Updated on May 27, 2021
Newsletter—what is it and why do people use it? The objective of an email newsletter is to update your email lists on your business, products and services. However, a newsletter is not meant to be used for a hard sell. Instead of pushing your customers to buy something, a newsletter helps you build a connection with them while at the same time, motivating your customers into buying your product or services.
As to why people turn to newsletters—compared to other types of email marketing, email newsletters have a much higher engagement rate. The numbers have spoken, email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than social media.
Know your audience
Before writing your newsletter, you need to first understand your product and audience. The type of prospects you attract, their buying behaviour, why did they subscribe to your newsletter and what would they expect from you—all of these questions should be considered when you want to curate an email specific to their liking. It’s important to send out a personalised and thoughtful newsletter to gain their trust and interest in you and your business.
Creative subject line
Just because your subscribers sign up for your newsletter, doesn’t mean they will open and read it immediately. Your email is not the only email they receive on that day. Meaning, you need to make it your job to capture their attention and you can start by putting on a winning headline. The idea here is to engage with your subscribers, so try your best to give out a good first impression. If your subject line is not compelling or intriguing enough, readers may not even open it. Make your headline short and catchy, suitable for when your reader is doing a quick scan through.
Informative and relevant content
Get yourself up-to-date with the latest news or trends and work around them. Subtly include your brand into the conversation and connect with your readers. When writing newsletters, don’t insist on promoting your products only. Instead, make it mostly informative or educational (90%) and at the end, you can slip in some promotional material (10%). Keep your readers entertained and only feed them relevant information unless you have exciting news about your product or service. Also, keep your newsletter brief and simple. Don’t try to cramp up too much information in one email.
Converse with your audience
No one likes a person who is fully absorbed in themselves. When sending a newsletter, avoid focusing only on you. Have a conversation with your reader and shift some focus on them. That way, you can keep them engaged. You should also apply the best possible way to get someone’s attention—through storytelling. Adopt a conversational tone and share some interesting stories that suit your audience.
Eye-catching design
A nicely designed newsletter may just help encourage readership. Make sure you include your company logo, a suitable colour to represent your company and a fitting font style to give it a professional look. Decorate your newsletter with interesting photos to support your content. It’s also important to note that 75% of email recipients check their emails through their mobile phone so be sure to design a template suitable for mobile devices. You can also make your job easier by designing a newsletter template that can be used over and over again.
Include social media links
Take full advantage of the different formats you can use to market your business. When sending out the latest newsletter to your readers, don’t forget to include your social media links. You can bold the links to encourage more social media visits from your newsletter and vice versa (use your social media accounts to create buzz on your up and coming newsletters). Also, your newsletter doesn’t have to always be about you. Feel free to include links to other contents from thought leaders or your partners to align your brand with experts.
Keep it interesting
Keep your newsletter consistent but keep it interesting as well. Constantly think of new ideas to incorporate into your newsletter by keeping up with the latest news and trends. If possible, give your readers something new and unique, something that they cannot find anywhere else. Do not, however, overshare or oversend your newsletters. Keep a gap between each newsletter (but don’t wait too long if you want to stay engaged).
Intriguing CTA
Every newsletter should have a clear call to action (CTA) button. The main objective of writing a newsletter is to share your content and to encourage readers to buy your products or services. Your CTA can come in many forms such as a registration link, request to join a group and many more. Before you end your email, create an eye-catching CTA that is so intriguing that your readers cannot help but click on it!
Writing a newsletter is not as easy as it looks. Besides knowing how to decorate your newsletter with fun conversations and cool designs, you must also ensure that the topic is relevant to the audience. And to do that, you need to study the latest trends and plan your content! If you want to send engaging and effective newsletters to your email list but don’t know where to start, let us do it for you!
Get on a 15 mins call with our lead Sales and Marketing consultant for more information.
