SIGN ME UP!
You’ve probably already checked your email a few times today. This likely stands true even if you’re reading this article first thing in the morning, because if you’re like millions of others, you opened your inbox before even getting out of bed.
Email marketing, and more specifically an email newsletter, is a tried-and-true method of reaching people. However, I’ve noticed many in the publishing world are not taking advantage of its full power. Instead, I often see it treated as a more of a passive thing: have a sign-up form on your website, occasionally send an email. We can do better. Email, done right, takes time, skill, and strategy. While it may require a learning curve and some trial and error, it’s a communication tool nearly anyone can learn to use well.
Austin Kleon, author of Show Your Work, Steal Like an Artist, and, most recently, Keep Going, is perhaps one of the best examples of how writers can use email to engage with an audience. His weekly emails are consistent, clean, simple, and full of personality and useful tips – 10 to be exact. Kleon began his newsletter in 2013, but you could say he’d already been developing his formula as early as 2005 with his blog. The Writer talked to Kleon, as well as some marketing professionals, about the many ways in which writers can use email effectively.
Note: This article focuses mainly on newsletters. One-off promotional emails are important and useful, but they differ in many ways.
WHY EMAIL STILL MATTERS
The phrase “email is dead” is dead-wrong. We hear so much news about the billions of social media users that we might often forget that 99 percent of consumers check their email every day. That’s according to research from the Data & Marketing Association, which also revealed that people check email more than 20 times per day. A poll from industry blog SaleCycle states that 59 percent of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchasing decisions. Likewise, Emma – an email
