How to write a newsletter?
If you want to promote your business, or if you have a blog, email marketing is an absolute "must". Newsletters are considered one of the most effective marketing tools, but before you venture into this field, and for guaranteed results, several rules must be followed... Follow the guide!
If you want your next newsletters to truly impact your audience, all you have to do is read this article to the end: we provide you with 13 tips for writing the most engaging newsletter possible.
1. Give your readers a good reason to subscribe to your mailing list
Unable to send anything without a recipient... The first step is therefore the following: create your subscriber list. And for your consumers to become readers, you have to make them want to. Nobody said it was easy! But don't get discouraged: here are some ideas and solutions for you
The goal is to give your customers a good reason to subscribe to your newsletter. Politely asking them with a simple "Feel free to subscribe to our newsletter!" will not be enough. Think about the very simple system called "the carrot": by offering them something in return, they will be much more likely to sign up!
Take for example online shopping websites, which offer discounts of 10% or even 25% to customers who sign up for their newsletter: what sensible person would not want to take advantage of such a benefit? Of course, in order to then retain readers and ensure they remain subscribed, new offers will follow, cleverly distributed throughout the year.
There are many other ways to encourage people to subscribe to your newsletter: be creative, and find something original while taking into account the activity of your business!
For example, airlines will be able to offer their subscribers priority boarding: regular travelers will not be able to resist such an offer!
Do you see the idea?
2. Stick to your goal
Writing is good, but what's the point if it's for nothing? Well, this principle also applies to your newsletter: before writing and sending it, think about the purpose it will serve. What is the goal of this email?
If you can't answer this question yourself, how would your readers know? To guide you, here are some examples of goals that your newsletter could achieve:
increase sales
download a file (such as a catalog, for example)
drive traffic to the landing page
Promote a new service or product..
These are just examples, the list is not exhaustive! But to start, choose only one of these goals (the one that seems most achievable to you), which is in line with your activity and your needs, and focus on it! And pay attention: the message must remain clear for readers.
To give you an idea, here is an example of a newsletter Litmus :
It is impossible to miss the goal of this email: to increase the click-through rate, in order to achieve a better engagement rate. As you can also notice, long content is not really necessary for a newsletter.
But if you decide to write an article as a newsletter, it's also a very good idea. In doing so, always keep your goal in mind: this way, you will have no trouble integrating it naturally into your newsletter. Also pay attention to the quality of the content, and keep in mind that it should bring real added value to your readers. You can therefore use this step-by-step guide to properly structure your newsletter:
State the objective through the title or introduction
Detail it throughout the article
mention it once or twice (if possible!)
To finish, make a compelling call to action!
3. Encourage them to open the email
The open rate of a newsletter varies from one business to another, as illustrated by this diagram created bySmartInsights :
And if your business is in a field with a lower open rate, do not worry! In fact, you can work around this reality
Comment? By personalizing your newsletter to the maximum! Start with your email address... Put yourself in the recipients' shoes for a moment: when you receive an email, your first instinct is to look at the sender, isn't it? And if it doesn't inspire trust, your reaction will be to be cautious, and maybe even not open that email at all.
Well, it is a completely normal behavior! This is why it is important to have your name included in your email address: people are more likely to open an email that comes from a real person, rather than from a company or an automated machine
4. Write a compelling subject line
It is often said that the first impression counts, and this is also true for newsletters! Yes, the opening of an email relies almost entirely on its subject line
Therefore, do not neglect the time you will spend on the subject of your newsletter, so that it encourages subscribers to click on it. We will therefore avoid boring subjects like "November newsletter", which will unsurprisingly result in a very low open rate..
The best advice to give you? It cannot be stressed enough: personalize. Just like the sender's address, the subject line should inspire trust. What could be better than a sentence that speaks directly to the reader? A study was conducted, according to which 82% of marketers have found that a personalized object leads to a higher open and click rate.
Rest assured, customizing an object is not difficult. The idea is simple: you must arouse the curiosity of your readers, create an intrigue. The simplest way to do this is to insert their name!
Furthermore (and we will come back to this later in this article), here is another method that you can use to boost the open rate of your newsletter: give a sense of urgency to your message. Tell your subscribers that you are here to provide a solution to one of their problems. By doing so, you will need to create content with real added value, which actually contains the answer to their question.
Let's reverse roles a bit... What if it was you who asked them for help? Several entrepreneurs have already tried this method, and apparently, it worked. Let's take the example of Jayson DeMers Audience Bloom is a website that specializes in SEO services.
The title of his email was: "I need your help for a quick survey 🙂" As you can see, he even used a smiley 😉, guaranteed sympathy capital! The opening rate was very high, compared to other usual newsletters.
That said, it is not enough to blindly copy the methods of other marketers. First, see if they are suitable for your subscribers. Buffer approached it differently: their team knew that their audience was eager for advice on social media. That's why they use items like "7 tips for eye-catching content to try out!".
Sometimes, simple words are enough to boost the open rate of an email campaign, such as: incredible, urgent, alert, important... Furthermore, you can easily kill two birds with one stone if one of the topics covered in your newsletter is one of your blog articles. Don't hesitate to use the title as the email subject! In addition to enticing readers to open it, this will also bring you traffic.
