Tired of your email newsletters hitting the trash folder without being read? Then good news, this article is for you! Email newsletters are one of the most universally used marketing tools across any business and industry – so it’s important to get them right!
It can be frustrating when your hard-worked-on newsletters don’t get as much click-through recognition as they deserve. Don’t worry though we’re here to help with our tried and tested tips on how to create email newsletters that your audience will want to read from start to finish!
Snappy Subject Lines
When it comes to digital marketing we humans are very busy creatures and are often emailing, facebooking and tweeting on the go. So, when it comes to email newsletters, it’s essential that your subject line packs a punch!
This will be your audience’s first point of contact with your email so be sure to make a good impression! Think about how you use your own personal email account – how many newsletters and advertising campaigns do you send to the bin without opening them? You’ll likely get a lot of emails day-to-day and your audience will too!
So make sure you catch their attention with a snappy subject line that will entice them to open. Aim for 3-4 words and be sure that it reflects the content that is inside the email. Try not to excessively use capital letters, emojis, symbols or multiple exclamation or question marks as these can trigger spam filters meaning that your hard-worked-on newsletter won’t even reach your recipient.
Engaging Content
Creating engaging content is a big part of creating a great email newsletter. Your newsletter has to have a goal or an aim - what you want to accomplish e.g. brand awareness or increase in sales. Your newsletter also has to be relevant to your recipient! If it isn’t it’ll most likely wind up in the bin unopened.
Don’t bombard your recipient with lots of technical jargon or sales speech as they’ll quickly lose interest and unsubscribe from your newsletter. Try instead to get a balance between helpful, relevant content and promotional speak - aim for a 90% content and 10% promotional speak balance.
A handy way to approach your newsletter is to put yourself in your candidate’s shoes – if you were in their position what information would provide you with the most value?
Define Your Goals
Your email newsletter has to have purpose! What is it trying to achieve?
What would be your ideal outcome? Whether it’s growing your email database or increasing engagement levels, your email newsletter can help you keep your target audience up-to-date on all of your latest news and opportunities as well as help keep your brand top of mind.
Try not to please everyone - this may seem counterproductive when you’re trying to create readable, engaging email newsletters, but actually this little technique can mean the difference between hitting the trash can and being read thoroughly.
Here’s the reasoning why going niche can work: business growth is a major goal for many companies however you don’t want just anyone. You want customers, clients and an audience who engage with your company.
This is why knowing your company’s target audience is so important. Audience segmenting can come in really handy here as you can send more relevant and niche emails to the audiences who are most likely to engage with those specific topics. This is a clever way of targeting more than one group of people, particularly if your company has a varied or wide target audience.
ONE Call to Action (CTA)
We understand that you want to up your click-through rates and get your audience through to your website and products/services but if you bombard them with multiple calls to action, odds are they’ll not understand what you want them to do. Aim for ONE call to action (CTA) and be as clear and concise as you can!
Having too many call to actions will confuse your candidates and could even result in them not taking any action at all! Think about what your goal is for your email newsletter, your CTA should reflect this.
A call to action is not just any hyperlink within your email, it’s a direction that asks your reader to complete some action e.g. ‘Click here to apply.’
Make It Look Good
This is your opportunity to show off your brand so it’s important that your email newsletter looks good! Have fun with it – there are lots of handy (and free!) design tools out there to help you get in touch with your creative flare.
Try not to go overboard - you don’t want the design to take away from your hard-worked on content! A good place to start is your company’s brand guidelines (if they have them). Be sure to keep to brand colours and logos and be consistent every time - that way your recipients will know who you are straight away!
Don’t forget to make sure your email newsletter is optimised for mobile to satisfy your mobile-savvy readers!
Provide An Easy Opt Out!
GDPR – the four most dreaded letters by any marketer.
Providing an easy opt out, or unsubscribe option, will not only help you comply with the legal requirements of GDPR, it will also help to keep your email recipients happy with the knowledge that they can control their participation in your newsletter. You can also include a preference centre which allows readers to self-select the content areas that they’d most like to hear about. This makes your job of relevant content a whole lot easier!
Need help with your digital marketing? We’re here to help. Get in touch with our team today.