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Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

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Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#151

Post by killingtime74 »

lancesells wrote: post #82
michalu wrote: post #80

My company sends a newsletter once a month. We're selling roasted coffee. This single day account for 20-30% of our monthly revenue. In fact email is our single best performing channel. Hope this info helps. EDIT: I should also add that we're combining every newsletter with some "offer" e.g. we make a new blend or roast couple of bags of some coffee we don't typically stock. We're also keeping it very personal - it's…

Sounds like you should switch to sending two a month.

You are management material

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#153

Post by atoav »

lancesells wrote: post #82
michalu wrote: post #80

My company sends a newsletter once a month. We're selling roasted coffee. This single day account for 20-30% of our monthly revenue. In fact email is our single best performing channel. Hope this info helps. EDIT: I should also add that we're combining every newsletter with some "offer" e.g. we make a new blend or roast couple of bags of some coffee we don't typically stock. We're also keeping it very personal - it's…

Sounds like you should switch to sending two a month.

I have one company that I like to receive mails from and it is because I actually care about the content in their mails — it is actually interesting stuff, not marketing bs.

If they sent me an email twice a week I would unsubscribe after a month.

Every company that tries to waste my time like that looses a bit of my respect, period.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#154

Post by pessimizer »

mbesto wrote: post #149
ChuckMcM wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, just no. AB testing how much you can squeeze out of the channel has a huge negative backlash. A customer driven "send these more often" or "send these less often" offer in the email will give the customer the ability to set the level of engagement that works best for them and avoid both rage quits and user hostility to being "worked." A friend of mine was hired by Peet's to try to clean up the mess they caused by…

> A friend of mine was hired by Peet's to try to clean up the mess they caused by doing this to their previously loyal fan base Clean up what? You test it once and if it works, it works, if it doesn't you revert back. You're not going to get a huge backlash of brand loyalty for increasing a monthly newsletter to 2x/month. And if you get ANY backlash you simply revert back. Most people wouldn't even notice. I think yo…

> And if you get ANY backlash you simply revert back. Most people wouldn't even notice.

The people who dropped the newsletter after it became spam definitely won't notice that you reverted back to the expected behavior.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#155

Post by awillen »

I run an ecommerce dog treat company, and I typically send out about one email a week. I try to keep those to 50% or less emails that offer discounts, and I try to make the discounts product-specific, so people don't just get used to getting a 20% off coupon twice a month.

For the non-discount emails, I'll just send something about the company or the products. If I was on a morning show talking about the company, I'll send out the video. If I don't have anything else out, I just remind people of the fact that it's very hot, and we sell frozen dog treat mix.

Each email goes out to about 3500 people and generates 3-15 sales. Discount emails do better than non-discount, but some non-discount (like good press coverage) do very well. New product launches and sales for major holidays when people are looking to shop (e.g. Memorial Day, BFCM) do over 15 sales.

I've tested doing it less often, and ultimately doing one email a week barely affects unsubscribes and easily generates enough extra revenue to be worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#156

Post by edmundsauto »

StevePerkins wrote: post #90
lancesells wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you should switch to sending two a month.

I assume that returns are diminishing, and turn negative past a certain point. If a company that I'm interested in sends me an email once per month, then I generally don't mind it. I might even appreciate it. Send it every two weeks, and you're training me to tune out and usually click the "Delete" button without looking at the content. Send it weekly, and you've irritated me enough to have the motivation to unsubscr…

My experience is that diminishing returns happen, but the big question is when they happen. I’ve run a few medium sized email and postal campaigns, and evenly time we were shocked at the response rate by contact #10. It was always higher than we expected.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#157

Post by edmundsauto »

pessimizer wrote: post #154
mbesto wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A friend of mine was hired by Peet's to try to clean up the mess they caused by doing this to their previously loyal fan base Clean up what? You test it once and if it works, it works, if it doesn't you revert back. You're not going to get a huge backlash of brand loyalty for increasing a monthly newsletter to 2x/month. And if you get ANY backlash you simply revert back. Most people wouldn't even notice. I think yo…

> And if you get ANY backlash you simply revert back. Most people wouldn't even notice. The people who dropped the newsletter after it became spam definitely won't notice that you reverted back to the expected behavior.

It depends on the size of that group and their sensitivity. I’ve found that consumers generally don’t think as much about it as tech people - it’s much more random than we like to think.

If your test costs 2% of newsletter receipients who were 2 emails away from unsubscribing, it might be worth it.

As always, know your audience.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#158

Post by rchaud »

We push newsletters because nobody uses bookmarks or RSS anymore. You have to send users a reminder that there's new content on your website they should check out. But even then, you're competing against the pull of bottomless social media feeds, or mobile apps that ping you with notifications several times a day, like news apps.

In practice, bad newsletters read like auto-generated blog feeds: summary of content, click link to see whole article. Good newsletters put the bulk of the content right there in the email, but their business model is less about getting you to go the website, and more about shoving "sponsored content" into the body of the email itself.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#159

Post by aendruk »

GnarfGnarf wrote: post #53

One of the difficulties encountered with newsletters and email promotion, is that your email sending service (MailChimp, Keap/Infusionsoft, SendGrid, etc.) rates you on your customers' Spam Complaint Rate. If you exceed 0.1% complaints, you can lose your account. Recipients at some of the more naïve addresses (Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, MSN) have a habit of clicking on the prominent "Spam" button (instead of the "Unsubscri…

If I didn’t ask for it, it’s spam. On the first instance.

And I’m not even very concerned with personally unsubscribing. Foremost I want to close the feedback loop to disempower a bad actor.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#160

Post by aendruk »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #136

I like newsletters for rarely updated blogs. I prefer RSS/Atom (most blogs still have it actually) but sometimes a newsletter is the only thing that's available.

I have a hard time wrapping my mind around how someone can’t be bothered to expose an inert web feed but then will take on the project of actively broadcasting updates and managing all the extra moving parts that entails in perpetuity.
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