Creating a Newsletter for Your Radio Station

With so many channels available to market your radio station, you might be asking yourself whether a newsletter is a worthwhile vehicle to explore. Rest assured newsletters remain an effective communication channel for radio stations to keep in touch with their listeners, well you are reading this newsletter. For tips and best practices on email strategies for radio, keep reading. 

Why Send Out Regular Newsletters? 

In addition to driving brand awareness for your radio station, newsletters also help with:   

• Increasing visibility and facilitating open and honest communication between you and your listeners. 
• Fostering your relationship with your customers, keeping them up to date with what is happening at your radio station. 

• Creating an atmosphere of trust and authority. 
   

How Frequently Should I Send the Station Newsletter? 

The frequency of your newsletter entirely depends on you. However, sending out newsletters no more than twice a week, or once a month is best practice and usually results in better open rates. According to campaignmonitor.com, 61% of consumers want to see at least one email a week from brands they follow.

What Type of Content Can I Include In My Newsletter? 

• Trending Music – Radio listeners love to know what’s trending in the world of radio therefore making top trending artists or music a good source of news. Applications such as Spotify, Deezer, YouTube Music and Audio Mark are reliable sources for trending music.  
   

• Entertaining Content – Writing interesting stories and facts about different artists and songs is an interesting way to engage with your customers. You can engage past DJs or presenters to write this segment of your newsletter. It is also a way of celebrating your local artists. 
   
• Celebrate Your Station – Listeners are not only interested in the content you deliver to them, but also about the station itself. Celebrating your achievements as a station, your presenters and DJs or sharing behind the scenes work is a good source of content for your newsletter. If you have any station events, share the images in your newsletter or any charity work you are involved within the community.  
   
• Informative and Educational Content- Whether it is program changes, new presenters, or anything else new to the station, you can use your newsletter to inform your listeners. 
   
• Promotion of Careers and/or Internship Opportunities – When your station has any open positions or you are looking for interns, including a career section in your newsletter is a great way to find the right skills you are looking for. 
   
• Contests – Contests are a good way of engaging your audience. Create newsletter specific contests and encourage participation from your listeners. Contests can also help grow your mailing list by encouraging your listeners to share the contest through their social media.  
   

• Events – Radio lovers are always on the lookout for events within their locality. Use your radio station newsletter to share and remind your audience about upcoming events. 
   
• News – You can use your newsletter to share community news, radio station related news, industry, or international news. 

How Do I Send Out a Newsletter? 

They are a number of easy-to-use email platforms on the market today that you can use to create and send your newsletter. Mailchimp, Get Response, SendinBlue and Constant Contact are some of the affordable platforms to consider. The platforms have pre-made professionally designed templates, making it easy to get started quickly and whilst you could also consider sending emails directly from your station’s email address, it only takes a small number of listeners to mark your newsletters as spam before your email address can be blacklisted and classified as spam by many email clients. 
 

Important Tips for Sending Out Newsletters 
 

• Keep It Simple – Your newsletter should be easy to follow and understand, and this can be achieved by delivering your message in a simple and clear way.  Target your word choice at your target audience. If your station caters to the younger generation then your word choice might be significantly different to a newsletter for a classical music or jazz station.  
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  Eye Catching Subject Lines – Grab your reader’s attention by having an eye-catching subject line. A great way to do this is by adding relevant emojis to your subject line. 

• Get Permission – Your contacts must give consent to receive email marketing from you. You can use signup forms provided by the different newsletter platforms to make sure your contacts want to receive your emails and always include a straight-forward unsubscribe option. 

• Be Authentic – Newsletters that are authentic are often captivating. Original stories, exclusive content and showing your brand personality in your newsletters will keep the authenticity as well as bring value to your customers. 

There you have it, create a newsletter for your radio station and keep your listeners engaged. If you are new to the world of radio, why not try out our 7-day SAM Broadcaster Cloud free trial today!