Ditch the newsletter!
Why you should prioritise focussed segment-specific content over generic
There are a few pet peeves I’ve collected over the years, and the newsletter is one of them.
I’ve witnessed businesses dedicate precious time and effort to this generic too often boring publication. To add to my frustrations, we often failed to properly measure its impact because the audience that it is distributed to varies immensely.
Oh and I’ve heard all the excuses such as “but we’ve always done a newsletter” — the fact is, newsletters came about back in the early 90’s when we discovered that we could send the same email to all, and that’s a lifetime ago — it’s time to really utilise the data we have and give people content that actually resonates with them.
Plus I am yet to find more people than I can count on one hand that enthusiastically subscribe to and religiously read thru a newsletter. Still, businesses tend to dedicate a considerable portion of their resources to churn out this generic piece of content.
Ok, I get it, maybe I was a bit harsh when I said ditch it, I’d have to concede that some newsletters can be useful. However, to make the newsletter the priority of your content strategy, especially when you're strapped for resources is a waste of time, and you are potentially leaving user activations on the table.
Unless you have endless money to burn, resources to spare and ample time to reach the goal you want for your business, focussing on segment-specific content might be the smarter option.
Data shows you (if set up in a way that allows your startup to scale) that within the user lifecycle of your app/digital product, not all of your users are at the same level of knowledge or usage of your product.
With the amount of content that hits our inbox daily that we are being bombarded with, we need to be mindful of peoples time too and from the start treat them respectfully by sparing them from the mundane-I can’t count how many newsletters/emails I’ve unsubscribed from because of incessant useless content.
Rather than putting all content into one publication, we can intentionally aim to provide them with information that relates to where they are in respect to the user lifecycle of your product.
It would be smarter and cost-effective to divide your users into groups depending on the stage of the user lifecycle as well as their level of activity — we call these behavioural segments.
Behavioural segments allow you group users so you can have a specific segment in mind, as well as enable you to set a clear objective on what you want to achieve AND measure its success by creating content that:
✅ relates to the knowledge they have on your product
✅ has a specific KPI in mind (e.g. KPI Convert 10% of Inactive Trial Users into ActiveTrial Users)
For example, if you wanted to convert your inactive trial users to active ones, you wouldn't design your content in the same way you would for your active paying users. Your active paying users have already seen the value of your product and your objective is to retain them; whilst your inactive trial users are yet to discover, decide and commit to your product and your objective is to onboard them.
Consider re-prioritising the newsletter. Furthermore, re-design your content strategy by incorporating behavioural segments and KPIs. Focus your content on a specific group by creating content with an intended goal to achieve. Lastly, but by no means least, MEASURE the success of your content, then you can see what works and what doesn't.
For more information on behavioural segmentation, check out my article Setting Your Business Up For Success with Behaviour Segmentation.
