10 Steps to Create an Email Newsletter People Will Actually Read
Email Marketing is incredible, it really works!
It is one of the best ways to keep your audience engaged and stay at the top of their minds, and for the majority of the marketers, this will sound familiar. But to utilize the true power of email marketing, one needs to understand the psychology behind it.
The purpose of an email newsletter is to provide a list of your most exciting content, promotions, and announcements to your subscribers. It effectively keeps your target audience updated and helps in generating leads.
But sending a newsletter every week or month just to meet the criteria is not effective. Getting people to open it and read it is a tricky part. To ease your troubles, we have divided the whole process into ten simple steps below.
How to Write the Perfect Email Newsletter?
- Analyze if it makes sense for your company to have an email newsletter
It might sound like a really tough job to push back a project your boss just assigned. But if it does not make sense to use email newsletters for marketing, there is no point in wasting time over it.
Start with researching your industry. Find out if there are successful newsletters that people like subscribing to willingly. If yes, what’s making it successful? Considering your available resources like time, budget, and internal support, will you be successful in it?
Evaluate your business goals. Are you trying to generate more leads? Or increasing customer retention rates? If your business goals do not go in line with the outcome a newsletter could produce or if your industry is not really into email newsletters, then you may want to spend time on something that will be beneficial for your company. For instance, content marketing or running ads.
Based on your collected data, prepare a success plan, and go on for a discussion with your senior whether you agree with their newsletter concept or not. In case you disagree, your senior will be glad that you are putting effort.
- Decide the type of newsletter you wish to send
One of the prime reasons why email newsletters fail is because they are often messed up and unfocused. They try to support every aspect of the business and end up cluttered. Whether it is a newsletter or not, every email needs to have a common thread that will hold it together.
Therefore to avoid this trouble, your email newsletters should revolve around one specific topic only. Offering topic-based newsletters is likely to get far greater engagement than the newsletters that feature contents from all over the site since it will reach the audience interested in that particular topic.
- Balance the content to be 90% informative and only 10% promotional
Your subscribers do not want to read about your products and services all the time. Even if they are in love with your products/services, it won’t be long before they tune out.
For instance, I love dresses and especially purchasing from a particular website. So, I subscribed to their newsletter voluntarily. But now they send me 2 to 3 emails in a day that says buy, buy, BUY! So now, whenever I see their name pop up in my inbox, I want to scream at the top of my voice! But imagine if instead, they sent me some informative content, let’s say about the latest dresses in trend, or tips for pairing your outfits with footwear. With these informative contents, I would be much more interested in buying from them or at least opening their emails.
You don’t want to be an annoying company that cannot get rid of self-promotion. Focus on sending informative content through your newsletters that will add some value to your reader’s life. Unless, of course, if you have some big announcements to make about your company like a 50% discount or buy two get one free schemes or any exciting piece of information.
- Set the expectations on the Subscribe page
As soon as you figure out your newsletter’s main focus and content balance, it’s time to take a step further. Make sure you communicate with your audience correctly on your “Subscribe Page.”
Be a little specific and tell them what they should expect from the newsletters and how often they will be receiving it from you. As a potential subscriber, it will be great to know who is going to send the email, what will be in the email, and the frequency of these emails.
With this information on the upfront, your unsubscribe and spam rates will fall.
- Be creative with your subject lines
After all, even if people subscribe to your email list, there is no guarantee that they are going to open it as soon as they receive it. A lot of marketers try to increase acquaintanceship with their subscribers by keeping the subject lines the same for every email they send daily, weekly, or even monthly.
But practically these subject lines will get old and boring for the subscribers. A subject is what they are going to see first, so unless it is captivating enough, there is a low probability that they will open it. A better way is to be creative with your subject lines and keeping it different for every email so that it entices the subscribers to give it a read.
- Pick one main CTA
A newsletter features multiple contents along with multiple call-to-action. But it would be best if you did not let all the CTAs share equal importance. Pick one main call-to-action that you would like your readers to do while others should be treated like “just in case you want to” options. Whether you want them to forward the email to others, or simply click to read the blog post, make it clear to your audience what you want them to do. This will maximize the chances that they will end up clicking it.
- Let the design and copy be minimal
As mentioned before, a newsletter can often end up looking cluttered. The trick is to keep the copy to the point and leave enough white space in its design.
You do not want your audience to keep reading the newsletter all day long. Instead, you want them to get a little bit idea just enough to make them click to learn more, by redirecting to a blog or your website. Keeping the copy brief will fulfill this purpose just fine.
Meanwhile, having plenty of white space will alleviate the messed up feel and makes it easier for them to click on the right CTA.
- Ensure that your images have an Alt text
As a matter of fact, we are well aware of the importance of images in marketing. So it is kind of obvious if you would want to insert them in your email newsletters too.
However, emails are a bit trickier. More likely than not, people will not have images enabled; therefore, it becomes necessary for your images to have alt text. These are alternative texts that are displayed in case your image is not loaded in an email.
It is furthermore crucial if your call-to-action buttons are images. You would want to ensure that your subscribers click your CTAs even if the image is not loaded.
- Make it easy for your audience to unsubscribe
This might sound a little illogical, but it is the key to maintaining an engaged and active subscribers list. You don’t have to hide the unsubscribe button behind an image without an alt text or use weird language. Having a clear unsubscribe process and a healthy list will prevent your email from getting marked as spam before it hits the rest of your subscribers’ inbox.
- Test your newsletter
Once you have figured out the content, nature, and other components to make an email newsletter that people are going to read, it’s time to test it. Just like different groups of people have different tastes, different subscriber lists have different tastes too!
Try out certain experiments, take feedback from colleagues, and test your newsletter to find your secret ingredient. It will take a little time to figure out what works best for your company. It must suit your company’s style and go in line with your business goals. Experiment with your subject lines, CTAs, content copy, design, and images. Keep on bringing changes and improvise your newsletter until you find the best one!
So, these were the ten steps to create an email newsletter people will want to read. Drop your views in the comments below.