Todayâs Burning Question is from Herman:
I currently send an automated newsletter, that gets sent to subscribers every time I upload a new video...1x/week. I also send emails (1x/week) to people who have subscribed due to receiving my free lead magnets .
I'm wrestling with creating a more substantial newsletter, perhaps 1x/month for youtube updates, tips, strategies and product promotions. If so, should I give the newsletter a name, ask people to resubscribe or just keep everything the same and just increase the sending frequency?
There are two principles youâve got to balance up here.
The first - and easiest one - is a marketing principle:
Try to avoid making people re-sign up for stuff whenever you can.
The reason is obvious: often they wonât.
Not because they donât want it. But because they got busy. Or they missed the email where you asked them to sign up. Or a bunch of other reasons.
Itâs so hard to get people to sign up in the first place that once youâve got them, you want to avoid having to get them sign up again for anything.
But then you have to take into account the second principle: privacy and data protection.
In particular, if youâre in Europe or the UK, the GDPR asks for granularity of consent.
At an obvious level that means if someone gives you their email address so you can send them a receipt for their purchase, thatâs not the same as them consenting to receive marketing emails from you.
Or if they do sign up to receive marketing from you, that doesnât mean you can sell on their details to another company to market to them. Again, thatâs not what they signed up for.
Some people take granularity too far however and have bunches of checkboxes for people to complete for every possible thing they might send them. Blog posts, videos, newsletters, promotions.
Thatâs not necessary.
When the GDPR talks about granularity itâs granularity of purpose. And that purpose is what you stated on your signup form.
So if they signed up to get emails from you with tips on cat juggling along with the occasional promotion for your cat juggling products then it doesnât matter whether youâre sending them a newsletter or a link to a video or a blog: itâs all for the same purpose: tips and the occasional promotion related to cat juggling.
On the other hand, if they signed up for your cat juggling tips and you start sending them videos on parrot training, then thatâs not the purpose they signed up for.
Kind of common sense really.
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So the question to ask yourself is âis my new newsletter sent for the same purpose they originally signed up for?â
If it is, you can send it without asking them to sign up again. If not, youâll have to ask.
Of course, you can apply a bit more common sense too.
You could include a link to opt out of the new newsletter just in case there are some people who want to keep getting the updates about new videos, but donât want the newsletter for some reason.
For deliverability and reputation purposes you donât want to keep sending to people who arenât going to read. And itâs better that they opt out of just the new newsletter than everything.
And if you do need to get people to sign up for the new thing because itâs not closely related, you can include links to sign up in your normal emails (e.g. in a PS where you mention the new newsletter) and have the link click pre-fill a signup form so they donât have to retype all their details.
But as I say, if you believe the new newsletter is serving the same purpose for your subscribers as the other emails youâre sending Iâd just start sending it with a note saying what youâre doing, how you think it will help them, and a link to opt out of the newsletters if they want.
- Ian