inherently personal quality to email. It’s a person-to-person medium that goes straight into another person’s inbox. So share your content with stories and personality to make it easy for recipients to learn about you as a person.
  5. Educate your prospects about copywriting. Beyond the personal, recipients can also learn about the importance and benefits of copywriting. It may surprise you, but many clients don’t really understand what a copywriter does and how it’s done. (Some even confuse “copywriting” with “copyright,” a legal term that is pronounced exactly the same.) So your marketing in general, and your email newsletter in particular, can be strategically designed to educate prospects and clients about how you do what you do. That understanding will also pave the way for them to pay you more. Because if they don’t understand the value you bring, they won’t be willing to pay much at all for it.

Remember, everything you write, from a simple message responding to an inquiry, to your estimates and proposals, is an example of your copywriting and that includes your email marketing newsletter. Use email copywriting strategically to get the work you want!

Have you considered adding an e-newsletter to your self-promotional efforts? What questions do you have about getting started? Please leave your comment below.

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Published: June 14, 2017

4 Responses to “5 Strategic Goals for Your Email Marketing Newsletter”

  1. Great article, great idea. Is it possible to point me to some examples of this type of newsletter? Thanks for your input!

    Guest (Tina)

  2. Hi Ilise, I've just launched my copywriting career. Your article on using newsletter to market my business is crucial to my success.
    How can I get started?
    Thanks!

    Guest (Johnbosco)

  3. Hi Rebecca and Ilise,adding e-newsletter to get clients, for my business, yes it will help.

    Guest (Darrick)

  4. I am looking for a mentor through AWAI. Anyone available or interested? At what cost? I have many years of writing experience and have been published often. But not doing so well as a freelancer to get new clients.

    Jim Hulton The Write Stuff North Wales, PA 19454

    The Write Stuff


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