Some of the ways a Virtual Assistant can help you with your newsletters. Including looking after your subscribers, creating the newsletter and the post-sending jobs.
Newsletter Subscribers
Create and maintain your mailing list
- Get proper authorisation from subscribers
- Enter new subscribers
- File subscription authorisations if your newsletter provider doesn’t do it automatically
- Add new subscribers to appropriate lists and groups, and add any tags needed
- Move subscribers between lists and groups as needed
- Most importantly – ensure all subscribers who request removal are removed promptly
They can create signup forms
- Using your newsletter software, they can create automatic signup forms for your website and social media
- Make sure the signup forms all have your business branding for a consistent look and feel
- Customise the wording on your signup forms to suit your business tone and branding
- Edit the confirmation emails that go our to subscribers when they subscribe
Share signup forms
- Add your newsletter subscription forms to your website
- To your Facebook business page
- Share the form on other social media platforms
- Add the subscription link to your email signatures
- Distribute the link to all staff so they can easily share it as needed
Organise contacts into groups
- Make sure all data is entered correctly in the same format so that segments can be easily applied later on
- Create custom segments so you can customise your marketing
- Group by an field you might want to separate out later i.e: geographic region, type of relationship, previous behaviour
Make sure your contact list & CRM are up-to-date
- Set up integrations between your CRM and email software
- Use IFTTT or Zapier to integrate systems when there are no automatic integrations
- Perform manual updates to either contact list or CRM as needed.
Creating your newsletter
Create a template
- Will allow you to just enter content without having to re-create the format
- Customised to your business branding for consistency
- This makes it easier for recipients to recognise your email in their inbox
Edit and proofread
- Be a second set of eyes on your content
- They can make sure that your newsletter goes out error free
- To reduce or increase the number of words and phrasing for SEO purposes
- If you’re not a writer, your VA can turn dot points into paragraphs
Find images relevant to your content
- Search for images that work with the subject of your content
- Make sure images used are legal for you to use
- Add ALT tags to images so nothing important is lost if images not displayed
- Resize images to fit in your newsletter
Format your newsletter
- Make sure that the text is clear and easy to read
- Create headings, line breaks and other formatting tools to break up a wall of text
- Put margins alongside images so text doesn’t crowd into the image
- If you’re sending a text only version – make sure that the text is all there and nothing gets lost
Send your newsletter
- Make sure newsletter is finalised before sending
- Make sure the mailing list is up-to-date and subscriber imports have been done
- Send the newsletter OR schedule the newsletter to go out at an appropriate time
After your newsletter is sent
Share on social media
- Share the newsletter on your Facebook page
- Add it to your Twitter feed
- Share on your LinkedIn profile and/or business page
Add it to your website
- Put a link to your newsletter on your website
- Add a PDF copy of your newsletter to your website
- Share your newsletter, or selected articles, as a blog post
Monitor statistics
- So you can see what works, and more importantly, what doesn’t work
- To know what people are reading your newsletter on (Gmail, Outlook, Android, iPhone etc)
- To keep an eye on the engagement you’re getting
- Monitor the links people click on
- So you know which subscribers are most engaged
Make edits to your template
- Make changes while they’re still fresh in your mind
- Then the template will be ready to go next time
- So there’s plenty of time to run tests and get approval from all stakeholders
- To avoid a rushed process where you’re trying to put a newsletter out and make template changes
If you’d like some more ideas, check out my previous posts about newsletters.
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