Editor's note: View an archive of Netiquette's newsletter in the section of this Blog post
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April 21, 2015 // 8:00 AM from blog.hubspot.com
How to Create an Email Newsletter People Actually Read
Written by Ginny Soskey
| @gsosk
For most marketers, this will sound familiar. You’re
sitting around a conference room, trying to figure out how to best engage your
leads and customers, sell more products, or just “stay top-of-mind” for your
target audience, and someone decides there’s a solution that can solve all of
those problems at once: an email newsletter!
Suddenly you're "volunteered" to do
it. And you've got make sure that open and clickthrough rates don’t dip.
Oh, and the first one needs to go out tomorrow.
That sound good?
I’ve been in that situation before, and I was terrified.
Even though e-newsletters are one of the most common types of emails to send,
they are actually some of the hardest to do right. It’s hard because it
includes a mix of different types of content about different parts of your
business, including event reminders, surveys, educational information about
your product, service, or industry, and promotions.
And because it’s not an email designed to serve one
purpose (say, about one promotion, one digest of previously
published content, one lead nurturing email, or one
transactional email providing order information), email newsletters have a
difficult time trying to get readers to complete a call-to-action.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them. If done
right, you could develop a really engaged subscriber base and potentially
nurture them into qualified leads and customers. At the very “least,” you could
engage your company’s evangelists -- and they could help bring in
business. That’s not something you want to miss out on.
Want to ace your new email newsletter project, or
rejuvenate an old one? Below are 10 things you need to make sure to do.
And if you're looking for some inspiration, here are some awesome email newsletter examples you can check out.
Tips for Creating an E-Newsletter People Actually Read
1) Evaluate: Do
you even need an email newsletter?
I know it can be kind of scary pushing back on your boss
about a project you’ve been handed, but if an email newsletter isn’t right for
your marketing, you shouldn’t waste your time working on one.
To figure out what you need to do, first do some
research. In your industry, are there successful email newsletters that people
like to subscribe to? What’s in them? With the resources you have available to
you -- budget, time, and internal support -- could you be successful?
Then, re-examine your business’ goals. Are they trying to
increase the number of leads? Better qualify leads to speak with salespeople?
Close more deals? Retain more customers?
If your industry isn’t really interested in email
newsletters, or if your goals don’t line up with what a newsletter could
accomplish, your time might be better spent creating something else like
a lead nurturing email workflow or content for your blog.
So gather some data, create a plan-of-action (either for
a successful newsletter or another activity), and go chat with your superior.
Even if you disagree with his or her vision in doing an email newsletter, your
boss will be glad you came prepared with a plan for success.
Okay, let’s say you’ve found that you should do an
email newsletter. What next?
2) Figure out
what kind of online newsletter you want to send.
One of the biggest problems with email newsletters is
that they're often cluttered and unfocused because they're supporting every
aspect of your business. Product news goes right next to PR stories, blog posts
go next to a random event week … it’s kind of a mess. Email -- whether it’s a
newsletter or not -- needs one common thread to hold it together.
One way to help reduce the randomness of an email
newsletter is by keeping it to one very specific topic. So instead of it being
about your company in general, maybe it’s dedicated to one vertical.
An example of a great, topic-based email newsletter is
BuzzFeed's "This Week in Cats" newsletter. (Don't judge ... I
recently adopted a kitten and I've become full-on obsessed with cats.) Though
BuzzFeed writes about pretty much everything under the sun, they offer up one
specific newsletter for people who love reading about cats. Because the
niche is aligned with a specific interest, the articles have an opportunity to
get way more engagement than they would in a newsletter featuring content from
all over the website.
3) Balance your
newsletter content to be 90% educational and 10% promotional.
Chances are, your email newsletter subscribers don't
want to hear about your products and services 100% of the time. While they
may love you and want to hear from you, there’s only so much shilling you
can do before they tune out.
Case in point: I have a thing for shoes, and I especially
love this one shoe site. I willingly opted in to the company’s email list, but
it now sends me emails 2-3 times a day to buy, buy, buy … and when I see it’s
sender name pop up in my inbox, I want to scream. If they sent me
educational content -- maybe about the latest styles of shoes, or how to pair
certain styles with certain outfits -- I might be more inclined to buy from
them, or at least start opening their emails again.
