Why You Need an Email Newsletter

Two things that make the education industry notable are shared purpose and collegiality between educators and vendors. At the heart of both groups is the desire to help students learn, prepare for their futures, and develop a lifelong love of learning.

 We have a marketing advantage that other industries have to discover—heart centered purpose—making a real difference in people’s lives. Educators and vendors want the same thing, although our paths to desired outcomes are different. When we are at our best, we see each other as collaborators and partners.

 Meaningful communication is the fuel for these kinds of relationships, and companies have a communication channel to build and nurture it.

 Email.

This isn’t news to education marketers. But the reason is not that it allows you to push marketing and sales messages into your customer’s inbox. It is an opportunity to build a relationship that can be sustained over a long period of time providing benefits to both customers and companies.

Email newsletters are a stellar way to do that.

 The marketing reason to launch a newsletter is that both B2B and B2C marketers rate email newsletters as their highest performing content type for nurturing leads.

 If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that school districts want partners, not vendors. This isn’t news either. For years districts have favored those companies they regard as partners – rejecting those who come to sell and then disappear. After being besieged with unwanted offers in the spring, districts have renewed clarity on this.

 What should a newsletter accomplish?

·      Provide information

·      Inspire ideas

·      Curate news

·      Build enthusiasm

·      Express empathy

Over time, a newsletter can build trust and affinity with your readers. It can show who you are as a person or a company and set you and your company apart from others.

You can accomplish this by writing human to human and not corporation to institution content.

 Of course, there are plenty of newsletters that look and sound like they’re corporate speak to district administrators. But those aren’t very effective or revealing and don’t build a human connection.

 Here is a short video from Ann Handley about how to use your newsletter to build critical relationships and create brand identity with personality.

 What should a newsletter look like?

 It can be as simple as an email. There are a number that I receive that are just like a letter from a friend. Over time, the connection gets deeper as the writer reveals more of herself/himself without the usual business BS, and my trust in their authority and their authenticity grows.

 Maybe it’s accumulated experience and wisdom or maybe it’s COVID-inspired, but I don’t want to waste any more time on things that don’t really matter. I want to spend my time with people who Invest their real selves into their work—who are serious about the work that we do together, but don’t take themselves too seriously.

 You can be an authentic collaborator and partner and make money at the same time. These are not mutually exclusive goals.

Most often, newsletters are a template. There are lots of branding and marketing reasons to design and structure your newsletter this way—not the least is to establish awareness and familiarity.

In education, many newsletters are templates of curated news and media stories. These make efficient reading for both district leaders and education companies. They are heavy on information and light on marketing.

Many associations publish newsletters that curate stories from a variety of publications or around a certain topic. Smart Brief is a good example of these. They publish newsletters from ASCD and AASA for example. Also for STEM and CTE.

Every media outlet has a daily newsletter. Tech & Learning and Education Dive are good examples.

Because I’m a writer and a content marketer, I like Ann Handley’s (of Marketing Profs fame).

And if you like your daily (general) news summary to be delivered with a light touch and a dose of snark, then the Morning Brew is for you.

New to the market is STEMPulse, the newsletter that brought you here. The lens is emerging technology and how STEM and science educators think about it and use it in their classrooms.

This project is a collaboration by Catapult-X, The Teich Group, and MCH Data. It merges original market research and insights that will help you make decisions about your business with the latest market intelligence around emerging technology and its application to education.

 You can look for this in your inbox on a monthly basis.

 Be sure to let us know what you think.