Last updated on
April 25, 2024
Effective email newsletter copy and remarkable visual aspects can help businesses, organizations, and entrepreneurs achieve their business/personal goals. Whether you are writing an email newsletter once a week or once a month, be mindful of how it would bring you the best results.
If you’re here, you probably know how a great email marketing campaign plan can help your business take off. Gone are the days when newsletters were simply nothing more than a way to send short emails with promotions to your subscribers. Email campaigns are an essential component of any online marketing strategy. If you want to grow your business and improve the customer experience, newsletters are one of the most effective ways.
So, what's the secret of crafting an effective newsletter?
The success of your newsletter depends on following best practices to ensure that it is effective and well-received by subscribers. Let us walk you through each of these best practices to help you maximize the potential of your newsletter. Let’s get started!
An email newsletter is a type of electronic newsletter that is distributed to a list of subscribers via email. It typically includes a mix of content, such as news, articles, stories, and other information, which is delivered to subscribers on a weekly or monthly basis.
There are many reasons why someone should send an email newsletter, and "beating the competition," isn't a good reason to craft a newsletter. Some possible reasons include the following:
Keep in touch with subscribers: An email newsletter is a way to stay in touch with subscribers and keep them informed about what's happening within your business or organization.
Build a relationship with subscribers: By sending regular newsletters, you can build a relationship with your subscribers, generate leads and establish yourself as a trusted source of information. They feel cared for when you inform your subscribers about your business's day-to-day activities.
Drive traffic to your website: A newsletter can include links to your website or blog post, which can help drive traffic to your online presence. In your newsletter, you can add links to any recent guide or case study published.
Promote products or services: An interactive email newsletter enables you to promote products or services among your subscribers. You can also collaborate with other businesses and promote your products.
Gather feedback: A newsletter can include a section where subscribers can provide feedback or ask questions, which can be a valuable source of information for your business or organization.
An email newsletter is incredible marketing material. Get creative at writing the copy and designing its visuals. Let’s look at the email newsletter's best practices to succeed in 2024.
An engaging subject line in an email newsletter is a brief, attention-grabbing statement that summarizes the content of the email and encourages the recipient to open it. A good subject line should be relevant to the recipient, convey a sense of value or benefit, and be concise and easy to understand. Your subject line should be catchy enough to improve the email open rates.
Spammy words are words that are commonly used in spam emails and are often flagged by spam filters as suspicious. These words can include things like "100% free," "win," "earn money," and "discount." Avoid spam words to help your emails land in the inbox so that they have high open rates and bring great results.
It is important to consider the length of an email newsletter because long emails may take time for readers to digest fully. Additionally, lengthy emails may be more likely to be abandoned before they are fully read or to be flagged as spam by email servers.
Emojis allow you to add personality and tone to your email, making it more engaging and friendly. They can also break up text and make your email more visually appealing. Some research has also shown that emails with emojis tend to have higher click-through and email open rates.
Let’s look at this newsletter from RoriRaye that offers an incredible offer. Anyone serious about taking the relationship to the next level will never be able to resist this catchy headline.
A double opt-in email marketing process is a way of confirming that the individual who has subscribed to the newsletter is the actual owner of the email address and has intentionally subscribed to receive emails from the organization.
By ensuring that the email list is composed of individuals who have actively expressed an interest in receiving emails, the chances of the emails being marked as spam are reduced, which can improve email deliverability.
It ensures that the email list consists of individuals who have willingly subscribed to receive emails. This can improve the organization's reputation and reduce the risk of spam complaints.
An engaged email newsletter list is more likely to result in higher conversion rates, as the individuals on the list are more likely to be interested in the content sent to them.
By sending regular newsletters to an active email list, organizations can keep their audience informed and engaged. It also allows organizations to strengthen their relationship with their audience.
Here's an example of how SocialBee sets up double opt-ins for their newsletter signup form. Once you subscribe here, you must go to your inbox to confirm your subscription. This is important to ensure you have a list of subscribers who are genuinely interested in your product or service.
