Email Newsletters are Dead — What Can Your MSP Do About It?
Key Points:
- Quality email marketing is one of the best marketing tools — especially for service-based organizations like MSPs.
- However, it's safe to say that nearly everyone hates newsletters.
- The word "newsletter" has become unattractive because most newsletters talk about companies instead of adding value.
- Newsletters are typically emails that humble-brag about an organization's achievement and give generic information to the subscribers.
- While the content of old newsletters is useless and dead, your MSP should adopt quality email marketing because it's one of the best marketing tools you can leverage.
Email newsletters are annoying to nearly everyone. No one wants to read your "February Newsletter" — even when they're your number one fans.
We can safely say that newsletters are history. Yes, there was a time the newsletter was the golden goose, but the world has changed. People don't want to see the weekly or monthly newsletters in their inboxes, updating them about your company.
However, some MSPs want to stick to newsletters. Many wrongly think people care about their business and want to know about them.
The Brutal Honesty About MSP Newsletters
The truth is that most of your subscribers are self-absorbed. They don't mean to be, but they are.
Your subscribers don't care about your business update. Instead, they're interested in what they can get from your email. Your email readers are busy and stressed out and can only give your email attention if you're offering insight to make their work life more manageable.
All the content you create in the newsletter to update them about your company is useless to them — it makes them hunt for the Back, Delete, or Unsubscribe buttons.
People Hate Reading Emails that Don't Pertain to Them, Their Situations, or Needs
Regardless of your opinion of MSP newsletters, you can guarantee that nearly everyone hates receiving emails that don't address them, their situation, or their needs. When one receives such an email, they are prompted to unsubscribe.
Even when a client is your hardcore fan, the best they can do when they receive an email with the title "July Newsletter" is to glance at it for a few seconds and hit the Back button.
While your MSP can still get results with newsletters, they're less effective and provide little engagement and sales. Studies show that some people just straight-up ignore newsletters. For the remaining, the click-through rate and engagement level are low and unreliable for marketing purposes.
A Bigger Challenge of Newsletters
Another big challenge of newsletters is that spam companies such as Spam Titan, App River, and many others are blocking newsletters — especially those with excessive HTML content.
If spam companies don't block your newsletter, they'll put your email into quarantine. Your clients won't know when you send the email unless they check their spam folder, whitelist you, or set up a specific rule on their spam filters.
What's more, there is no other way around the spam filters. Your client must whitelist you to receive your newsletters. Despite that, there's nothing more valuable than successful email marketing.
Give People What they Want Instead of Sending Newsletters
Instead of investing time and resources into creating monthly newsletters, you can focus on sending regular emails with information that your clients find helpful. Email marketing is about speaking directly to your ideal client's needs, like any other marketing platform.
If you can delight your subscribers by sharing unique insights regularly, email is the platform to focus your brand-building energy. If you give people what they want, they'll read every single word of your email and still want some more. That's the only approach you can use to build a long-term relationship with clients and exponentially grow your MSP.
People stay subscribed to email lists that give them consistent value. Your only task will be offering your client email content to help them fix business problems.
Ensure Your Marketing Emails Reach Your Intended Recipients
While email marketing can be the best tool for your MSP, sometimes marketing messages fail to deliver. The top reason marketing emails don't reach the intended recipients is that spam filters block them.
When a spam filter blocks your emails, recipients must whitelist you or read your emails in the spam folder. You need to know how to lower the chances of spam filters blocking your marketing emails.
While there are many measures you can take to ensure your emails reach their destinations, let's focus on the three most important ones:
- Send fewer HTML or no-HTML emails when sending marketing emails. Focus more on text-based emails. While a combination of HTML and images look slick and professional, they have lower chances of going through spam filters.
- Avoid excessive signature files. Don't put your logo at the top. Instead, make the email look natural.
- Avoid all-image emails because spam filters will immediately dislike the image. Plus, many firewalls strip images out so that recipients end up with a blank page.
- Avoid attachment. Spam filters block emails with unknown addresses because cybercriminals hide viruses in attachments.
- Keep your marketing email short and simple.
Create a News Section on Your Website Instead of Sending Newsletters
Yes, few people are interested in knowing about your internal company achievements. However, you might need to publish a factual timeline of your company on your website. Instead of sending updates about your business to all your email lists, put them on your website.
Anyone interested in checking your company updates will find the information on your website. That way, you'll use your email for marketing and brand-building purposes.
Restrategize Your Email Marketing to Take Your MSP to the Next Level with Ulistic
While newsletters are devoid of meaning and value today, there are several ways to do successful email marketing for your MSP. After all, email is still the marketing tool with the best returns.
At Ulistic, we help MSPs across the US, and Canada get the most out of their email marketing. Contact us today for email marketing strategies to help you engage with potential and existing clients.
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