Newsletters vs. Social Media: Which Is Better For Your Content?
Hi there, travel creators! I'm a content developer for travel creators, so basically that means I help travel creators find smarter ways to use their content so they can actually enjoy the destinations they're visiting and put their head into parts of their creator journey that really need them.
Today we’re talking about why every travel creator should have a newsletter, why they work for travel creators, and how you can get started creating a newsletter for free today. That sounds like an infomercial. So, if you're a travel creator, you might be thinking, I don't need a newsletter, why do I need to do email marketing?
Just wait until you find out how cool email marketing can be. I realize that there's no real way to make email marketing that cool, but the results can definitely be cool. First off, newsletters give travel creators an opportunity to ditch changing algorithms.
Your email marketing strategy might change the way that you write your content or different things like that. That also might change as you develop in your creator journey, but the algorithm or the way that email content is shared to your audience doesn't change. In the end, you will still press send and it will go somewhere.
Someone will receive your content and emails. Now, getting them to open it is a whole nother thing we will talk about in the future. I have a lot of resources on that topic.
A newsletter can also help you ditch SEO. Don't get me wrong, SEO is a necessary tool and you should learn how to use it. But you don't have to implement it into your email marketing like you would in your website or in your social posts. It’s smart to be adding those specific keywords that your audience is looking for into your subject lines and preview text in your emails to help increase open rates.
In addition, increasing open rates is a whole other topic that we will cover in the future. I have a lot of good resources on that. Another thing I wanted to mention is that you should be repurposing your social content to your newsletter content.
For example, if you have a blog piece and a social post, it should ideally already be SEO optimized and you should be able to just plop that into your newsletter. But be careful doing this. If you have a reel that you've shared on Instagram, the way you have scripted that is for the ears, because it's a video and we're listening to it.
The way that you talk is different than the way you would write that piece of content as a blog. So when you are repurposing a video into newsletter text, give it an extra couple reads because things can come out a lot more clunky. If you just slapped that talking head script into your newsletter, it wouldn't be super well written.
Anyway, you don't have to have all these keywords in your newsletter content. Now that you know that, I hope you sleep better at night. I know that I sleep better at night knowing that I don't have to know everything about SEO to get people to open a newsletter, or people to visit my website, or people to look at my social content.
Newsletters let you share your content in a place on the internet that you actually own. This is something I'm super passionate about and I think a lot of creators neglect.
The community that you have created on Instagram, or whatever social platform you've decided to create on, you do not own. You could wake up tomorrow morning and your Instagram page is gone, so now you have to start from zero. But that's where your newsletter comes in to save you. If you have a list of the email contacts of those in your community, you can directly connect with them over in your newsletter and build a bigger and better community from there.
Plus, newsletter conversions, if you have something to sell, are way higher compared to selling anything on social media. This is something I've witnessed happen to creators and it's just not worth the risk, because we just can't predict what these tech giants are gonna do. Whether you start a newsletter now or in the future, create a lead magnet to get those email addresses right now, so you have them when or if you need them. Think of this kind of like social media insurance. I think that's kind of the best way to describe it.
Now, I’m going to dive into why newsletters work for travel creators. First off, they are personal. So let's say you have a thousand Instagram followers. When you hit share on your post, there's a very low chance that each of your followers is going to see your post.
It's just not going to happen. But people subscribe to your newsletter because they want to hear from you. And if we're honest, a social media follow is cheap. It's easy and we don't think too much about it. However, being up close and personal in email, it's like your community gets to see another side of you, is worth so much more than just someone tapping “follow” on your Instagram.
It’s not a guarantee that you'll get 100 percent open rates on all your emails. However, people are way more inclined to open an email from you and then interact with your social media profiles. This might be counterintuitive, but when something comes to your inbox with your name on it, you're going to pay attention.
It's similar to getting your mail from your physical mailbox. Whether it's junk mail or not, meaning whether it's a newsletter from a brand that you bought one thing from two years ago, you're still going to open it and look at it because it has your name on it. This is just something to keep in mind.
People pay attention to what is right in front of them, and that's one of the best places to be. When you really think about it, travel can be quite an intimate experience, so from the trials at the airport to the cafe with the right sunlight, people want to know how you experienced a place so that they can do the same thing.
They want to replicate your experience and hear from you. That's essentially what you're trying to create as a travel creator: hearing about your incredible experiences and showing people how they can do the same thing. Your email is where they can see how you did that or had that experience. So even if you're repurposing content from your social media into your newsletter, giving a little bit more unpolished personal insight is a great way to connect with your community on a more personal level, and it gives them something they can't find on your social media.
Maybe something extra funny happened at the airport that you wouldn't necessarily want to share about on Instagram, but is the perfect place to drop it in your newsletter. Therefore, for the creators who are out there who have something to sell, this is especially for you. On social media, people expect to be entertained.
But in email, people expect to find promotions and offers. So if you're trying to sell a product or a service to your community, it's going to help if you do it in the places they expect you to.
I also want to give you some tips on how you can get started today for free since I know you're so enamored with email marketing. The first step is the hardest one, and that is to block two to three hours to get this done.
If you don't make the time for this, it's not going to happen. Now that you've got your calendar free, you're going to go through your content to understand what you can repurpose that can be shared into your newsletter. It’s likely going to be almost everything.
I recently talked about how you can create a content repurposing system. If you want bonus points and want to make this whole newsletter process easy peasy, go give that one a listen before getting started here. The next step is to outline a few repeatable sections that you can share every time you send out a newsletter.
This could be a top destination, a favorite creator resource, or as I like to do in my weekly newsletter, the Content Compass, highlight a creator who is crushing the content game. If you want to know how creators in the travel space are crushing their content and how you can apply what they're doing to your own content, you can sign up for my free newsletter with a link below.
Once you've picked a few sections that you want to talk about in your newsletter, I recommend batching them ahead of time, so that each time you go to write your next newsletter draft it's never from scratch. The next one is to choose visuals. I know you're a travel creator and you have incredible photos.
Please do not share all of your photos here. Remember you can link people to go to your Instagram or go to your YouTube to see more of the incredible content you're creating. This next step is a tricky one: picking an email management software you'll use to actually send your newsletter. If you're already familiar with one, start with that one.
If we choose to work on your newsletter together, through my newsletter service, we can pick a different one later on that might work better for your goals. It's okay, just spend ten minutes googling a few of them, and decide. You can always change and your audience later, it’s not a big deal.
So, now the fun part begins: write!! I have a lot of free resources on how you can crush this on my Instagram and how to put together a newsletter people will actually want to open, and I have a lot more resources on this coming on my podcast.
I do have a super helpful resource you can use to get started: a free newsletter template. All you have to do is make a copy of this document and get started. Inside, you'll find out how to get started, and since you've already blocked off the time on your calendar, you can get your newsletter into existence today.
The link will be waiting for you in the show notes of my podcast. But if you're the kind of person who wants nothing to do with the writing bit, I'm your gal. I have a newsletter service and can do all the newsletter stuff for you, so you can just get back to doing the most important things in your creator journey and book more flights.
Whether you decide to start a newsletter this week or next year, just remember, no algorithm change can edit our desire for human connection. Newsletters are the best place to do that. If you're feeling inspired by what you heard today, I would be over the moon if you share this with a fellow creator.
Of course, if you have questions or want to drop me a line, reach out to me on Instagram at @travelcontentwriting. You'll find me there. You'll find all the resources there. Happy creating, and I'll see you soon.