Pregnancy is tough! Clogging of full spectrum of emotions – doubts, fear, and anxiety! It’s a hell of a ride. But all reduces to nothing when you hold your baby in your arms. That moment surpasses everything you went through.

Being a social media professional and an expecting mother, I always kept looking for answers to many stupid but mind wrecking questions online. And as soon as your family finds out they are having a baby, suggestions and advises start POURING and POUNDING in, making you confused, nervous and TIRED…yeah that’s the word!!!

Tips, precautions, milestones, symptoms, immunizations, medical tests, physical and mental well-being, maternity leave, birth plan…. phew!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Giving birth is hard!

I was saved and all the credit goes to BabyCenter LLC!

BabyCenter is an excellent example of a targeted pro-active Newsletter program. These newsletters are a fantastic resource that emails you at each and every milestone to help reassure, give you a ‘heads up’ on what is to come, and to answer your questions. From what your baby looks like at Week 16, to what to expect when he/she starts crawling, it is very informative and is a great example of a good, interactive newsletter.

Every user who subscribes, receives a tailor-made Newsletter as per her due date schedule and I feel that it’s an incredible way to keep an expecting mother on her toes and brace her up for a full throttle ride called Pregnancy!

Newsletter serves the most important tasks for a business which is to maintain contact with its customers. It is the most active way to target the customer based on his last visit/purchase or any inquiry done through the website, by directly landing up in his mailbox.

BabyCenter here grabbed the emotional thread of a pregnant woman who is always curious, confused and doubtful about her actions while carrying a baby. By sending a weekly newsletter giving a sneak peek of the developing baby inside her womb and answering all her stupid questions religiously, without asking, BabyCenter does create an everlasting bond with the mother.

With my constant rendezvous with BabyCenter Newsletters, I tried to figure out their secret to success –

1. To increase awareness – providing users with enough information and make them aware about your brand and its offerings. The information should be unique, exclusive and well presented compelling the user to navigate to your website to KNOW MORE!

 

2. Position your brand – Newsletter must create the best first impression about your business. Sharing the knowledge with the customers is the best way to position your brand as an expert in your domain.

3. Educating the prospects – Every expecting mother passes through different phases during her pregnancy. It’s bliss to find out that you have the same symptoms in your 25th week as listed in the newsletter. A newsletter which provides customers with valuable information, assists them in making better decisions, demonstrates your expertise and guides the customers to navigate to the right page of the website to get more information is appreciated more.

4. Increase traffic to your website – Newsletter can drive traffic to your website or blog. Thus it provides another in-direct way of generating traffic to your website.

5. Increase social media page visits – By placing the easy-to-notice social media links in your newsletter, traffic to your social media pages can be also increased.

6. To get more sales from a current client – A newsletter can be also utilized to let your existing clients know about your other services and guide them how they can benefit from those services, without being to “pushy”.

7. To generate more referrals through word-of-mouth – If your customers are happy with your newsletters, they will definitely forward it to few of their friends and relatives. Also the ancient marketing tool “word-of-mouth” will definitely play its part in your success story.

8. Cut the sales process short – People who respond to the Newsletters are more informed and by far already convinced enough to buy your products/services in contrast to the people who contact you via advertising.

9. Using it as a Networking tool – Newsletter can be also utilized to conduct a survey, to request a review or permission to add them to your mailing list. Thus it can help nurture your leads.

10. Advertisements – Brands whose products are relevant to your content can be also showcased in your Newsletters. Thus creating another channel for revenue generation.

Being an avid reader and a loyal BabyCenter fan, I was in love with their newsletters.

Managing mass email campaigns with high converting rate is hard. It requires investment of time and some capital, but if you go the right way, the returns can be huge.

Many sales rep do think that Newsletters are long gone…..but hello!!!! They are still here…and if you are thinking about growing your business, I bet newsletter is one of the most highly leveraged marketing activities you can opt for.

Newsletters being an important member of Content Marketing family, I guess every business should embrace them in a creative fashion!

So people what do you think about Newsletters? Have you ever tried them for your business or came across any which you liked? Do let me know in your comments below…..