When you’re setting the right expectations, you just need to answer the following questions:
To get subscribers on board, you need to set expectations. Digg does this well with a handy list of perks on its subscription landing page.
Personalization shows that the sender has taken the time to tailor the message and make it relevant to the individual. In addition, personalization improves the overall effectiveness of the email by making it more relevant and targeted to the recipient, which can lead to higher conversion rates and better overall results.
Segmenting your list enables you to send more targeted and personalized messages to your subscribers. For example, if you have to build an email list of men and women, you can create separate segments for each gender to maintain relevance.
Use behavioral triggers to send out a newsletter that will appeal to a specific group of subscribers. For example, suppose a subscriber abandons their shopping cart on an e-Ccommerce website. In that case, the website can send a customized newsletter offering a discount or free shipping to encourage the subscriber to complete their purchase.
Celebrating milestones with subscribers builds a sense of community among subscribers. When subscribers see that the company is achieving milestones, they feel like they are a part of something more significant and meaningful.
By including various elements of branding in your email newsletters, you can establish yourself as a professional and reliable source of information or products. Additionally, branding allows you to differentiate your email newsletters from others in the recipient's inbox and make them more recognizable and memorable.
Here’s one of the best email newsletter examples from Klaviyo, which shows how you can use a personalized tone in your newsletter. Managing Editor Katie Tierney introduces each topic by name, creating a personal connection with each recipient.
Your newsletter design is an integral part of your overall branding. It should be consistent with your website and other marketing newsletter materials to maintain a cohesive brand image. By putting effort into your newsletter design, you can build trust with your readers and make them more likely to return to your newsletter in the future.
You can use preheaders to set the tone for your entire message. Pre-header helps you add a little personality to your newsletter. A pre-header appears in your inbox even before you can open the email.
This email newsletter has a great pre-header that will entice the audience to take action.
The preheader is, “Save an extra 10% in-store.”
The email subject is “Valentine's Day footwear sale.”
The Z pattern is the best for ensuring that your reader will read through your entire email. It’s a great idea to include eye-catching visuals in your email subject lines and your body text.
Let's look at this example from The Restaurant to get an idea of what we mean. It’s a newsletter by those who love food for the love of food. The newsletter has a user-friendly layout and great tips and tricks from the food community.
First and foremost, when readers see that your emails are consistently formatted and follow a clear style guide, they are more likely to trust the content that you are presenting to them.
To keep your email newsletter's style consistent, you should:
Given the fact that the attention span is just eight seconds today, it’s important to use short sentences and paragraphs. The more precise and catchy your newsletter copy is, the easier it will be to grab the reader’s attention. Along with an attention-grabbing headline, you should focus on creating short sentences and paragraphs. An email newsletter should be brief and informative.
Try to be respectful and consistent in how you greet your newsletter recipients. Send welcome and broadcast emails in a friendly way that makes them feel like they're being greeted. A great way to do that is to address the reader with his name.
If you are sending out an email newsletter to readers in a specific industry, avoid slang and colloquialisms.
The following email newsletter copy from Zendesk is a great example of an email newsletter without jargon. It’s simple and to the point.
Before you use humor to make a point, think about your audience—if they include people from different cultures and backgrounds, their reactions may be different.
For example, Moosend, a newsletter writing service specializing in engaging copywriting, is a great example of applying this skill in practice.
Using different types of content formats in creating a newsletter helps to find the most visually appealing and easy-to-read structure. It can also break up the content and make it more engaging for the reader. Different types of email content formats include images, videos, lists, tables, and more.
When you use visuals in a newsletter, these are some basic rules to follow:
This GasBuddy email is an excellent example of all these rules in action:
A significant portion of users accesses the internet and their emails on their smartphones. If your newsletter is not mobile-friendly, it can lead to a poor user experience and may result in a lower conversion rate. Your email newsletter must include the following;
Using responsive newsletter email templates can boost your email list's engagement in no time. Mailmunch offers one of the professionally designed email templates, which adapts automatically to every screen resolution and allows you to customize. When you automate Gmail emails and other service providers to integrate with your preferred apps (for adding visual elements, customer survey forms, etc.), you save even more time with your responsive email templates.
