10 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Newsletter
10 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Newsletter
Your email newsletter is one of your most valuable tools, and a great way for you to reach your audience. Still, we all know how frequently we archive or delete mass-emails, especially when the content is irrelevant to us. These tips will help you to develop a newsletter that your subscribers will actually read.
Do some research. In your industry, which newsletters are successful, and why? Make sure to subscribe to them so that you can see what kind of content they offer.
Evaluate your goals. What are you looking to get out of this newsletter? Is it about spreading information and generating awareness? Finding new customers, or retaining existing ones? Or maybe the goal is to promote an event, which means the frequency will change throughout the year.
Find your focus. Many newsletters are too broad and contain too much information, so they end up not really appealing to anyone. You will likely want to consider having separate content for separate audiences. It’s always best to keep each newsletter to one specific point.
Create lists. Separate your contacts into distinct lists, based on what they would be interested in. For example, if you are trying to get people to register for an event, make sure you don’t send to people who have already bought tickets.
Consider frequency. More is not always better. Depending on your industry and/or product, your ideal frequency could be once a day or once a month. This goes back to #1 (research) - how often are you getting your favorite newsletters? At what point does a newsletter become too frequent that you unsubscribe?
Balance your content. The content in your newsletter should be 90% information, with only 10% of the content being promotional. Nobody is going to subscribe to your emails if they are just essentially long advertisements. Make sure the content is informational, educational, and/or entertaining. (This is also a good rule for social media!)
Link to your blog. Keeping an active blog is important for all websites’ Search Engine Optimization (SEO), so you are probably already doing that. Why not use that same content for your newsletters? Be sure to direct traffic back to your site with “read more” buttons.
Get creative with subject lines. Pay attention to the emails that you click on. What was the subject line? Why did you click on it? The subject line should cater to the specific list of subscribers (see #4) that you are sending the email to, since you know a little something about them already. No matter what, the subject should be clear, brief, and enticing.
Pick one primary call-to-action. Even if you are including other links and calls-to-action, there should be a primary one that is clearly the most important. Your subscriber should know exactly what you want them to do -- whether it’s buy tickets to your event or click on a blog post link.
Make it pretty. Don’t get too flashy with design and copy, because it can easily feel cluttered. Keep it simple and easy to digest.
By following these tips, your click rate should increase immediately, meaning you are reaching more of your stakeholders. For help with any of this - from design to writing blog posts - shoot us a message.