Send An Automatic Newsletter To Grow Your Business

Written by Nick Leffler | Comments Off on Send An Automatic Newsletter To Grow Your Business | 6 min read

Wouldn’t it be nice to automate some of the tasks that help your business grow?

It’s not nearly as difficult as you might think to automate a task that helps your business stay relevant to customers. An automatic newsletter can do just that by providing a steady stream of content from your blog or a news website.

You can easily set up an automatic newsletter that will help your business stay relevant to customers. Not only will it help you stay relevant, but it will build trust with those who receive your newsletter.

Understanding what an automatic newsletter is and isn’t will help you balance your current marketing with your new addition.

What An Automatic Newsletter Is & Isn’t

An automatic newsletter is the perfect supplement to your content marketing strategy. An automatic newsletter is a template you set up in an email service provider. The email provider checks for new articles at a source you provide. If there are new articles, the email provider takes the article (or a link to the article) and puts it into your newsletter template and sends it to your subscribers.

That’s a simplified definition of what an automatic newsletter is, but we’ll get into more details later. We’ll also get into how to approach the automatic newsletter as effectively as possible.

Adding an automatic newsletter into your marketing strategy can increase your business reach. Click To Tweet

Now for what it isn’t.

It’s not a replacement for your current email newsletter. While an automatic newsletter is great for staying in touch with customers and keeping brand awareness up, it’s not as personal as a regular newsletter. Every automatic email is the same and can start to appear a bit canned.

If it’s more convenient for a customer to receive your blog posts or information in an email, it’s the perfect solution. Not offering to meet customers where it’s most convenient for them can be detrimental to your brand. Some customers want to read what you’re writing for your business but they won’t go out of their way. This is a way to be where they are.

RSS Feed

The source of articles that you can use for an automatic newsletter must come in the form of an RSS feed. An RSS feed is a specially formatted document that has all the most recent articles from an information source. The information can come from your blog, a large news agency, or even a photo feed.

Almost every website offers an RSS feed and they come built into most content management systems. WordPress has an RSS feed built in to ever blog. There is a cool RSS extension for Google Chrome that lets you see all RSS feeds on any website.

You know what an automatic newsletter is and isn’t but the important part is understanding how it’ll grow your business.

It’ll Grow Your Business

Having an automatic newsletter is great, but to be worth it, it needs to help your business grow in some way. Rest assured that it’s worth taking the time to set up your automatic newsletter.

Here are some of the benefits of an automatic newsletter:

  • Constantly reinforces your brand message.
  • Customers will see your brand regularly.
  • If you share your blog posts, customers/potential customers will see your call to actions.
  • You’ll build trust with your audience without added work.
Reinforce your brand message with customers automatically with an automatic newsletter. Click To Tweet

With all these benefits, you’re missing out on a lot if you’re not taking advantage of an automatic newsletter. Now it’s time to look at how the automatic newsletter works to send your subscribers the latest information.

How It Works

I summed up how an automatic newsletter works above, but that doesn’t cover the details or put it all together well. The first thing to start with is segmenting your email list subscribers, this is part of sending your automatic newsletter to the right people.

My email list has two categories so it’s segmented into two. I have one group who subscribe to my newsletter and one group who subscribes to my blog posts (my automatic newsletter). There is a crossover between the two, though.

Hopefully, you have some subscribers to your newsletter or blog or you’re on your way. If you’re not, don’t miss my post on growing your email list.

Set Up Your Automatic Newsletter Campaign

With your list segmented, you can set up a newsletter based off an RSS feed URL. With a list segment in hand and an RSS feed URL, you can create a campaign in your email service provider. The specific way to create your RSS campaign different depending on your email service provider, but you can find specific instructions from your provider. I use MailChimp  (affiliate link) and they have clear instructions how to set it up.

When setting up your automatic newsletter, you get to select the day of the week and time to check if there’s something new in your selected RSS feed. You can also choose to send your campaign bi-weekly, monthly, etc. How often it’s sent is up to you, but the source you’re pulling information from will decide your schedule.

Be sure you also select the correct segment to send your automatic newsletter to. The last thing you want to do is send it to your entire list because it’s important to follow email list etiquette.

In MailChimp, you can use pre-created templates to set up your automatic newsletter which is what I did. I started with the template and made a few customization to give it a consistent feel with my brand.

Start It & Forget It

Once you’re done creating your campaign you just need to start it. After you’ve verified all the settings for your campaign, you get to start it and let it run. Every time your schedule campaign send time comes around, your email service provider will check your RSS feed, create an email for you, and send it to your segmented list.

Once you start an automatic newsletter, you can forget it. Click To Tweet

That’s it! It’ll work for you as long as there’s fresh material in your RSS feed.

Build Your Brand, Automated

Your brand relies on contact with your audience. Regular contact over an extended period builds trust. Adding an automatic newsletter to your brand building mix will be beneficial email marketing strategy for your business. Every piece of your brand building strategy matters and this is one piece that helps grow your business over time without adding extra work to your schedule.

A strong brand relies on more than just your email list, though. You can get a free online presence report that will give you steps you can take to grow your brand online.

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