Newsletters are information emails sent by a company or any other professional organization to its contacts to talk about its field of activity, its products, and/or its services.
The main objective may be to, inform the recipients of its news and events, to create traffic on its website, and to build a solid customer relationship in the long term by communicating on rich and varied subjects.
With the newsletters, the main goal is to dynamize the customer relationship and to support its expertise. Thus, newsletters are, as you can see, are real levers of acquisition and loyalty. However, many people do not manage to fully exploit the potential of their newsletters.
But then, how can you create effective newsletters with high added value? In this article, you will discover 9 tips to create effective newsletters!
Requirements before designing your newsletters:
1. Choose a professional platform that meets your needs
The first step to creating effective newsletters is to use a dedicated email marketing tool that fits your needs. If you try to send your newsletters with mailboxes such as Outlook or Gmail, various obstacles will stand in your way, whether it is in terms of deliverability or efficiency.
First of all, the number of sendings per day is limited. ISPs are extremely vigilant about sending mass emails from anonymous and free messengers. They severely filter the emails, and the newsletters sent through this way regularly end up in the junk mail.
In fact, they block these email addresses simply to counter potential spammers. That’s why it’s better to maximize your deliverability by choosing a suitable emailing solution that has a good reputation with ISPs. This way, you ensure that your newsletters arrive in the inboxes of your prospects and customers.
Moreover, with traditional email systems, it is impossible to create an attention-grabbing layout, which is a crucial step in encouraging readers to read your content and take action. It’s also impossible to customize your newsletters individually for your readers, to have conditional blocks or real call-to-action buttons.
Also, you can’t track the performance of your newsletters and analyze your KPIs with webmail or a classic email program like Outlook or Thunderbird. You can’t know if your contacts received your newsletters, opened your messages, or clicked on your links.
So, to create targeted and personalized newsletters with an efficient layout, use a dedicated newsletter platform. You will save time and energy while boosting your results.
2. Set objectives
When you want to send a newsletter to your prospects and customers, you must first determine the objective behind the campaign. What is the goal? What should the newsletter bring to you? Are you looking to create a lasting relationship with your recipients, to demonstrate your expertise, to have your contacts download something specific. Or are you looking to generate interactions with them to build loyalty?
Depending on your objectives, your content will change and adapt. Understanding the purpose of a campaign allows you to identify your needs, know the direction to take, and know the common thread of your content. Don’t just send a newsletter because you want to send one, but because you have specific, defined, measurable, and achievable goals in mind.
Newsletters: What are the keys to a successful one?
1. Sender, subject, and preheader, the details not to be missed
To make your newsletters successful, you must of course think about their content but you must also think upstream about all the other elements that make it up. Well executed, these elements allow to significantly increase the opening rates of your mailings.
To start, focus on the sender. Focus on your company name and, to take it a step further, add the first name to humanize the campaign and make it less impersonal. For example, use the sender’s name. Your contacts will systematically recognize their dedicated contact and will trust you and be more inclined to open your newsletters. For the sender’s address, avoid the “no-reply” which cuts short any response, makes you suspicious, and sends back a negative image.
As for the subject line, it must create a sense of urgency, arouse curiosity, and make your contacts want to know more so that they open your newsletters. Short, attractive, and punchy, it is an essential element that allows, if well written, to boost the results of your email campaigns. If it is not enough to encourage opening, the preheader is there to support it.
Take the time to think about and write these elements as they are critical to the success of your campaigns.
2. Focus on a personalized and relevant message
In order for your recipients to be interested and eager to receive your campaigns, you must design unique and personalized content. Indeed, by sending relevant and exclusive messages, you create a sense of anticipation. Your subscribers will be eager to read you and will necessarily open your newsletters to access specific and original information.
So quickly arouse their curiosity so that they keep reading. But don’t forget that the content you share must have a high added value and be in total coherence with your contacts’ expectations and your brand image. Here is a small list from which you can happily draw inspiration:
- Summary of your latest articles to encourage your readers to visit your blog
- Agenda of events concerning your company
- Presentation of a partnership that has just been launched
- News about your sector of activity or your company
- Update on your commitments: fair trade, responsible branding, data processing, etc.
