Create an Email Newsletter Your Subscribers Want to Read
1. Know Your Purpose
Sending a newsletter may seem like an easy way to communicate with subscribers as a whole, but understanding the purpose of this form of communication is really important. All of the elements of design, content, segmentation and timing is all dependent on what you are trying to achieve. The context of an email newsletter is much more informative than promotional, and ensuring you find this balance between engaging with your subscribers, and selling to your subscribers is important.
2. Mobile Optimisation
With over half of emails being opened on mobile devices, ensuring that your email newsletters are optimised for this medium is absolutely crucial. It can often be the first interaction a customer has with your emails, and if it leads to the second open on a desktop afterwards, click through rates, are likely to double. When building HTML responsive emails, always ensure and test that they are compatible with mobile – and that the design is still as engaging as it is on desktop.
3. Personalise
As always, effective email marketing is hinged upon the use of data, segmentation and automated triggers that ensure you’re sending relevant content, to the right person, at the right time. It is easily done, particularly with the integration of other API’s available to you, and leveraging this data you have available including their browsing or purchasing history. Most importantly, it results in an engaging, relevant and direct communication channel with your subscriber. Read more about personalisation here and here.
4. Re-use and Re-purpose Your Content
Another benefit of personalisation and data utilisation, is the ability it provides to reuse and recycle your content pieces by up to 70%, sending it to those who have shown interest in that area, at any certain time. As subscriber’s demographics, interests or buying behaviour changes, so should the content of the emails they receive from you. If a subscribers’ buying, or browsing/clicking behaviour changes, such as interests in additional areas of your business, you have the ability to re-purpose the content which is already available, to someone who is now likely to be interested in reading it. Alternatively, many businesses send out bulk emails, containing little personalisation and relevant content, which may make subscribers feel more disconnected from the brand and begin to associate the email as spam.
5. Subject Lines and Creativity Are Still Important
Newsletters can be just as creative as any other piece of marketing material you are sending to your subscribers, and it should be. Newsletters, particularly in the increasingly digital landscape, are becoming more like online magazines or publications, which demonstrates the power of email as a tool of communication. Further, with many varied components of offerings or interests on the page, ensure they all link back to a relevant page on your site – which will also allow you to build more data on your subscribers as they click through.