How Do I Newsletter?

HOW DOI NEWSLETTER?
Mikhaila Skehor, @miktacular
Account Manager at @kickpointinc
Gif sommelier, Newsletter writer extraordinaire, Person to
Lemons the Corgi

CASL:
WHAT IS IT AND HOW DOES
IT AFFECT ME

CASL:THE LOWDOWN
• Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation
• Protect Canadians from unwanted electronic
communications (within Canada)
• CASL means that senders must establish express consent
before sending electronic communications
• Government definitely hasn’t made it easy or clear to
figure out all the rules

CASL:TO WHOM DOES ITAPPLY
• Applies to all electronic communications within Canada,
with some notable exceptions
• If the primary purpose of the CEM is to solicit a
contribution, CEMs sent by or on behalf of a political
party or a person who is a candidate for publicly elected
office, are excluded from section 6 of CASL
• CASL does not apply to the activities of the federal,
provincial and territorial governments. CASL does apply,
however, to crown corporations, including municipal
governments, when the corporation is acting in the
course of any commercial activity.

CASL:CONSENT
• Checkbox is used during purchase process
• Implied express consent is entering email into a box
• Privacy Policy and a Contact Us link must be visible
during signup, also clarification that consent can be
withdrawn at any time
• Proof of consent must be provided during an
investigation – i.e., if you’re adding people from a ballot in
an offline contest, you must keep the ballots in order to
prove consent was provided

CASL:CONSENT DURINGPURCHASE
PROCESS
Checkbox pre-checked Checkbox unchecked

CASL:DOUBLE OPT-IN
• Send an email to the subscriber asking them to confirm
their subscription by clicking a link after they’ve given
you express consent to contact them
• If you have CASL compliance, double opt-in is optional,
BUT just because you have double opt-in doesn’t mean
you’re automatically CASL compliant

CASL:COMPLIANCE
• Proper compliance involved sending out an email to your
entire existing list and asking them the opt-in, confirming
they still wanted to receive emails
• A new list from the opt-ins was generated which could
only be used from then on
• The old list was therefore invalid, no matter who was on
it
• Needed to be completed by July 1, 2014

CASL:HOW MUCHWILL ITCOST ME?
• Starting July 1, 2017, fines will be levied against violators, and
as a sender you will be responsible for any violations
• Individuals can be fined up to $1 million dollars, while
corporations could be fined up to $10 million.
• Individuals will also be able to sue organizations for breaches
in a private right of action

CASL:UNSUBSCRIBES
• Every electronic communication you send must have an
unsubscribe mechanism, i.e. a “hyperlink that is included
clearly and prominently in an email that allows the end-
user to unsubscribe by simply clicking it.”
• People will unsubscribe. It’s okay – it’s not a breakup.
Don’t get whiny, don’t ask why, don’t beg them to stay.
Just let them go.

CASL: HOWNOT TO UNSUBSCRIBE,BY AMEX
CANADA

CASL:WHY IT’S ACTUALLYGOODFORYOU
• Kick Point’s good friend Jill guest posted for us on the
benefits of CASL
• More engaged audience, people who are more likely to
buy a service or product from you because they’ve
actually signed up for your email list (better brand
engagement)
• Your list will be smaller but infinitely more engaged

CASL:WHY IT’S ACTUALLYGOODFORYOU
37% of respondents reported an increase in clicks post-
CASL
Charts from engagement increases from our CASL survey

SO YOU WANTTO BUILD ANEWSLETTER?

SYWTBAN:BRAND VOICE
• Your Brand Voice can be summed up by the question: If
your company were a person, what would they say?
• Brand Voice is the overarching tone of all company
communications (hopefully) – from the way the phone is
answered to every response to a complaint, Brand Voice
provides consistency
• You’ll always be the face of your company until you give it
a voice

SYWTBAN:BLOG POST TO EMAIL BUTTON
• If you’re already blogging, a great way to develop your list
(and a baby step to a real newsletter) is to have a blog
posts to email button
• This allows subscribers to receive an email when new
blog posts are posted, ensuring you grow your list so
when you’re ready to start your newsletter, some of the
leg work is done already

SYWTBAN:LOOK FOR OPPORTUNITIES
• You want to find the value in what you’re offering
• Offer someone something they’ll exchange their email
address for, but not something so valuable you should be
charging for it
• Combine a series of related blog posts into a whitepaper
for download
• Run the risk of tire kickers, but they’re in every industry

SYWTBAN:PROVE YOUR VALUE
• Death to the Stock Photo sends monthly emails with
photo pack downloads on different topics every month
(this month is objects)
• Offer discounts to VIP subscribers, or advance notice of
sales
• Don’t make it salesy – if sales are a goal, make sure you
have other content as well

SYWTBAN:PROVE YOUR VALUE
• I downloaded a whole library of stock photos from Death
to the Stock Photo in exchange for my email address.
Here’s one of Left Shark’s early days:

SYWTBAN:CONTENT
• What’s new and cool in your industry? Outside your
industry?
• What blog posts did you enjoy (or not enjoy) this
week/month, and why?
• Is your company hosting any upcoming events?
• Things that may seem boring to you may be great
content/blogging/newslettering opportunities

SYWTBAN:POP-UPS: ANNOYING BUT
EFFECTIVE

SYWTBAN:POP-UPS: ANNOYING BUT
EFFECTIVE
• Speak to your IT department to implement a (CASL-
compliant!) pop-up on your website
• Either on the homepage after scrolling, or a few pages in,
or those with ‘Exit Intent’ (Bounce Exchange)
• Ensure they’re tied to cookies (and a thank you page) so
that subscribers aren’t pestered
• Write a specific post with a CTA for signups to promote
on social

