As part of our Collectif, in which we feature the work of our partners (see more here), the team from The Data Business examine the importance of email campaigns. BuzzFeed delivers a powerful example of a publisher who is able to leverage email in way that not only builds copious volumes of first party data, but also drives profound audience engagement.
Email marketing is as relevant as ever – according to Statista, in 2020 there were over 306 billion emails sent and this figure is predicted to reach over 376 billion daily emails sent by 2025. In addition to volume, email campaigns see an average 38-fold return on investment.
For media organisations, the ubiquity, low-cost and ease of access make email marketing a highly desirable option for bolstering subscriber bases, maintaining brand awareness, and driving subscription sales.
BuzzFeed enewsletters
BuzzFeed is perhaps an odd choice for a case study. After all, BuzzFeed News died earlier this year – drowned in a sea of headlines amidst social media’s pivot away from news. As the tide went out, BuzzFeed News stood there naked, alongside Vice.
But BuzzFeed’s main business is still pulling in revenue: $353M in the twelve months to September 2023 to be exact. Yes, it’s a decline from a year earlier, but their enewsletter strategy is still solid, very solid. They remain in the top 25 most visited media sites in America, drawing over 90 million visitors a month.
Furthermore, these email newsletters are one of their top 5 sources of traffic referral and bring in as many website visits as Twitter and YouTube combined. BuzzFeed achieves success in newsletters by tuning them to their audience and purpose, making sure those who receive their emails want them.
The promotion of email subscriptions
BuzzFeed encourages and gives the opportunity to subscribe to updates in every corner of the site, making sure visitors are very much aware that there is a newsletter available for them (something too many websites miss out on by nestling their newsletter opt-ins within a mound of URLs). Not only that, the newsletter opt-ins allow users to pick from numerous newsletters of varying topics – allowing visitors to self-segment themselves.
Segmenting subscribers
BuzzFeed’s many newsletters cover a large range of topics and are read by an equally large range of people. One of the main reasons they have been able to perform so well is because they understand that people have differing tastes and wants – self-segmentation through the opt-in process means that those who are subscribed will be much more interested, likely to engage and loyal to the content.
Rather than choppily trying to make assumptions about visitors based on demographics, BuzzFeed gives the key to the visitor themselves, per their tagline “There’s a Newsletter For Everyone”, allowing visitors to find the content best for them, which in turn will be the best content for BuzzFeed to send them for increased engagement and share rate.
Newsletter quality
BuzzFeed ensures people want to share their content by making it specific to the targeted segment, easy to share, and well presented. They understand that those subscribed to their ‘Animals’ newsletter will want more images of puppies than blocks of text and conversely that those reading tech articles are going to want more written detail than pictures. Quality is in the eye of the beholder, so ensuring readers are receiving quality for them is key to avoiding unsubscribes due to a lack of interest.
Not only are the emails themselves high-quality, each newsletter has a dedicated landing page, further capturing visitors with topics specific to their interests and driving engagement. These landing pages also remind you of the newsletters available, providing even more opportunities to capture a regular reader.
Quality is also added to their newsletters with offerings to readers, such as free courses, coupons, and trials. By giving their visitors something, it encourages them to subscribe and stay subscribed for future deals, with the cost being earned back by additional website engagement and traffic. Making your visitors feel valued and catered for is key to earning their loyalty.
A curated path to success
From opening their first received BuzzFeed newsletter, visitors are led down a curated path of content with subscriptions being actively promoted and made as easy to join as possible, removing any roadblocks to subscription. This paired with BuzzFeed’s focus on quality means visitors are only presented with the best of what they seek and thus are much more likely to stay and share content with others.
By focusing on keeping email content as engaging and high-quality as possible they help guarantee the unsubscribe button remains untouched, keeping visitors from ever growing bored and empowering BuzzFeed’s success today.
The Data Business is a partner of Mx3’s Collectif Network, a strategic partner community that brings together industry technology leaders and media advisors to benefit from various exclusive initiatives and to add their voices to wider industry conversations.
To learn more about Collectif and our media-tech community, contact TJ Hunter, VP of Commercial and Head of Collectif, at tj@mediamakersmeet.com.
