Sending out newsletters is a great way to keep connected with your audience and keeps them updated and interested in your business or organization. It is especially a good idea for affiliate networks to send out weekly newsletters to inform affiliates of new offers or promotions to check out.
However, at times it can feel like you are spending so much time writing content that only a handful of people will actually read. If this is the case, don’t get discouraged, there are some ways to increase your readership and your past e-newsletters content will get read.
One of the first ways to increase your readership is to think outside your mailing list. Seek out special interest groups and organizations in social networks and post a link to your newsletter. A couple places to start are Linkedin and Facebook, but you can also try Stumbling your newsletter or adding a link in Newsvine.
Also be sure to increase readership in your archived newsletters by including links to past editions. You can do this by adding links, a sidebar or a section that lists the past editions and articles of interest. By linking back to past newsletters, your hard work seems to pay off more and your great ideas from weeks back will reach more people.
If your site or organization has a blog, stick a subscribe link on the homepage. All you have to do is state you have a newsletter and ask for a first name and email.
One more thing you can do is add a forwarding link (“send to a friend”) at the top of your newsletters. If you’ve got solid content in your newsletters, readers will be more likely to share it with their friends and colleagues. And as you can imagine, this can lead to a much larger opt-in list.
If you have any additional ideas for increasing e-newsletter readership, I invite you to share them below!
