Email marketing is far from obsolete. In fact, it’s thriving!

A staggering 89% of marketers rely on email as their go-to channel for lead generation, with 59% claiming it’s more than twice as effective as other avenues like pay-per-click and social media ads.

Creating an effective company newsletter isn’t about churning out bland messages; it’s a direct pipeline to your audience, offering a golden chance to engage, educate, entice, and ultimately convert.

So, let me jump right into some top tips on crafting a captivating company newsletter:

Define Your Objectives & Know Your Audience

Before you even type the first word of your company newsletter, ask yourself: What am I trying to achieve?

Is it to inform, educate, or perhaps inspire action?

Lacking a distinct purpose can make your content a bewildering puzzle, so make sure you are super clear on your goals.

Also, I recommend understanding the specific needs of your audience. Your company newsletter content should be customised based on what your audience wants, needs, or aspires to. This is essential for creating content that truly resonates. If you do this, you’ll have them engaged from the subject line to the last call-to-action.

Prioritise Your Subject Line

Think of your company newsletter’s subject line as a make-or-break first impression. It’s your digital handshake that either inspires them to open the newsletter or provokes them to scroll down or instantly delete it.

This is why it’s so important to craft a title that’s concise, intriguing, and accurately reflects the content within. Think of it like a trailer to a movie – if it entices you, you will go on to watch the entire movie (or, in this case, read the entire newsletter).

Also, please remember that your titles aren’t a one-size-fits-all situation. I recommend conducting a few tests to see which titles get your audience clicking with excitement.

Don’t shy away from getting creative with subject lines, either. Pique curiosity, tickle funny bones, or offer irresistible promises – just remember, the subject line is your ticket to the reader’s heart; the odd emoji helps, too!

Synthesise, Don’t Summarise

Your company newsletter isn’t an encyclopedia entry.

It should distill complex information into digestible and actionable insights. I recommend ditching lengthy rundowns in favour of key points, practical tips, and fresh viewpoints. You can use bullet points, subheadings, and visuals to make the content more scannable and easy to ready on mobile.

Your audience is composed of busy individuals; honour their time by being concise.

Offer Real Value

It’s simple, really. If your company newsletter doesn’t offer something of worth, it’s merely clutter.

Your content should enlighten, entertain, or equip your readers with information to help them tackle challenges. The real currency for retaining subscribers is delivering consistent value.

Maintain a Streamlined Design

Too many graphics can divert attention away from your core message. I recommend opting for a clean, uncluttered design.

Don’t overlook mobile users either. Your design should be as readable on a small screen as it is on a desktop. This is a detail that is often forget, but will cost you readers if you overlook it.

Incorporate a Strong Call-To-Action

Guide your readers with a clear and persuasive call-to-action. Don’t let them wonder what to do next.

So, what’s a CTA? Think of it as your friendly nudge to your audience, helping them decide what action to take. It’s like your virtual guidepost saying, “Hey if you liked what you just read, why not sign up for our newsletter? Or how about downloading this free ebook?” You get the idea!

In newsletters, you can jazz up your CTA with clickable text links, cool buttons, or even eye-catching images. Just pop them in places where they make the most sense.

As for the words, go with snappy and straightforward phrases like “Grab Yours Now,” “Learn More,” or “Let’s Do This.”

Pro tip: Stick to one or two CTAs to keep your company newsletter focused and super impactful. Too many choices can be confusing, right?

Make it Personal

Personalisation is more than just using the reader’s name; it’s about tailoring your content to address their individual needs and preferences.

Being personal can convert a casual reader into a devoted subscriber.

Perfect the Timing

Timing can be a game-changer. I recommend experimenting to discover when your audience is most receptive and focused.

For example, I avoid weekends and national holidays for B2B clients but may send a newsletter on a Sunday for a B2C client. However, every business is different, so don’t be afraid to experiment to see what works best for your industry and audience.

Ask Yourself: Would You Read This?

Before hitting “Send,” evaluate your newsletter from your reader’s perspective. If it doesn’t pass the “Would I read this?” test, it’s back to the editing table.

Measure, Analyse, Adapt

Your email marketing strategy should constantly be evolving.

Keep an eye on metrics like open and click-through rates to fine-tune your approach. Platforms like Flodesk (my absolute fav!) offer invaluable insights and tutorials to aid your understanding.

So there you have it. My top tips on email marketing (in my humble opinion). If you are still on the fence about the power of email marketing, then just begin. It’s a marketing journey you won’t regret.

For more marketing tips and insights, sign up for my Tiny Tips Tuesday newsletter HERE.

