HOW TO GET MILLENNIALS TO READ YOUR NEWSLETTER
While millennials do not use email for social contact, they do use it as a means for receiving important information from businesses. And newsletters are gaining favor with this demographic as a means of receiving important, relevant information in a condensed format. That’s good news if your content marketing strategy includes attracting and retaining the millennial audience.
In a Thoughts on Journalism blog, contributing writer Veselina Gerova describes why newsletters are important to millennials and how to deliver the type of content that this demographic is drawn to. She writes:
Newsletters have become an appealing way for millennials to receive news, because they can make the process of news-consumption more about understanding context, and less about knowing that a certain event happened.
What does that mean for your organization’s e-newsletter? To start, deliver bite-sized information in a casual voice. Explain what your readers need to know and why. And deliver that information in a simple, clean format that can be easily read on mobile devices.
Get some more insight from Gerova and four examples of newsletters that have strong millennial following. Then follow these tips to get millennials to subscribe:
- Give a generous preview.
On your website, create a dedicated web page where readers can sign up. Whet their appetite by featuring a preview of your e-newsletter, or include an archive of content.
- Set clear expectations.
Let your millennial readers know what to expect. Tell them exactly what content you will send and how often you will send it. When signing up is an informed decision, millennials will be less likely to delete your e-newsletter or mark it as spam when they see it in their inbox.
- Make signing up super easy.
People can’t subscribe if they don’t know how, so make newsletter sign-up forms highly visible. You can embed a small form at the bottom of each blog post. And Facebook has an app that lets you collect sign-ups directly on your page. For other social media channels, include a link to your e-newsletter page in the About area.
- Start the story on social media.
On social media, drive millennial interest by leveraging the “curiosity gap.” Dissect your lead article to find one enticing morsel to promote on a social channel. For example, if your lead story is about how your company’s product or service solved a major problem for a consumer, entice your millennial audience with a social media message like this:
@Your_Company_Name: The lowest priced widget isn’t always the best option. Find out why, plus 9 other things other widget makers won’t tell you, in our e-newsletter.
Millennials will sign up to get the whole story. Plus, you’ll earn their trust by providing exclusive info.
- Divide and conquer.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, nearly half of content marketers feel their e-newsletters don’t deliver a satisfactory ROI. One reason for this may be that their content attempts to speak to everyone at once. As we’ve said before, when you market to everyone, you market to no one.
Customize each e-newsletter promotion effort to your key millennial persona. If your issue doesn’t speak to a millennial audience, don’t promote it to that readership. Wait until an issue has information that is key to that audience, before promoting.
Need help in developing or refining your existing newsletter to appeal to millennial readers? Contact CrucialContent for fast, effective help.
