What’s the Difference Between a Blog and a Newsletter?
What’s the Difference Between a Blog and a Newsletter?
Newsletters and blogs are practical tools for businesses to communicate with people. To drill down to the fundamental differences between the two, you can consider these questions: who, what, when, where, and how.
1. Who
Blogs and newsletters have two different intended audiences. Generally speaking, you write newsletter content to people who are already familiar with you. Customers, clients, or followers are the most likely candidates to subscribe to your newsletters. Since they already know about you and your products or services, you can use your newsletters to keep them closely connected, well informed, and engaged.
Blog content, on the other hand, is designed with attraction in mind. It’s one of the most common marketing tools to catch the attention of people who are not already familiar with your business.
2. What
What is a newsletter, and what is its purpose? For most, it’s a targeted, private, informative communication from your business to your clients or customers. Newsletter content can include sales, special promotions, coupons, company updates, and current news, announcements, or events.
A blog is more like story-telling. It’s like a narrative written to entice people to learn more about your business. Your blog posts will be available for the general public to find and read in chronological order. They tell readers about your organization, demonstrate your expertise in your field, peak interest of potential customers, and encourage engagement with your brand.
3. When
When will the audience read the messages in your newsletters and blog posts? That’s an essential consideration as you write the content for both. Newsletters are current, relevant, and time-sensitive. You intend for readers to open and read them upon receipt. Newsletters can become obsolete when the newest edition is released. The coupons expire, the announcements aren’t news anymore, and the events have already happened.
Not so with blog posts. You never really know when someone will discover your blog when searching for specific topics. With that in mind, you should seek to create blog posts that are timely and timeless, so no matter when someone stumbles upon your blog, they will find the content helpful, entertaining, educational, motivational, or relevant at that very moment.
4. Where
Where do your newsletters and blogs reside, and where do readers find them? Your newsletters find their homes in customer’s email inboxes. Since some of your clients deal with staggering volumes of emails in their inboxes, you’ll want to make sure to use a catchy and compelling subject line. You want your newsletter to be opened, read, and interacted with immediately.
Blogs reside online, usually a dedicated section of your company’s website. That’s where you post them, and that’s where they stay. Using brand-consistent verbiage and messaging between the two is essential so, no matter where readers find your communications, they recognize them as uniquely yours.
5. How
How do you get the content in your newsletters and blogs in front of readers? In the past, company newsletters were often hard copies sent by mail. Sometimes they still are, but the overwhelming majority are emails delivered directly to your business’ list of clients, leads, and followers.
Email can be an avenue for how you deliver your blogs, too. While they have a permanent home online, blogs usually have a subscription link so readers that stumble upon a post that resonates with them can choose to have future blog posts delivered directly to their email.
Effectively using SEO strategies in your blog posts is another way to attract readers to your blog and introduce them to your company.
While some businesses favor one over the other, the truth is that blogs and newsletters both serve unique purposes in marketing your business. Knowing the differences between the two and being willing to use both to reach different audiences is the first step in maximizing the positive impact each can have on your business.