How to create an engaging email newsletter

Categories: Marketing

How to create an engaging email newsletter

Nowadays, newsletters are a crucial component of many businesses’ digital marketing strategies. However, there is a huge difference between a regular email newsletter and an engaging email newsletter. A regular email newsletter usually comes with promotional offers and commercial information. On the other hand, an engaging email newsletter prioritizes high-quality content with added value for the customer.

If you’re trying to boost your company’s sellings and build trust with your audience, a good newsletter might be just what you need. Scroll down to discover how to write a newsletter that will engage your target audience and bring traffic to your website.

What is a newsletter?

First things first. Before starting to talk about engaging email newsletters, it is important to define what a newsletter is.

A newsletter is an email that organizations and businesses send to their list of customers, prospects, and subscribers. Why? To share news and information about the brand, as well as the products and services they offer.

The final purpose is to enhance sales. This means transforming prospects into customers or leading existing customers to buy once more.

To reach the newsletter’s main goal, companies need to carefully plan its creation and sending.

If you’re unfamiliar with what you need to write an effective newsletter, no worries! Just keep on reading, you will find all the answers. ?

Writing an engaging email newsletter: what does it take?

Newsletters are one of the pillars of email marketing. Before sending a newsletter to their audience, businesses should make sure to have:

A strategy
A list of subscribers and customers
An email marketing software

Let’s examine these three components one by one:

As it is easy to imagine, having a good strategy is key when it comes to writing engaging email newsletters. To build a successful strategy, companies should establish in advance:
- Which content to post on the company’s blog and which content to send to the list of subscribers in the form of a newsletter
- How frequently and at what time the newsletter should be sent
- The main purpose of each email
Any subscriber is a potential customer. Without subscribers, companies would have no one to send their newsletters to. An engaging email newsletter always comes with a strong subscriber list. To create one, companies should:
- Develop a lead magnet. In other words, they should create a tool to attract prospects. For example, many websites offer the possibility to download an ebook or attend an online marketing course for free. The main goal is that customers give their emails in exchange for the lead magnet
- Make the subscription form available on the company’s website and display it in the most visible spots, such as the home page, the sidebar, and more. Organizations can also promote their newsletter on social media – a very successful strategy
- Use pop-ups. Pop-ups have a huge conversion power. However, they often are a double-edged sword because they can annoy customers. Therefore, it is a good practice to avoid pop-ups in the mobile version of a company’s website, otherwise, it could damage its SEO
An email marketing software comes with a wide range of tools and resources. Any engaging email newsletter features excellent software. Why? Because it not only allows companies to send emails and extend their list of subscribers but also presents a great variety of customized templates and designs. Moreover, email marketing software can be particularly useful if it comes with the option of recovering abandoned charts via email. Among some of the best email marketing tools, we can find Mailchimp, MailRelay, Active Campaign, and more.

What are the secrets of an engaging email newsletter?

We’ve made it pretty clear that to be effective, a newsletter has to be engaging. Let’s look at the example of The Morning, the largest newsletter in the world. Created by The New York Times, this newsletter counts more than 17 million subscribers and is the result of the meticulous work of journalists and experts.

However, it has not always been like that. For years, the NYT’s newsletters were generated by automatic feeds. Furthermore, they did not propose any original content, as they were a continuation of the newspaper. The NYT’s strategy shift marked a turning point. Nowadays, the American newspaper counts more than 30 different newsletters presenting an open rate of 50%, double the industry average.

It is a bit difficult to reach the levels of such a giant, but this doesn’t keep us from analyzing its practices and emulating them.

So, if you want to write an engaging email newsletter, here are some tips.

Segment your audience

If you want to implement a successful email marketing strategy, you can’t send random content to random audiences.

That’s why it is important to sort your subscribers by interest and send them tailored emails with the information they care about.

Create an enticing subject line

A captivating subject line can make a difference when it comes to the success of an engaging email newsletter strategy. Why? Because it is the first contact that companies establish with their audience. An eye-catchy subject line can lead subscribers to open the newsletter and read its content. To write a good subject line, you should:

Keep it short. An engaging email newsletter’s subject line never counts more than 50 words
Change your subject line for each newsletter. Otherwise, subscribers will easily get bored and won’t even bother opening the email
Be honest. Don’t include information that won’t be discussed in the newsletter
Add the subscriber’s name or their geographical location – this will bring a sensation of closeness and intimacy
Promote action by fixing deadlines (“24 hours only”)

Provide original and useful content

Most newsletters come in the form of promotional emails highlighting the company’s offers and discounts. In some other cases, the newsletter is just a rehash of an old post published on the organization’s website. This shows that the company lacks an engaging email newsletter strategy. Indeed, the open rate is most likely to drop after the first newsletter. It is suggested that newsletters stick to the ratio of 80/20: 80% of value-added content and 20% of promotional emails.

To write a relevant newsletter, you should therefore keep in mind the basic principles of Content Marketing. While the final purpose is to drive profitable customer action, this type of email should meet the consumer’s interests and curiosity. It should keep them updated with daily information, saving them time and research. For example, if you’re selling an iPad, you can send a tutorial explaining how to use your product or suggest the best matching accessories.

Give subscribers something to look forward to

An engaging email newsletter is easy to recognize: it is something subscribers look forward to. That’s why it is important to establish a weekly or monthly schedule and stick to it. Subscribers will remember the fixed date and will be impatient to read the newsletter. Providing a regular, high-quality product is indeed the best way to build trust with your audience.

Make sure your newsletter is mobile friendly

Checking out the statistics is very useful, especially when it comes to marketing tactics. When writing a newsletter, keep in mind that 45% of online users open and read emails on their mobile. Any engaging email newsletter strategy should take this information into account, and create a newsletter that is mobile friendly. It is therefore suggested to use large font sizes (16px or more), employ different color backgrounds or dividers to create sections, and avoid wordy sentences.

Check on your newsletter’s effectiveness

Don’t neglect your newsletter campaign’s assessment. If you see that it doesn’t have the results you wanted, there is always room for improvement. Ask for feedback from your audience, check the open rate and the subscription rate, analyze whether the newsletter creates traffic to your website. The more data you’ll collect, the more effective your results will be.

Conclusion

Writing an engaging email newsletter is not hard. It just requires a good strategy, a fun design, and an interesting topic. While always keeping an eye out for sales increments, a good Content Writer should always pay attention to their audience’s interests when writing a newsletter.