Are Newsletters Too Old School?

Sometimes, marketing techniques reach a point when they are no longer as successful as they once were. In these days of racing technological advances, digital marketing techniques fall in and out of fashion so quickly, it can be difficult to keep up. With all this change buzzing around you it stands to reason that you might wonder if newsletters are still an effective form of marketing for your insurance agency.

Marketing Sherpa, a research firm that tracks marketing trends to figure out what works and what doesn’t, recently studied some technology decision makers to find out if they still read email newsletters. Turns out they do—in greater numbers than they read traditional newspapers and other print publications. In total, they found that 70% of these decision makers read emailed newsletters.

How to Make Newsletters Work for You

Seventy percent is a powerful number. So, what are the newsletters that these professionals read doing right? For one, they emphasized direct-response marketing using highly targeted articles. This is easy enough for you to do within your newsletter, as we’ve mentioned before in this post (Choosing the Right Articles for Your Newsletter) you simply need to choose articles that contain content applicable to the lives of your readers. As for direct-response marketing, as long as your name and contact information appear on your newsletter, you have that covered.

Another tactic the successful newsletters took was to make sure there was a website for the readers to visit. The newsletters were not the only form of marketing and information the firms were providing. They had a web presence that also informed and added value to their services.

Lastly, they chose high-quality content. The content was professionally written, interesting, informative and authoritative. In short, it was content that provided a value in being read.

The Power is Yours

Newsletters still stand as one of the most successful and often read marketing techniques around. They are flexible enough to be produced both digitally and in print, and they give you a platform to suggest a wide variety of products to your prospects. Whether or not yours works will depend on how well you execute it. We’ve given you the tools you need for a high-quality, informative newsletter, but it’s up to you to target it.