A autonomous newsletter (Stand-Alone Newsletter in English), is an advertising medium in email marketing to disseminate unique offers, special events or advertising messages related to events. Unlike email campaigns and regular newsletters, stand-alone newsletters are characterized by the unique distribution of advertising content and branded messages, which are often sent to a new circle of recipients from an email service provider. The recipients are not the same clients of the advertising company. They have given their consent to the service provider to receive email newsletters. The commercial promotion company instructs the service provider to send the autonomous newsletter. An alternative definition for the standalone newsletter is standalone email. If standalone recipients are used, they are also referred to as standalone mailings, standalone campaigns, or rental lists and rental addresses.
General information
Generating address databases for sending newsletters is difficult due to legal regulations. Recipients who consent to receive the newsletter must meet various conditions, such as a double opt-in and a double opt-out. At the same time, the purchase of email addresses is not legal for data protection reasons, which is why the terms, rental addresses and rental lists are sometimes misleading.
In order to increase the reach of an advertising message, many companies continue to use autonomous newsletters. They rent a base of addresses for a limited period or they agree with the sender of the newsletter a package that can include the sole distribution and surely other services such as the design of the commercial promotion email or the follow-up. The implementation according to the autonomous newsletter legislation is as important for the advertising company as it is for the sender of the advertising email. The technical and legal bases of permission marketing must be observed to avoid possible damage to the image and legal consequences.
How does it work
Independent or autonomous campaigns depend on a single action that is the main content of the newsletter. Special offers, sales, product introductions, events or games can be the reason for a separate email. Editorial content is generally ignored in freelance campaigns. Only the advertising message and the transport advertising material are relevant.
The content of the email is the responsibility of the advertising company. The layout can be handled by the service provider or the advertiser, depending on the service provider's portfolio. Like conventional newsletters, they can also be sent in plain text or HTML format. Some providers provide templates to embed content in which it is provided by the advertiser. Design, text, and graphics must be coordinated with the service provider. The technical specifications of the service provider determine the framework. For example, images typically must be available as a hard copy because database references are not always possible and the data provided typically must be available in certain formats.
The recipient base can be chosen by many service providers. Address data is topic specific, so basic targeting of the advertising message to the target group is useful at the beginning of the independent campaign. In addition, targeting options are provided, for example, to choose recipients in a specific zip code area. Because recipients have actively agreed to be on the distribution lists for a dual option, there are also good possibilities for high reception and open rates. At the same time, professional mail service providers keep your address details continuously to avoid loss. Thematic relevance is fundamentally important for the acceptance of the independent mailing by the recipients and the effective transmission of the advertising messages by the advertising company. Certain segments can also increase factors such as relevance.
Distribution is handled by the service provider's servers. Provides its technical infrastructure and accepts delivery to email addresses from its database. Even though many service providers offer control of key performance indicators (KPIs), such as open rates, trade promotion companies can manage them themselves by placing tracking pixels in emails and recording and evaluating the data from performance. A key factor in this is the separation of KPIs and personal data such as email address. KPI data can only be collected if it has been anonymized and is independent of personal data. This applies to both the service provider and the advertiser.
Autonomous newsletter distribution is usually billed as flat rate or CPT. Advertisers can aim for high volumes, but they must pay attention to certain targeting and quality requirements if their emails are interesting and relevant. For special target groups and B2B communication, it helps to focus on segmentation rather than bulk mailings. Autonomous newsletters focused on the target group or target group generally achieve good performance values because they are relevant to the target group.
Relevance for online marketing
Stand-alone newsletters are an important part of email marketing to sell unique offers and, on the other hand, to significantly increase reach to new recipients. Especially for small and medium-sized businesses, it can be useful to use separate campaigns if the marketing budget does not provide for elaborate campaigns. With a service provider suitable for independent mailings, you can attract new customers and distribute the advertising message selectively. If this is done in cooperation with a third party provider, the legal certainty of the mailing must be at the forefront before considering the objectives, content and appearance of the advertising medium.
As with other email campaigns, industry best practice examples should be followed to achieve legal certainty and high performance. Several general tips for email marketing campaigns are, of course, helpful. Because independent email recipients usually only receive the advertising message positively if the newsletter stands out visually, in terms of content. This also means that the central advertising message must not be redundant. The objective of the campaign must be defined in advance in order to guide the content around it and activate potential customers through autonomous newsletters.