SYWTBAN:MONEYAFTER GRADUATION
• Bridget at Money After Grad recently started a newsletter
called Get Rich Young
• Has significant traffic each month and a high conversion
rate on signups so she has 400 subscribers in 2.5 weeks
• Uses a pop up that displays for new visitors every seven
days
• Offers various spreadsheets as downloads upon signup,
has a great welcome email that suggests articles you may
also be interested in

SYWTBAN:CHOOSINGAN EMAIL CLIENT
• Think about the type of newsletter you’ll be sending –
will the format change every month, or will it stay the
same?
• Several clients out there – Campaign Monitor, Industry
Mailout, MailChimp, GetResponse
• As with anything, it’s useful to investigate a few different
options to see what works for you

SYWTBAN:CONTENT
• Jacek’s newsletter is tantalizing and makes me want to
eat all the chocolate
• Lots of information, professional photos, and a great
layout

SYWTBAN:SUBJECT LINES
• “When it comes to email marketing, the best subject
lines tell what’s inside, and the worst subject lines sell
what’s inside.” - MailChimp
• You want to stand out in a good way
• How many other companies are competing for inbox
space? What makes you different than the rest?
• Test, test, test!
• Create a curiosity that results in the recipient opening the
email

SYWTBAN:HOW NOT TO SUBJECT LINE

SYWTBAN:SUBJECT LINES
6 Steps to Improve Email Open Rates from Unbounce
Step 1: Be useful and ultra specific – make sure it’s relevant and useful for your customers
Step 2: Identify yourself – mention your most identifiable brand product in the subject line,
or prefix the subject line with a consistent identifier
Step 3: Be visually different – make you subject stand out visually by trying square brackets,
sparing use of capitalization, phone numbers or quotes
Step 4: Use timely topics and urgency that are top of mind, and use urgency occasionally to
point out deadlines
Step 5: Use a call-to-action (CTA) by asking a question
Step 6: Test your subject lines so you can repeat what works best

SYWTBAN:KICK POINT NEWSLETTER
TAKEOVER
• I can’t do a presentation on newsletters without talking
about Kick Point’s weekly newsletter
• Dana writes our newsletter, but a few weeks ago she had
the plague
• Jen and I, being supportive, offered to do it for her so she
would have one less thing on her diseased plate
• We changed the subject line to something straight out of
1999.

TAKEOVER

TAKEOVER
Usual subject line:
Your Weekly Dose of Kick Point (Issue #89)
Our subject line:
~*~ YoUr WeEkLy DoSe Of KiCk PoInT ~*~ (Issue #90
wutwut!!!)
Which subject line did better?

TAKEOVER
• Usual subject line:
• 39.02% open rate
• 42.5% of subscribers clicked a link
• Top performing link: Buffer’s Complete Guide to Social
Media Benchmarks
• Hijacked subject line:
• 47.83% open rate
• 32.32% of subscribers clicked a link
• Top performing link: My breakout session for iMEDIA!

TAKEOVER
• Were Jen and I successful in our takeover?
• Depends on what our metrics of success are
• We had the second highest open rate of all time, likely due
to the complete departure of the subject line phrasing
from usual. However, the click rate wasn’t as impressive
• Proves that our subscribers are likely more interested in
Kick Point’s content rather than J.Crew, rainbow font
colours, and hearing about our near-death experience with
a periwinkle SUV, and our article about passion was shared
on our Facebook page

SYWTBAN:GROUP WORK
• Split into groups of two or four, and introduce yourselves
and your company
• Describe what kind of things you’d like to put in your
newsletter
• Come up with two or three subject lines each, and we’ll
run them through Coschedule’s headline analyzer tool
• http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer

SYWTBAN:MAIL CHIMPSETUP
• Importing an existing subscriber list

• Importing an existing list from a CSV (comma separated
format) file
• Save as  CSV

Make sure Google
Analytics link
tracking is turned on,
or you won’t know if
your newsletter is
having an impact!

• Please never do this. Different social platforms require
different copy and content. Autoposting is bad, and you
should feel bad if you do it. Please stop.

Seriously. Just don’t.

SYWTBAN:MAIL CHIMPCONTENT
• Select a template that fits the content you’ve outlined for
the newsletter you’re sending (you can change the
template in the Design phase)
• Start adding your content!
• MailChimp uses content blocks that are very intuitive and
easy to use, and provides many resources in the form of
blog posts and tutorials

SYWTBAN:DOS
• Do keep an eye on your reply to address for people who
reply to unsubscribe rather than click the link
• Do sign up for some of your favourite companies’ email
newsletters and see what they’re doing
• Do test everything you’re doing – subject lines, sending at
different times of the day, length, content, etc
• Do obey CASL laws

SYWTBAN:DON’TS
• Don’t scare the crap out of your subscriber with your
subject line
• Don’t send any commercial electronic messages without
the proper consent
• Don’t ever autopost across multiple channels (Liam will
find you)
• Don’t overwhelm your subscribers with emails

LOCALU: APRIL29TH
• Full-day workshop about internet marketing for Edmonton
businesses, featuring a presentation by Google on how to use their
local products to acquire new customers while also engaging and
retaining existing ones
• Learn Search & Social Marketing tips and techniques that will lead to
sustained, long-term search engine rankings (and new customers) in
your local markets and world wide.
• How Do I Social? Getting Social Online
• 8am – 4pm at Lister Centre (Maple Leaf Room)
• Use code KP50 for $50 off your ticket – hope to see you there!

RESOURCES
• CASL Resource
• Government of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
• Kick Point’s CASL Survey Results
• Jill Scheyk’s Pro-CASL Blog Post
• Headline Analyzer
• How to write the Perfect Email Subject Line
• 5 Email Subject Line Strategies That Will Increase Your Open Rates
• All About Email Open Rates

How Do I Newsletter?

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