Large file sizes can slow down the loading time of the email, which can be frustrating for users. Using lightweight JPEG format images ensures that your emails load quickly and are more likely to be delivered successfully to your subscribers.
Here are the recommended images sizes that you can use in your email newsletter.
It is important to make the call to action button visible because it will be more likely to grab readers' attention and entice them to click on it.
When you’re publishing a mobile version of your newsletter, it’s a good idea to reduce the number of characters to make it easier to read. Here’s an example:
Call-to-actions (CTAs) are an essential element of email newsletters because they help drive the recipient to take a specific action, such as visiting a website or purchasing a product. The importance of CTAs in email newsletters lies in their ability to convert subscribers into customers.
It is essential to tie the CTA in an email newsletter to the goal it should pursue because it helps to ensure that the action being requested is relevant and aligns with the overall purpose of the newsletter.
The use of clear and concise language in your emails reflects well on your professionalism and attention to detail. Using appropriate language and avoiding offensive or controversial language shows respect for your readers and helps to create a positive atmosphere.
HAUS is a perfect example of how to take this approach.
This email offers a recipe and a CTA button that mirrors the recipe, so the reader is "guilted" into clicking. The same applies to the second section—it shows Haus's take on the classic Paloma cocktail with a list of ingredients the recipient can buy by clicking Shop Now.
In the context of newsletters, email A/B testing can be used to determine which subject line, layout, or type of content is the most effective at getting subscribers to open and engage with the newsletter.
By conducting A/B tests, you can make informed decisions about the email design and content of your newsletters rather than relying on guesswork. This improves the effectiveness of your newsletters and helps you to find the right email cadence, which ultimately drives better results for your business. Also, tracking your email can help you in gauging the effectiveness of your testing.
For instance, the Skimm is a daily news source that delivers concise updates about what's happening in the world. For example, back in 2019, the newsletters used to be less engaging. The text was more concise and plain.
Fast-forward to 2022, Skimm decided to take a different approach and started writing longer reports and added white space between paragraphs to improve readability. Today, they have more engaging, more catchy, and reader-friendly newsletters.
It's clear that email newsletters' design and content have tremendous potential to engage your subscribers, better connect with your audience, and create a reputation as an expert, but only if you put in the effort. So, take the time to make your emails something that people can look forward to reading. And don't be afraid to think outside the box! Try something new now and then; you never know what will resonate with your subscribers.
And if you want to experiment with your email newsletter campaigns, Mailmunch has you covered. With 1,000+ email templates, you can build a stunning newsletter for every month of the year. Moreover, with advanced email automation, you can get your message to the right people at the right time.
You can build a customer profile while capturing leads through emails by identifying and targeting your customers and continuously refining your ICP based on the data collected through your lead-generation efforts. A simple ICP template can help you in this process, saving time.
A good newsletter should include relevant and interesting content for the intended audience. Such as
Here are the steps to writing an effective newsletter:
There isn't a single "best" format for a newsletter, as the best format will depend on your newsletter's goals and your audience's preferences. However, you should consider a few general guidelines when designing your newsletter.
There is no hard and fast rule for how often you should send a newsletter. The newsletter frequency will depend on your goals and the needs of your audience. Here are a few things to consider when deciding how often to send a newsletter:
There are a few ways you can make your newsletter more attractive:
No set number of blogs should be included in a newsletter. The number of blogs you include will depend on your specific goals and audience. It may be helpful to experiment with different numbers of blogs to see what works best for your organization.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the length of an email newsletter will depend on its purpose and the target audience's preferences. However, there are a few general guidelines you can follow:
There are a few factors to consider when deciding the best time and day to send an email newsletter:
A voracious reader and a music lover, Ammar has been writing engaging and informative content for over 3 years for B2B and B2C markets. With a knack for writing SEO-optimized content, Ammar ensures the results speak for themselves.
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