The post 11 Key Ingredients for a Must-Read Company Newsletter: A Best Practice Guide appeared first on Jem Bahaijoub Consulting - Social Never Sleeps.

Being busy is no bad thing: it suggests the business is going well, but it also means you have very little time to focus on your marketing, especially your social media marketing. I’m amazed by every single one of you business owners, and I want to give you the help you deserve by sharing some of my surefire content creation ideas. These tried and tested methods will have you saving time and maintaining productivity.

Create Content Themes

Content themes are topics or categories related to your business: your brand identity, values and business story, which ensure you stay on message in your social media (and all other) comms. Typically you have between 4-6 overall themes, and you can develop sub-topics beneath each one. Let me give you an example: imagine you’re a business coach; you may have the following themes for your business – 

• Entrepreneurship
• Productivity
• Career development
• Business growth

…but that’s just the start. Create sub-topics from each, and you’ll soon have a map of content themes that help with that dreaded blank page, i.e. 

• Entrepreneurship
  • Portfolio careers
• Productivity
  • Time management
• Career development
  • Networking
• Business growth
  • Growth mindset

Get the drift? A good old brainstorming session is the best place to start. Start by creating post-it notes, cue cards or even a text doc of those top-level themes, then break them down further.

Create a Content Bank

A content bank is a safe place where you keep all the random content ideas that pop into your head throughout the day. Content gold can strike anywhere – in the shower, on the commute, or inspired by talking to others. What’s important is being able to capture it quickly with an easy way of referring back when the time comes to plan social media content. For me, this means keeping a Google doc up-to-date, but you can use whatever system works for you – the notes section on your phone, Evernote, Trello or simply a well-thumbed notepad.

Create Templates

Use templates wherever possible. This means you don’t have to create content from scratch. You can get these from online graphic designing tools, such as Canva (where you can create a brand kit to make things quicker), a graphic designer or a subscription company such as yourtemplateclub.com.

I would suggest having a variety of templates ready for carousel posts, static posts, quotes, video covers and stories. That way, you can simply add your content and images quickly, with no time-consuming design necessary.

Reuse Your Existing Content

I have a friend whose mum, in a very frugal 1980s way, used to serve her family YMCA for dinner – Yesterday’s Muck Cooked Again. It was her way of stretching out a bit of meat or a casserole into 2 or 3 more dinners. Why am I telling you this? Well, as much as it’s a reminder of how far we’ve come in culinary terms (thank god for Masterchef), it’s a good lesson for us content creators. 

Far from me saying your existing content is muck (it’s not, it’s manna from heaven), the same repurposing can be done with that long piece of content you spent ages agonising over. Turn that long-form piece into little social portions, and you’ll really be maximising its potential. Here are some examples: 

• Turn that webinar into a blog post.
• Make that blog post into a reel.
• Transform your IGTV video into a TikTok short.
• Repurpose your TikTok into a newsfeed post.
• Repost that top-performing newsfeed post from last year into a new one.

See what I’m doing here? Don’t scrabble to find new content all the time – pick content at the top of your content pyramid (long-form content) and slice and dice. Content à la mode, cooked two ways.

Content Batching

You may be forgiven for thinking I’m sticking to the culinary theme here, but I’m not. When I talk about ‘batching’, I’m not talking about family meal planning here; I’m talking about content creation. Content batching is a productivity technique where you create all of your captions or visual content during a set period of time. For example, instead of spending an hour planning, creating, and publishing one Instagram post, you’ll spend that hour writing or “batching” an entire week of posts in one go.

I time-block every Monday afternoon for content creation, which helps me get ahead of the game.

Are you looking for more content creation tips? Sign up for my Tiny Tips Tuesday newsletter to get snackable tips in your inbox weekly.

The post 5 Time-Saving Content Creation Tips For Busy Entrepreneurs appeared first on Jem Bahaijoub Consulting - Social Never Sleeps.

The same happens online, with arguably greater efficacy (or at least easier measurement). Just like with a free house valuation, when you give a little of your service or product away for free, the first interaction costs you (in time or money), but it can lead to a more meaningful (or profitable, if we’re being candid!) conversion for your business in the long run.

So what is a lead magnet and how can we create one? Here are five examples, all achievable with limited effort, but could return maximum engagement.

1. The Ultimate Guide – Curated compendium of your own content!

   Imagine, for example, that you’re a personal trainer (it’s a bit of a stretch for me after the number of times the fridge light has shone in my face this week, but we can pretend…). You don’t want to give your whole game away, of course, but you can easily put some content together that helps answer some hot topics for your users. The trick here is to repurpose existing content and use your paid content to drive your free content. For example, string together a few existing YouTube videos of your warm-up routines, call it your ‘Ultimate Warm-Ups for Wellness’ then allow it to only be accessed by people who submit their email addresses to you. If you think about it, that’s what King of the Abs, Joe Wicks did: starting simply on Instagram sharing 15-second vids of his recipes, he collated his faves and put them in his first recipe book.

