Online marketing continuously evolves – from modest websites to trendy and fun social media channels offering new ways to interact with your target audience. Online marketing doesn’t have to be hard even if email newsletters may be seen as the least appealing. Numbers don’t lie as they deserve a spot at the top of marketing strategy deemed to be the most effective.
What is an email newsletter?
A newsletter is an email that provides subscribers with a collection of your most intriguing material, announcements, and specials. It may be useful for keeping audiences informed as well as increasing traffic.
Newsletters are an important component of an email marketing plan. They enable companies to cultivate their relationships by positioning themselves as industry leaders, offering ideas, and promoting new goods that will drive visitors to the website.
Email newsletters have been around since the early days of the internet. They have changed over time and are used by many companies today to keep their fans and customers informed about new products, events and other important updates.
Why do you need an email newsletter for your business?
Suppose you are looking for an efficient way of nurturing your potential and existing clients. In that case, an email newsletter is for you. Plus, it is low-cost with a higher potential ROI (Return on Investment).
The beauty of an email newsletter is that it’s a highly targeted way to communicate with your audience. You can send only those emails that are relevant and useful, and you can do this by sending them at specific times of the day.
A newsletter can also be a great way to build up your brand or business name recognition in your industry. If you’ve launched a new product or service, an email newsletter could be the best way to get people excited about it.
An email newsletter is an excellent tool for generating targeted leads for your business. For example, if you’re trying to sell cars and have a mailing list of car dealers, then sending out personalized newsletters to that list would be one way to generate interest in your products/services and increase sales opportunities.
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What are the components of an email newsletter?
A typical email newsletter has these components:
Subject line – A subject line that clearly explains what the email newsletter is about.
Because it is the first thing a person sees in their inbox, it is safe to say that the subject line is the most crucial section of every newsletter. Just because someone has subscribed to your material does not guarantee they will open the email. Therefore, the subject line must entice the reader to want to learn more.
The length of a subject line should be a minimum of five words and must not exceed seven to be effective.
Pre-header
A pre-header compliments your subject line provides an additional hook and tells the reader what to expect.
Body
The body of the email includes any special deals or offers available to readers that month. Some companies send out their newsletters bi-monthly due to the content they produce and manage. They may only send one monthly instead of two to keep things interesting for their subscribers.
Remember, content is king when it comes to the newsletter’s body. You might hear of this in any other form of online marketing platform, and it is true and a must in a newsletter.
Graphics and copy design
A newsletter is not complete without eye-catching graphics. Not only that it should get your audience’s attention, but it should tell the whole story of your newsletter.
The design text can also have an impact on engagement. Newsletter layouts are created to ensure that readers follow the material in a way that leads them to the final call to action. There should be enough white space in the newsletter to avoid clutter and assist the reader in understanding the objective of the material being provided to them.
Call-to-Action (CTA)
A call-to-action (CTA) is using words or phrases to elicit a reaction from subscribers following your ultimate objectives. You can have many complimentary CTAs that do not contribute to the main goal. Still, the main CTA should clearly define the action you want people to perform.
Email footer
This part is not required; however, it is advised that it be included in the conclusion of your newsletter. This will allow a company to interact with their target audience even more by allowing the reader to opt-in for certain. This will provide maximum personalization and improve brand interaction. The email footer ensures that your newsletter is legally compliant and not just daily spam.
Writing your first email newsletter
Writing a good email newsletter may be a complex process for the first time. But, if you follow the right steps, you can write an effective newsletter to help you build your brand and generate leads.
Before you start writing your first email newsletter, it’s important to consider the following:
- The purpose of sending the email.
What is your goal as a marketer or as a business? You need to articulate why you’re sending this email and what value it will bring to your audience.
Among the suggestions are:
- You generated new content (blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.).
- You discovered information from other people that are relevant to the topics on your list.
- Projects that you are working on.
- New product introductions.
- Flash sales and discounts (use sparingly).
- Short blog postings (emails written well enough to be a blog post on their own).
If you are clear about what you want to achieve, writing a newsletter will be easy, and you will not go around the bush.
- Know your audience
It may sound cliché but knowing your client’s wants and needs is as important as identifying your purpose. Before you send your newsletter, think about who might read it and how they might react when they see it. If your newsletter isn’t relevant to them, it will end up unread or worse, marked as spam.
- Be mindful of your content
When you write your first email newsletter, it’s important to ensure that the content is interesting and engaging. You want to keep your readers engaged and give them something they can use. This is where you’ll include information about your product or service and any relevant offers or promotions available for subscribers. You should also include an image or video that shows how your product works and why it’s useful for them.
- Move your audience with a clever call-to-action
When writing your first email newsletter, it’s important to include some sort of call-to-action. Don’t just list everything and expect people to act on it all at once; instead, offer them a chance to act on something if they want to! This gives people more options and makes it easier to get through with signing up or purchasing something from you (or vice versa).
- Build a subscriber’s list
An email newsletter becomes effective only if it is read. This means you need subscribers before sending them out. This may come from your clients from previous campaigns or promotions. For new subscribers, you can use these strategies:
- Reward sign-ups
- Run competitions or raffle
- Install data collection forms and pop-ups on your website and landing pages
- Make use of social media (or other digital marketing techniques)
The simpler it is for individuals to subscribe to your newsletter, the more successful you will be. Never, ever buy an email list to increase your readership. Subscribers who have paid for your newsletter are far more likely to mark it as spam, reducing its deliverability.
Once you have a good subscriber list, segment them. Segmenting, in much simpler terms, is dividing your subscribers into groups (segments) based on the following conditions.
- Test and optimize
When you first start sending emails, it can be tempting to send them off without testing the content or making sure the email address is correct. You don’t want to end up with an inbox full of undeliverable emails!
To avoid this, your first step should be verifying everything in your email works before sending it off to subscribers. This ensures that people can open and read your message, and they’ll be able to click through to the next step in your process.
You should also verify that the body text of your email is formatted correctly and ensure that links work correctly. If you’re using a template for your emails, ensure all links are formatted properly and match what’s in the template.
If you’re creating an email based on form submission, check back later and see if everything looks okay. Don’t forget that each instalment provides an opportunity to enhance your method and outcomes!
- Keep in mind communication is the key
Finally, remember that email newsletters are meant to communicate between businesses and their customers/clients/followers/etc., so don’t forget.
The frequency of sending these emails. If you want to build a long-term relationship with subscribers, then it makes sense to send them more often than once per month or less frequently than every week.
Keep learning from your readers!
The essential thing you can do is listen to your readers to understand how you can better serve them. This is true for any industry, but it’s especially crucial in e-commerce. Picking up on trends that are going on in your industry will help you make sound decisions about how best to market your products and services. The more you know about what people want from their favorite businesses, the better off they will be.
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Looking for inspiration? We are huge fans of Milled and Really Good Emails.
