Call me old fashioned but one of my favourite parts of writing an email newsletter is the opening.
I mean the greeting. The words and sentences you use you to say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ and welcome the reader into your space. I figure we’re inviting ourselves into their inbox so it’s only right that we should be polite and say hello before launching into our spiel. I don’t mean one of those MailChimp [insert name] followed by formulaic message tick box exercises. I mean starting with a few sentences that truly sound like you, written in your voice.
Even if the reader just skims by they’ll see your name, hear your voice. Maybe they’ll stop and read, maybe they’ll think, ‘Brilliant, I’ll read that later’ or maybe they’ll think, ‘Oh, I remember them’ and appreciate the warm feel that’s just landed in their inbox amidst all the impersonal hard sells. There are a few email newsletters I’m still signed up to simply because I love to hear their voice in amongst the email reminders from school to top up my daughter’s dinner money.
It frustrates me when there isn’t a greeting. I ask myself, ‘How would this sound, what would this feel like if you bumped into them in the street and this were a conversation?’ Would you launch into your news, or would you do that little greeting dance to feel the mood, check how the other person is?
If you have a business built on or dependent on deepening relationships with people – you’re a therapist (holistic or otherwise), you want to encourage people into your business (you run an independent shop or run creative classes), or you run a charity, a not-for-profit that relies on the goodwill and generosity of a supportive community, it pays to think personal, think conversation.
How can you use your words and stories to help people feel like they’re having a conversation with you, that you’re an important part of their world.
Email Newsletters – think conversation and make it personal
I’m writing the monthly email for lovely Léonie at The Sewing Shed this week. It’s the cornerstone of her marketing – a brilliant way to keep the conversation going in between sewing classes. It’s how she keeps in touch with her sewing students – past, present and future – brings her community of sewers together, celebrates them and the fabulous garments they make. And they are fabulous!
We blend news about classes – availability, new classes, events and gatherings with links to the online shop for easy booking – with photos of garments made by sewers and sewing tips all based around The Sewing Shed’s key messages, and written in Léonie’s voice.
We’ve spent time embedding the core ‘what’ messages. As in, what happens at The Sewing Shed, the nurturing classes and personal tuition, that beginners and all abilities are welcome, junior sewers too. Now the messaging weaves in stories and messages around how it feels to learn to sew – whatever your starting point – and practical sewing tips.
It’s simple, and it works
It’s light touch, it’s written with care and puts the reader first. It’s a ‘Hello, we’re here and this is what we’re sewing, how are you?’. It’s designed to work with Léonie’s workload as a sewing tutor and business owner, and it’s written to reflect the relationship she has with her sewers, the other sewing tutors and the community of sewers she’s built over the past 15 years.
No algorithms to battle or worries about ‘I haven’t posted this week, what the heck should I post.’ Just the knowledge that a week or so before the end of the month we’ll talk, exchange ideas, build on what we talked about the previous month, look at the calendar and she’ll go through her photo library of garments and outfits made, and we’ll pull it together.
It’s a simple formula and crucially, it works. Each month the figures show us people read it, people respond with enquiries and bookings, and people tell her they love reading it. And it all starts with a ‘Hello, how are you?’.