5. Introduce a compelling sentence
You have successfully completed the first step with flying colors and your subscribers have opened your email? Well, you are only halfway there! You still have a lot of work to do before achieving the perfect newsletter, starting with writing a compelling first sentence to capture the attention of your readers.
Most browsers (both on desktop and mobile) do indeed show a preview of the email as soon as it is received. This is why your content should encourage subscribers to want to continue reading and open the email from the very beginning.
Therefore, the idea of personalizing your message by inserting, for example, the first name of the person concerned. You can also use standard phrases:
I noticed that you...
I saw that we are both..
In other words: get straight to the point, and involve your reader in the discussion from the beginning!
6. Establish a connection between you and your readers
Your goal at this stage is to show your subscribers how your product or service can help them. Does it really improve their lives? How? Does it provide real added value?
However, avoid long messages; this may bore readers. Instead, send a short, simple, and concise message. Also, address them directly. Using informal or formal language (depending on your target audience) would be welcome!
If possible, insert a question in the email, as if you were having a face-to-face conversation. Hubspot, for example, uses this method from time to time
Do you have any other questions on this subject?
Are you looking for another improvement strategy...?
The goal here is still to inspire trust in your readers, and to position yourself as an expert in your field even in your newsletter!
7. Keep your commitments
Please note that if your subscribers have signed up for your newsletter, it's because you promised them something in return. So, keep your promise. If you told them that you would send them news regularly, then simply do it!
If you ever fail to keep your word, you risk damaging your reputation. Your subscribers will no longer be interested in your services, making it difficult (if not impossible) to convert them into customers..
Even worse, they could unsubscribe from your newsletter!
8. Send only engaging content
Another reason that generally leads subscribers to unsubscribe from a newsletter is that they receive emails that are useless to them. So, how can you be sure that yours still interest them?
Firstly, and this may seem obvious: avoid going off topic. But what exactly should you talk about? Stick to the theme of your business. For example, if your services are related to marketing, do not talk about tourism... It's as simple as that!
In any case, let your subscribers choose their preferences when signing up: frequency of emails, content format... But don't forget that the more choices you give them, the more work you will have on your end!
Indeed, you will need to write different types of newsletters for different categories of readers. But don't worry, it's worth it!
9. Add visuals
You must understand that not everyone will read every word written in your emails. Studies have shown that on average, subscribers only skim through 51 seconds to read a newsletter. But most importantly: only 20% of the texts are read!
As an expert SEO, translate this website content into English. the text: The importance of including visuals in your newsletters, all kinds of visuals. However, know that videos are the most effective. With them, you will obtain More views, and more clicks !
That being said, inserting a ton of visuals just to impress your readers is also not the right solution: choose them wisely. It is important that through these visuals, subscribers can immediately understand what it is about. Moreover, thanks to images and videos, people quickly assimilate and retain important information more easily!
Seeing that the email contains some media, subscribers will only be delighted. Indeed, nobody likes to read a long block of indigestible text!
10. Tell a story
Do you remember? We mentioned earlier that internet users don't have enough time to read emails. But fortunately, we can change their minds..
Try to stand out from the crowd by sending a story in the email. This method is called "Storytelling". However, a boring story is not enough... Be creative and add some suspense to it!
As an expert SEO, readers will read your email all the way through. What story to tell? Yours, or that of your company, or even that of a third person... The most important thing is that it isinteresting.
Obviously, this method should be used when the context or the message is appropriate: the goal being that the story carries the objective of your newsletter. Once again, we aim for high-quality content with added value.
11. Create a sense of urgency
Do you also procrastinate? If so, you will understand why people tend to put off reading their emails. Either they have something else to do, or they are simply not in the mood... There are as many different factors as there are readers!
The solution to this? Create a sense of urgency in the email you send. For example, offer a deal that would expire the next day, or use call-to-action phrases like "take advantage before it's gone", "only 10 spots left", etc.
One thing is certain: by doing so, you will have an immediate response (click, opening, etc.)..
12. Finish in style
Do you remember the importance of the first sentence of an email? Well, the last sentence plays an equally crucial role. The readers' action greatly depends on it. So, when you write this last line, ask yourself again: what was the goal of this email (the one you set for yourself at the beginning)?
This can be:
the redirection to a landing page
a registration for an offer
the downloading of an item..
Whatever the nature of this objective, remember it with a clear and effective call-to-action!
13. And finally: measure your results
Analyzing the results of your newsletter will allow you to have a real-time overview of the performance of your sending. But also and above all to deduce the reasons for success or failure, and thus to implement any necessary adjustments.
All email marketing platforms are equipped with a results analysis option, take advantage of it to observe indicators such as:
the open rate
the bounce rate
the click-through rate
potential unsubscriptions
the transfers..
How to conduct your analysis? First, you will need to identify the most effective type of email: the one with the highest conversion rate. The elements that could be the reasons why this type works better!
On the other hand, you will also need to focus on the email that obtained the lowest conversion rate... See what is wrong with this email. Did you not define a clear enough goal before sending it? Was the content not relevant enough?
Once you have answered these questions (and many more), all you have to do is make the necessary changes. Also, avoid making the same mistakes in your future submissions!
You will thus be able, as you go along, to compose the most effective newsletter. Then, you will only have to continue with this strategy: do not rest on your laurels, think about surprising your readers and let your newsletters evolve with your business!