Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective marketing strategies available. Not only is it cheap and easy to use, but most consumers prefer to receive updates via emails. Newsletters offer subscribers a fantastic way to remain informed about your business, whilst also allowing you the opportunity to improve your relationship with them. Here are 8 actionable strategies you can use to help you create engaging and effective newsletters.
Catchy Subject Lines
It’s important to create a newsletter that subscribers will actually want to open and read. For this reason, it’s important to use a catchy, relevant subject line in your email. It should be short and concise, but can also contain humor. It should be simple and make subscribers want to read on. Equally, make sure that your ‘From’ name is professional and easily recognizable. It’s best to use your business name so that subscribers know exactly who the email is from. This way, it is less likely to end up in their spam folder.
Organize Content
Subscribers are busy and will be receiving several emails per day. In order for your email to stand out, you want to make sure that you grab subscribers’ attention quickly and that they are able to efficiently scan through the content and find the articles that interest them the most. The most effective way to achieve this is to organize your email content into different sections.
The title, image and description of each article should be clear and eye-catching. Make sure that any priority content is placed at the top of your newsletter. It should also stand out in some way, e.g. using a bolder title or making the featured article larger sized than the rest of the email content.
Another important feature is to use blurbs or teasers for each article. These should be a small description of each article or featured content on your newsletter, which will encourage the reader to click on it to find out more.
Design And Layout
You should spend some time carefully designing your newsletter, paying particular attention to the color scheme that you are using. You should choose a color scheme that complements your brand or your business. If you have a color that features on your logo, you could try to incorporate this into your newsletter too.
It is also worth exploring different ways to display your articles and content. Your newsletter should be visually attractive. This will help to make subscribers actually read the content and will be more likely to encourage them to click on individual articles or content for more information. Explore different image to text ratios and find one that works best for you. If you are unsure which layout or color scheme to opt for, use some A/B testing to help you decide.
Share New Offers
If you have started offering a new product or a new service, then advertising it in your newsletter is the perfect opportunity. Share information about new and exciting opportunities and include links in your email newsletter to your website. The same also applies to any new special offers, discounts or sales you might be offering. Subscribers will be interested to find out more and you can use these to grab subscribers’ attention.
Offer A Variety Of Content
Having a good mixture of content will keep subscribers interested and more likely to find something that they find personally engaging. A good mixture of content will help to keep your content fresh and your newsletters will be less likely to become predictable and stale. You can include a mixture of content, such as new articles or blog posts, news relating to your business and links to products or services that you offer.
Create Personalized Content
Personalized content is the key to increasing conversion rates, so it is definitely worth investing in. In order to do this effectively, you firstly need to know your target audience well. Rather than simply sending out a generic newsletter to all your subscribers, use the information that you have collected from them to segment them into separate lists. Make sure that you offer the option for subscribers to change or update their preferences so that you can send them the most appropriate and engaging content.
You can also incorporate the subscriber’s first name in the newsletter to help create a more personalized experience. Ensuring that you send the right type of email to your subscribers will not only help to increase engagement rates, but will also help to build a more positive relationship with your subscribers.
Use Clear CTAs
Your call-to-actions (CTAs) should be clear and simple. Usually, a simple CTA on each article, or section of your newsletter, is the most effective. The most common CTA in newsletters is ‘Read More’, which is particularly useful for directing subscribers back to your website to read the full article or find out more information. This also helps to increase traffic to your website.
Make sure that your CTAs are simple and stand out from the rest of the content. They should be kept short and have a contrasting color to ensure that they cannot be missed.
Use Images
Visuals are very important in newsletters and using interesting and relevant images is especially important. Using high-quality images will help to attract your subscribers’ attention and encourage them to read on. The key is to make sure that the images used are relevant and complement the content. Images also help to break up large blocks of text and help to maintain the flow of your content.
Summary
Email newsletters are a fantastic way to connect with your subscribers. By personalizing them and offering a variety of content, you will be able to keep your subscribers reading on. Make sure that CTAs are focused and use images to help highlight the text. Spend time making sure that your design layout and content are organized in an engaging way and you will be able to create newsletters that your subscribers will look forward to receiving.