Email newsletters are still a great way to reach your customers. When properly executed they are not just valuable for you, but also for your customers. But it’s the execution where things don’t always go well. There is of course no golden rule for creating newsletters – it is after all not math – but it’s possible to come up with some basic guidelines. So I have tried to, just for you.
General
Before we talk about the contents of the newsletter, let’s set some basic general “rules”.
Sender
Make sure the sender name is the name of your company and not the name of the person sending the email. This way the receiver has a clear idea of the source of the email.
Lots of newsletters are sent from an email address that is not read or doesn’t even exist. Make sure your mail clearly states that using the reply-button won’t work. Be sure to offer your readers an alternative address to send their questions and comments to.
Unsubscribing made easy
Make sure your email newsletter contains an unsubscribe link. Don’t make it hard for people to unsubscribe. Unsubscribing from your newsletter, doesn’t mean losing them as a customer of visitor. Being too pushy may accomplish that though. Remember that anybody who really wants to unsubscribe will find a way to do so. Frustrating them in what they want won’t make their experience with your company any more positive.
HTML or Text
If you’re sending out an HTML newsletter, make sure there’s also a plain text version available for people who can’t read HTML formatted emails. Also, some spam filers will stop HTML emails.
Images
Newsletters should be well designed and please the eye. But, never – never ever ever? – ever make a newsletter from just an image. These types of newsletters are usually not very clickable (the 1 image is the link) which is highly annoying. Do use images as a part of your HTML version. But test these images. Be sure to test your newsletter anyway. I have received many a newsletter that didn´t actually work – especially the images.
Content
Content is still the most important part of any newsletter. What your content is, is up to you to decide. But here are some pointers to help you along.
Subject
The title “monthly newsletter” doesn’t seduce your readers into clicking. Remember: people’s mailboxes these days are filled with content. When scanning their mailbox, your readers are looking for a reason not to click delete. A good subject for your mail will maximize the chance of them opening your mail to begin with.
Companies that take newsletters seriously use software to test different subjects. This type of software doesn’t just test by how many people an email was opened, but also which links within the email were clicked.
Just like with websites, it is possible to a/b test emails: send one version to one group of recipients and another version to another group. This way you can improve your clickthrough rate by learning what does and what doesn’t work.
Valuable content
The goal of your newsletter is usually to get people to visit your website. Just putting links in your newsletter won’t get you there though. Make your newsletter valuable in itself, in addition to the links that you provide to your website. One way to do this is by putting a full article (about a subject which is interesting to your readers) in the newsletter in and then maybe just intros other articles and a read more link. By putting full content in your newsletter, you can interest your readers in the newsletter itself, while the intros will get them to your website.
Call-to-action
Make sure your newsletter contains a clear call-to-action. Do you want your readers to buy something, read something, apply for something, do something? Make sure they know what is expected from them.
KISS – Keep it simple/short silly/stupid/shmuck
Keep it short. Really long newsletters really won’t be read. It’s better to send shorter newsletters, more frequently than long epistles once a year.
The huge amount of mail that people receive forces them to not only scan content when visiting websites, but also when reading emails. Make your mail easy to scan, by putting an index at the top, by using subheadings and breaking the texts with images and some whitespaces.
Lingo
You may be a specialist at your trade, but your customers oftentimes aren’t. Make sure you know who they are and how they communicate. Make sure you speak their language.
What not to do
There are some things that you should never do. Pay attention, here they come:
Don’t disguise your sale as a newsletter. Sending an ad is fine, as long as people know that’s what they’re getting.
Never send people your newsletter without their permission. Your newsletter is there to build a relationship. Spamming won’t do that for you. Don’t be seduced into adding everybody whose business card you have or who’s entered into a contest at your site or who’s ordered something from you to your mailinglist. The only people who should receive your newsletter are the people who specifically requested to.
Don’t ever put all the addresses of the recipients into the To or CC-field of your email. Use the BCC-field if you don’t own special newsletter software. This seems obvious, but if I had a euro for every time that I received the email addresses of strangers in the To field of a newsletter – I’d be a very rich woman.
Do you have any tips & tricks for making good newsletters? Please share yours in the comments!
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