Tips For Making A Good Newsletter
A newsletter is one of those things that is easy to grasp and understand, but quite hard to execute properly. Think of it as a newspaper but in digital form. Seems simple enough right? Not exactly. A newsletter is a significant aspect of an email marketing strategy. When compared to social media marketing, email marketing pales in scope and reach. You have to acquire permission from your audience to send newsletters or any company-related digital media to their email. So the scope of an email marketing strategy is inherently limited to list of emails you have obtained. Despite such limitations, email marketing and newsletter have their unique place and can be incredibly valuable for your overall digital marketing arsenal.
Emails are considered to be a more personal form of client engagement and as such have many value-added benefits. Imagine seeing an email that was specifically addressed to you and the reaction you feel. It comes across more personal and special to your customers and creates a sense of exclusivity that only customers are receiving this newsletter. After considering this, newsletters should ideally be constructed in a way that your recipients actually want to read, rather than just full of sales pitches.
What Should You Put In A Newsletter?
A Good Subject Line – Don’t treat your subject lines as generic titles such as “Newsletter For The Month”. People indeed judge their emails with the subject lines first. Your audience is already dealing with a lot of clutter in their inboxes so never give them a reason to discard your email. Instead, capture their initial attention with creative and attention-grabbing subject lines.
- Casual Language – Casual language is recommended since it evokes more of a personal level of engagement. People want emails that are made by a real person. Also, make them feel special by incorporating phrases such as “Get exclusive access” or “For our loyal customers”
- Use Numbers – Numbers are powerful and eye-catching. Numbers give the impression that the content in the newsletter is straightforward, clear, but also informative.
Valuable Content – Never use newsletters as your sole medium for sales pitches. You have other marketing strategies that already have that responsibility. Only 10% of a newsletter’s content should consist of promotional content. The rest of the 90% should be content that your recipients actually want to read.
Link – Include links that lead to your company’s website, social media profiles, and subscription channels. Give as much information as you can including contact information and even physical address.
How About Newsletter Design?
Visuals – Aesthetics are important in any digital media but don’t go overboard with the visual design. White space is a valuable and limited resource in your newsletter so make sure it’s better utilized by valuable and readable content rather than just pretty artwork. Your customers want to hear from you and digest the information in your email more than they want the email to be overly graphical.
Length – Newsletters should always be short. Since they’re usually published frequently, you’ll be saving your editing team valuable time by creating short newsletters. Furthermore, short newsletters make it more relevant for your recipients since they want to read straightforward and succinct material, rather than lengthy periodicals.
Conclusion
Don’t feel bad if you don’t get it right the first time. Making newsletters is a specialization in digital marketing that requires constant practice and refining. Email marketing still has its place in the digital marketing arena so newsletters aren’t going away anytime soon. The sooner you start incorporating some of these tips, the faster you can start to see results and further refine things. The power of a good newsletter really cannot be overstated as it can help you connect with your customers on a much more personal and exclusive basis which has been shown to increase retention and brand loyalty.
