Are Chamber Newsletters Dead?

Recently, a chamber professional received some feedback from a community member proudly announcing newsletters were dead and that they are a thing of the past. The chamber pro wanted to know what the other chambers thought about that statement.

Are Chamber Newsletters Dead?

Here’s the funny thing about digital marketing. The only opinion that matters is that of your audience. For instance, most people will tell you Facebook is the place to be, but if all of your members are on Snapchat, that’s going to be a more important profile for you. Of course, you don’t have to be limited to one social network or one digital marketing activity but if you’re wondering where to spend a majority of your time, it should be where your audience is.

In this case, the chamber exec gets over half of her event registrations from her newsletter. To give that up just because someone said newsletters were dead would be foolish. However, her stakeholder isn’t wrong about newsletters being dead if that’s his experience with his audience. Both can be right. It all depends on the audience.

Another consideration if you’re not getting traction on your newsletters is that…

The audience may not like your newsletters, not newsletters in general. Your newsletter has to contain something of value in their eyes. For instance, I know a real estate agent who runs comps every month on homes owned by people in his database and he emails them a rough estimate of what he could sell the house for every month as part of his newsletter. His open rate is through the roof because he’s providing something people want. If his newsletters consisted only of requests for business, they wouldn’t be as well received.

Keep these quick tips in mind if you’re doing a chamber newsletter:

Tips for Chamber Newsletters

1. Keep them relevant. Your audience needs something. Give it to them whatever that is.
2. Use an attention-grabbing subject line in the email that tells them it’s your newsletter but also something more like, Chamber Newsletter-Marketing Your Business Effectively Edition. That way the topic will induce clicks.
3. Make them visually appealing.
4. Send them from a person’s email at the chamber, not no-reply.
5. Give subscription options. If you email often, give your audience a choice as to how often they hear from you.
6. If your newsletter is successful, don’t listen to people who ask aren’t chamber newsletters dead?

Want to know what the chamber pros told the inquiring chamber exec? Read their advice here.