Does a Monthly Email Newsletter work? Working with a company that had a half-million customers I noticed that there was always a general increase in sales after sending out the newsletter, even if there was no particular marketing promotion.  I also noticed that during an ongoing promotion or launch of a new product, the greatest bump in sales for that product was usually around the time a newsletter was published.

The effectiveness of their Email Newsletter varied according to the editorial staff assigned to it.  During one particularly effective (read high ROI) period I noticed that the articles that appeared in the newsletter were relevant and interesting to customers without being directly related to the company’s products.   So make your newsletter something your customers will actually read and establishing a ‘thought leadership’ position with your target audience.    Bottom line, if they know that your newsletter is a thinly-disguised excuse for an ad, they will stop opening it.

When a new product was being promoted it was generally one article of five or six in that issue.  And there was usually an embedded hyperlink to the relevant page of the company’s website.  However like most companies then, it did not employ marketing automation so it did not identify leads and score and nurture them for the company’s sales staff.

The company didn’t always have a Monthly Email Newsletter so each time it was cranked up there was a significant resource applied to maintaining the database by deleting bounces, opt-outs and so forth.  If the company had applied continuing resources to maintaining the database their overall ROI likely would have been better.  In the end, they had a smaller list of interested readers instead of a larger list of email addresses.

The company’s products were actually services that were generally renewed annually so it was a no-brainer to have a Monthly Email Newsletter.  If your business involves collecting an annuity from your customers I highly recommend that you publish one.  And if you have a direct sales force, I highly recommend that you consider a marketing automation solution to assist in tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your newsletter along with your other marketing initiatives.