- Sharing of statistics and surveys to inform your recipients
- FAQ with recurring questions from your contacts
- Highlighting of customer cases and testimonials to help your leads and prospects get started
- Tips and tricks: how to properly clean your jewelry, the best times to take your plane ticket,
- Polls, quizzes, or contests to animate and make your audience react
The list is endless, no matter what your niche is!
Finally, don’t forget to personalize your campaigns! In addition to maintaining a link with your readers, you humanize your exchanges with them. This way, they feel more confident, appreciate your company more, and have the impression that they are being addressed individually.
You can do this by using their first name, or by referring to one of their behaviors (registration, purchase, page visit, inquiry). For example, you could offer a care guide to customers who bought cashmere sweaters (behavioral personalization) or tell others about an event that’s happening near them (geographic personalization). The possibilities are endless! And to top it all off, the performance of your campaigns will improve if you personalize your message, whether it’s open rates or click-through rates.
3. Keep your promises
On your registration form, tell your contacts how often you will send your newsletters and what subjects you will cover. On the one hand, you encourage them to subscribe by arousing their curiosity, on the other hand, you inform them in advance to avoid possible disappointments.
Then, keep your promises! If some of your contacts have subscribed to your newsletter to receive information on a particular subject and you don’t deal with this subject at all, the impact of your campaigns will be less, your contacts will be disappointed and they won’t hesitate to unsubscribe. And if you decide to change the theme of your content, notify your recipients beforehand to avoid unpleasant surprises.
4. Think about the design of your newsletter
In order for your contacts to instantly recognize your brand and for the content to be visually pleasing to read and look at, do not neglect the layout of your newsletters. This will allow you to ensure graphic coherence on all your communications, gain harmony within your message, and increase the impact of your emails. Use your typography, your colors, insert videos, gifs, or images to liven up your content and highlight your text message. This will allow you to effectively transmit your message and optimize its memorization.
Also adapt your newsletters to the different reading media (computer, smartphone, and tablet) thanks to the responsive design. Otherwise, you risk going directly to the trash garbage can since 8 out of 10 users delete emails when they are not displayed correctly. The effectiveness of your campaigns is therefore strongly linked to the responsive design.
Finally, the call-to-action buttons must be contrasted, visible, and strategically placed so that your readers will want to click on them. Use first-person action verbs to engage your prospects and customers.
Tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your email campaings
1. Clean up your mailing list
Clean up your contact list on a regular basis and eliminate those who no longer interact with your campaigns despite your numerous reminders. In this way, you will optimize your deliverability.
Indeed, the more your contacts’ interactions with your newsletters decrease, the more ISPs become suspicious about the relevance of your emails. As a result, you have a higher risk of your newsletters landing in the spam folder. Take matters into your own hands and anticipate by regularly sorting and cleaning your recipient lists.
2. Test your newsletter and try different variables
Test your newsletter before sending it to your contacts to make sure that everything displays correctly and that the links work. Indeed, delivering your campaign and then realizing right after that a link is broken, an image is not adapted or the subject is not the right one can be disastrous!
You can also improve your performance by doing split testing. You send two different versions of your newsletter to two samples of your target audience, then you observe which one works better.
Then, send the version that got the best results (depending on your objectives, this could be the open rate, the click rate, or the response rate) to the rest of your contacts. This way, you put all the chances on your side for your campaign to be effective.
3. Determine the frequency and the best time to send
Finally, optimize your newsletters by setting up a precise sending frequency and by determining the ideal sending time.
Regularity is essential when sending newsletters. Establishing a regular rhythm generates a form of expectation from your readers. Your sending frequency depends on your news and what you want to transmit to your contacts. Weekly, biweekly, monthly, choose what suits you to stay relevant. It’s better to choose quality over quantity, but above all, you must remain regular.
Once you have decided on the frequency, think about when to send it. Certain days and times are conducive to better open rates and responsiveness. It’s up to you to test what works with your contacts.
To quickly summarize
Determine your objectives beforehand. Design a responsive message, share exclusive and personalized content, sort your contact list, choose the right frequency to create anticipation, and test your messages.
These are all the elements you need to think about for your campaigns to be effective. You now have all the keys in hand to make your newsletters successful! It’s up to you to get Into action now!
