Setting up a newsletter for your private equity firm
Building consistent brand engagement is key to ensure your firm is top of mind. One way to do this is by setting up a newsletter.
After you’ve set your goal (example: send traffic to your website/blog), it’s a good idea to explore which email newsletter tools are out there. Depending on how sophisticated your firm is, this can range from it being an integrated part of your marketing tech stack to utilizing a dedicated tool such as Mailchimp (which also has a free option limiting you to 2,500 monthly email sends which is plenty to get started with). I have added some more providers at the bottom of this article.
Once you’ve set your goal and selected your tool, it’s time to select a template for your newsletter.
Most tools provide templates which is a great way to save yourself time
Structure
When selecting a template, it’s important to think about the structure of your newsletter. For private equity firms, newsletters usually consist of thought leadership, news from portfolio companies, exits, team announcements/highlights, and other activities.
Pro tip: most newsletters are defaulted to a width of 600px, so when adding an image, ensure you are not exceeding the width.
Personalization
Once the structure is built, there are a few ways to personalize your newsletter. The most obvious ways to do this is by adding your company logo at the top and changing the colours to your respective brand colours.
Other ways to personalize your newsletter(s) include adding merge tags (ESP-specific code that allows you to insert unique user data from your mailing list into emails). An example of this is the first name merge tag, allowing you to send an email to many of your contacts where your tool automatically adds their first name to the email when you send it.
Sender
When setting up your newsletter, you will have to pick a sender domain. While you’re able to pick a generic email address (info@ or investorrelations@company.com), using a name of a real person (e.g. a founding partner or Head of IR) will increase your open rates and click-through-rates (CTR).
Privacy Regulations
Don’t forget about privacy regulations, these can be stricter depending on your region, however, they exist everywhere. I have listed some below:
Email Newsletter Tools (Examples)