Sending email newsletters can be a great way to connect with your audience. In this post, find some best practices to help you create a great newsletter!
1. Define your objective.
What do you want your newsletter to do? Having a clear purpose:
- Helps you streamline your newsletter content
- Gives people a reason to subscribe
Determine the purpose of your newsletter and make it clear to you and your readers. When you write your newsletter, keep this in mind and your content will be more focused.
For example, in Web Services, our newsletter goals are:
- To inform clients about web updates and new features.
- To share web tips and tricks
- To announce upcoming workshops and events.
We also describe this on our subscribe page to encourage people to sign up and to let them know what to expect.
2. Make content valuable, interesting and to the point.
Make sure your newsletter content is relevant to your audience. Be helpful! Our newsletters often include tips to help people improve their websites.
Another section that garners a lot of interest is “Meet our Team.” People like to read about people.
Keep your newsletter short and easy to read.
- Include an excerpt with a link to further details on your website.
- Use headers and sub-headers to make it scannable.
- Use similar strategies for your newsletter as you would when Writing for the Web.
3. Create calls to action.
This goes hand in hand with your newsletter’s goal. What do you want people to do with your information?
- Sign up for a workshop or event? Give people a simple, clear way to do it.
- Ask for feedback. Find out what works and get ideas for future editions.
- Make it easy for your reader to find further details (e.g., “Read More” link)
4. Be consistent and set expectations.
Keep a regular sending schedule. Whether it is weekly or monthly, set a regular send out time and stick to it. People will start to expect, and hopefully look forward to, your newsletter. Keep your audience updated without spamming them.
Newsletters are also a great way to set expectations about the future. Tell your readers what you are excited about and what’s coming up!
5. Test and track.
Before you send your newsletter to your entire list, test it out by sending yourself a copy. How does it look? In your browser? On your phone? Make sure all of the links work and go to the right place. Check wording and spelling.
Once you have sent your email out, have a look at the stats. Are people opening your emails? What are they clicking on? Use this info to plan content future newsletters.
As I mentioned earlier, we have noticed that our most popular item by far, is almost always the article about our team. We learned this by looking at our stats to see what links are clicked on.
To make the newsletter creation and sending process better for our clients, we are getting a new email service provider. Find out more here!