Newsletter Tips – 10 Tips For Creative and Engaging Newsletter

You are shopping online, and a screen pops up with ‘Sign up for the newsletter and receive a 10% discount on your order.’ A lot of us do that because of discounts! But for that one-time discount, you are now stuck with several of those websites.

Newsletters: your mailbox is full of them, but do you actually read them? Not all of them. Yet you often find useful information there – if you read one anyway. It’s the place to be the first to find more discounts or exclusive deals from your favorite online store or to get sneak peeks of the latest movies hitting theaters soon. A newsletter is therefore useful for the consumer and for the marketer if it is read. So how do you take care of that?

Several elements make a good newsletter and help yours stand out in a crowded mailbox. Curious? Use these 10 Newsletter tips!

10 Tips For a Creative and Engaging Newsletter

Ask Yourself If You Really Need a Newsletter

You don’t just write a newsletter; start with a goal! For example, do you want;

• more leads;
• more turnover;
• launch a new product;
• share knowledge;
• Or do you have a completely different goal?

Research within your organization on whether distributing a newsletter contributes to the objectives. For example, the effectiveness of a newsletter depends on the type of company, the industry in which you operate, and the period of the year. List the different marketing strategies and determine which one suits your company best at that time. Periodically developing a newsletter takes a lot of time and energy. It would therefore be a shame if, afterwards, it turns out that a different marketing strategy would work better. A clear definition of goals also helps determine the newsletter’s content later.

Also consider whether your target audience uses email and whether this is the channel they prefer to hear from your company. Newsletters and other email marketing efforts work especially well for online stores and B2B companies, but not for telling teenagers, for example, not to start smoking later.

Seduce the Reader

Your business objectives are important, but the reader of the newsletter is central. If the reader does not find your message important or interesting enough, they will not listen to it. Entice the reader to read your message by immediately opening with an interesting piece of news or an attractive offer. Make the reader curious about the email’s content by including a short teaser or question in the title line. Find out which subject line works best with an A/B test. 

Also Read: Sales Email Templates: Complete Guide

Share Relevant Content

First of all, do you have any newsletter sign-ups? Use this to segment the target audience! Based on factors such as age, location, or profession, you can tailor your newsletter content to make it as relevant as possible for each group.

Second, when someone signs up for a newsletter, they can choose to click on different interests. With this information about the area of ​​interest, we can make our newsletters more relevant for our target group. You can choose from:

• Spotlight: a monthly update with blogs, Cooler Client videos, and news from our studio;
• AnyStories: creative, free work that we create to make the world a bit more understandable.
• Video Strategy: tips, tricks & tutorials to help you get the best results from video;
• Marketing & Products: updates on new products and possible discounts.

Finally, you can use this information to make the newsletter more relevant. For example, is the registered person already a customer, for how long, and when did they last make a purchase? Especially in E-commerce, this information is optimally used to convince (potential) customers to make a purchase.

Provide a Good and Attractive Layout

Incorporate house-style elements into the newsletter layout to create a recognizable appearance. By paying attention to the design, you create an exclusive newsletter. Alternate text with images and videos. Pay attention to the file size of the visual content; larger files result in slower loading times. Once you have developed a style for the newsletter, you can reuse it in subsequent newsletters to stimulate brand recognition with every email.

Choose a Clearly Visible Unsubscribe Link

Although you would prefer to keep as many subscriptions to your newsletter as possible, it is also important to give people the opportunity to unsubscribe. Adding a visible unsubscribe link is mandatory for every commercial email under the GDPR. In addition, it is nice for recipients to be able to easily unsubscribe when a newsletter is no longer relevant to them. Unsubscribing is, of course, never fun, but you can make it a bit more fun with a bit of text. In addition, providing personal email preferences can prevent a complete unsubscribe.

Personalize For a Better Customer Experience

Nothing is more annoying than an impersonal or even incorrect salutation. So make your newsletter personal! These types of emails stand out more in the inbox and are therefore opened more often than impersonal emails. In addition, recipients also find a personal newsletter better than if you keep it general. Personalization can be done in several ways:

• Use the recipient’s first and/or last name in the salutation;
• Share personalized offers based on customer interests and purchasing behaviour;
• Connect your content to current events and holidays.
• Send your customers a congratulatory email on their birthday or when X number of years have been a customer.

Note that ‘personal’ does not necessarily mean ‘friendly’ or ’emotional’; personal elements can also be added to a business email. Depending on the style of your company and the relationship to the e-mail readers, choose the right tone of voice.

Also Read: Content Promotion Strategies to Boost Your Reach

Maintain a Low Bounce Rate

The bounce ratio indicates the ratio of emails received to those sent. There is a ‘bounce’ if the email has not arrived in the recipient’s inbox. When this is due to a temporary error, it is called a soft bounce, and the email may arrive later. If the email does not reach its intended recipient, for example, due to an incorrect or blocked email address, it is called a hard bounce.

Earlier, we shared  tips to write a perfect article for a blog; now we share 3 more for a good newsletter:

• Check your email lists regularly and remove erroneous or blocked email addresses.
• Do not use purchased lists. This violates privacy legislation and is therefore illegal. Choose quality over quantity. This is many times more effective for email marketing.
• Make sure your newsletter is not detected as spam. Avoid overly commercial titles such as ‘buy now!’ and ‘action’.

Think about Mobile Users

More than two-thirds of all emails are opened on smartphones or tablets. It is therefore important to optimize your newsletter for mobile users as well. Make sure that all text is readable, that visual content loads, and that nothing is missing.

Add Video Content

The video makes me curious! Adding a video to your newsletter increases the chance that recipients will open your email. In addition, it ensures that people spend more time in the mail. A study found that reading time increased by 44% when the email campaign contained a video. Finally, video can increase the click conversion of an email. In a study, video thumbnails in their emails resulted in 14-42 % more interaction than images. Convinced?

Dare to Experiment

Last but not least: experiment and optimize! Do not give up if your newsletter is not successful the first time. For each newsletter, send out a test newsletter to, for example, colleagues or a small group of subscribers. This way, the last mistakes can be removed, and you can optimize your newsletter for the ‘real’ launch.

Also Read: Best Conversion Tracking Tools

Bring It All Together

Email newsletters are one of the best marketing tactics brands use to capture users’ attention. Newsletters work, but they need to be crafted well. In order to bring positive results, brands need to understand their audience first. If you follow the above tips, you will create an appealing newsletter that drives higher conversions.