An email newsletter gives you the opportunity to showcase your brand’s personality, helping distinguish you from your competitors. And much like meeting people in the real world, the more they get to know you, the more trust and loyalty they’ll feel toward your brand. And that’s a sweet spot for marketers—it’s where repeat sales happen. Advances in email automation have made it easier than ever for marketers to personalize their messages. Personalization goes way beyond adding a subscriber’s name to the subject line.

Now, you can segment emails, create tailored messages, dynamically change content based on the subscriber’s preferences, and insert more personal fields like job titles and locations. This kind of personalized marketing is the best way to attract new customers and delight existing ones. Knowing your customer and sending relevant messages has become the ultimate benchmark of a successful marketer.

Relying on people to organically land on your site can be frustrating. It’s kind of like looking for a gas station to fill a nearly empty tank with Google Maps or Waze on the fritz. Instead, use your email newsletter to direct people there. Invite them to view your content or provide them with an incentive to stop by your site. 

Here’s an encouraging stat: 68% of millennials stated that promotional emails influence their decision to complete a purchase.

Along with presenting your customer with relevant and useful content, use your email newsletter as a chance to bring one of your products or services into the limelight while listing its benefits and driving consumers to a point of sale—whether it be on your site or at a brick-and-mortar (and in some cases, both). Essentially, you have a captive audience here—carpe diem!

You can also help the transaction along by providing an incentive for your customer to purchase the product. Discount codes and promotions can go a long way toward making it a successful sale.

If you think of your digital marketing strategy as a conversation, your email newsletter is the icebreaker. It’s where you can first start to engage with your customers before taking them to social media, where more meaningful interaction can be had.

Including social sharing buttons on your email newsletter can help increase engagement on social media by reminding subscribers that your brand has an active social community.