Don’t be that company. In your email newsletters, get rid
of the self-promotion (most of the time) and focus on sending your subscribers
educational, relevant, timely information. Unless you actually have
an exciting, big piece of news about your product, service, or company, leave
out the promotional parts.
4) Set
expectations on your "Subscribe" page.
Once you’ve figured out your newsletter’s focus and
content balance, make sure you’re properly communicating about them on your
subscribe landing page.
Get specific. Tell potential subscribers exactly what
will be in the newsletter as well as how often they should expect to hear from
you. Take a page out of SmartBrief’s book: On the subscribe landing page, it
says what'll be in the newsletter and gives potential
subscribers a preview link. Check it out:
As a subscriber, wouldn’t that be awesome? You’d go in
with open eyes knowing exactly who you'll be receiving email from, what
they'll be sending you, and how often they’ll be sending it. As a marketer,
having this information up front will help diminish your unsubscribe and spam
rates as well.
5) Get creative
with email subject lines.
Even if your subscribers sign up for your emails, there’s
no guarantee that they will open your emails once they get them in their inbox.
Many marketers try increasing familiarity with their subscribers by keeping the
subject line the same each day, week, or month that they send it.
But let’s face it, those subject lines get old for
subscribers -- and fast. Why? Because there’s no incentive from the subject
line to click on that specific email right this instant. A better
approach would be to try to have a different, creative, engaging subject line
for each newsletter you send.
6) Pick one
primary call-to-action.
Okay, part of what makes a newsletter a newsletter is
that you’re featuring multiple pieces of content with multiple calls-to-action
(CTAs). But, that doesn’t mean you should let those CTAs share equal
prominence.
Instead, let there be one head honcho CTA -- just one
main thing that you would like your subscribers to do. The rest of the CTAs
should be “in-case-you-have-time” options. Whether it’s simply to click through
to see a blog post or just to forward the email to a friend, make it super
simple for your subscribers to know what you want them to do.
Check out Second Glass' email newsletter below, which was
promoting their most recent Wine Riot event in Boston. It's colorful and
chock-full of information ... but it's also pretty obvious what they want you
to do: purchase tickets for the event. By placing this CTA above alllll the
other pieces of information, Second Glass increases the chance that their
email recipients will click on it.
7) Keep design
and copy minimal.
Like we said before, a newsletter can easily feel
cluttered because of its nature. The trick for email marketers to look
uncluttered revolves around two things: concise copy and enough white space in
the design.
Concise copy is key -- because you don’t actually
want to have your subscribers hang out and read your email all day. You want to
send them elsewhere (your website or blog, for instance) to actually consume
the whole piece of content. Concise copy gives your subscribers a taste of your
content -- just enough that they want to click and learn more.
White space is key in email newsletters because it helps
visually alleviate the cluttered feel, and on mobile, makes it much easier for people
to click the right link.
Look to Tom
Fishburne's blog post newsletters to see how this should be
done. The main blog post has one large comic, a few small paragraphs of introduction,
and a link. The rest of the newsletter components are smaller and more
visual, making the whole design feel uncluttered an easy to read.
8) Make sure
images have alt text.
Given that visual content is incredibly important to the
rest of your marketing activities, it’d make sense that you’d want to include
them in your emails … right?
Right. But email’s a little bit trickier. Most of the
time, people won’t have images enabled, so you’ve got to make sure your images
have one essential component: alt text. Alt text is the alternative text that
appears when images aren’t loaded in an email. This is especially
important if your CTAs are images -- you want to make sure people are clicking
even without the image enabled.
Each email marketing program is different, but here is one tutorial for adding alt text to email.
9) Make it easy
for people to unsubscribe.
This seems kinda counter-intuitive, but it’s key if you
want to maintain an active, engaged subscriber list. Don’t use weird language
like “Alter your communication with us.” Don’t hide an unsubscribe button
behind an image without alt text. Besides keeping your list healthy, having a clear unsubscribe process will help ensure your email
isn't marked SPAM before it hits the rest of your list's inbox.
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Have you ever wondered how it would be if your email suddenly came to life? You are about to find out.====================================================
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In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:
www.amazon.com/author/paulbabicki
If you would like to listen to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on BlogtalkRadio Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo. I am also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a contributor to numerous blogs and publications.
Lastly, I
am the founder and president of Tabula
Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network,
security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT
product information for virtually anyone.
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