2. A Downloadable Checklist

   You are the expert in your field. You could reel off how to do your specialism without blinking, and know all the steps, tech or equipment that goes into it. That’s valuable, you know. Still with my lycra firmly on, if I use my example of the personal trainer, I could quickly create a downloadable checklist of the types of muscle groups or the best beginner gym equipment shopping list. Again, accessing this content should come after the submission of an email address, a sign-up to an event, or similar.

3. An Interactive Quiz

   I don’t know about you, but I used to love taking the quizzes on the pages of glossy magazines: what type of companion are you; what cocktail would you be; what your work style says about you. Whether they’re on a quest for personal enlightenment, or simply looking for a little procrastination material, quizzes are a great lead magnet, and forcing active engagement with a user, rather than them passively reading or listening. There are great tools on the market, from the super simple (and free) Google Forms to more feature-heavy TryInteract.com, which can sync with email marketing lists you may already have.

4. The Trial Offer or Discount Code

   I’m a sucker for a free 30-day trial, and rather than suck me into the entrapment of a monthly fee, they’ve allowed me to explore the service and pick the right systems for me. If you’re in the service industry, a free trial can be a massive vote of confidence in your offering, and a highly effective lead magnet. If you’re selling a product, or you think of your offering in terms of a one-off or irregular purchase, you may go for the more traditional discount code – remember, exclusive only to those who are also willing to give a little back, and that’s usually their email address.

5. White Paper or E-Book

   I’ll be straight with you, this one may take a little time if you don’t already have tonnes of content that you could curate as one piece like our first example, but creating an e-Book or White Paper can prove your authority in a subject, and you find it hugely satisfying to write about your subject at length. E-commerce experts and founders of SmartEBusiness, the Hammersley brothers released and sold their ‘Ultimate Guide to E-Commerce Growth’ book, and from a landing page and subsequently created a community around it as a Facebook Group.

One last thing: as important as the lead magnet itself, just as much consideration should be given to the actions your audience takes directly before it, and after. Phew, that sounds like a lot of work, right? No. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated – it’s simply about identifying how they will arrive at your lead magnet, and what you want them to do next. In the example above, our personal trainer may choose to just share the link on social media for their user acquisition, and then in terms of what they want the user to do next, it may be to join their Facebook community (see my post on creating your own Facebook Groups) or join a mailing list. Remember, even if the sale doesn’t come today, with new users comes conversation, and with conversation there comes fresh opportunities for turning those people into pounds!

The post What is a Lead Magnet? Here are 5 Examples… appeared first on Jem Bahaijoub Consulting - Social Never Sleeps.

Long-form content means content that is long enough to require critical thinking, such as blog posts, podcast episodes, whitepapers or an e-book.  There are so many advantages to repurposing your content. It saves you time and helps you reach new audiences. It also reinforces your message and boosts your SEO.  

Let’s take one blog post as an example. Here are 10 ways you can repurpose it:

1. Create a FB or IG Live on the subject.
2. Create a video clip for IGTV or YouTube.
3. Slice and dice the article into information snippets or tips for social media.
4. Re-use the content in your newsletter. 
5. Create an infographic.
6. Create a slideshow video with Animoto.
7. Host a webinar on the subject.
8. Create quote images for Instagram.
9. Talk about it on your IG and FB Stories.
10.  Create an animated Gif in Photoshop.

So how do you get started? Answer these three questions first:

1. What type of long-form content can you produce on a regular basis?

Marketing expert Gary Vaynerchuk calls this type of long-form content “pillar content”. This is the type of content you produce either weekly, monthly or quarterly and it exists at the top of your content pyramid. To decide on the type of pillar content for your business, you need to assess your audiences’ needs and industry type. However, you should also ask yourself what type of content you actually ENJOY creating.  The more you enjoy it, the easier it will be!

2. What existing content do you have that you can repurpose?

A great place to start your repurposing strategy, is by reviewing and utilising your existing content, especially your highest performing blog posts or podcasts. 

3. How does this fit into your overall marketing plan?

Any content marketing strategy you create has to integrate fully into the overall marketing strategy for your business. Create an editorial calendar to log and track the success of your pillar content. Ensure you are always connecting  the dots for maximum impact. 

Best of luck!

The post MARKETING HACK: 10 Ways To Repurpose Your Online Content  appeared first on Jem Bahaijoub Consulting - Social Never Sleeps.