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    How to increase engagement with company newsletters

    Guide
    by Lewis Reeves QA & Testing

    Does it sometimes feel like you’re sending your company newsletter emails into a black hole? Are you seeing no benefits in site visits, enquiries or sales since starting a newsletter?

    If yes, then you’re suffering from a lack of engagement – but all is not lost. Here’s a quick checklist to see where you might be going wrong, and to start turning around your newsletter.

    Recognise where engagement starts

    An email might have the most incredible looks and message, but if it’s never clicked into from your inbox, it’s just a statistic in your “unopened” column.

    You need to prime readers for what they can expect before they open it – and that means you need a catchy subject line. Don’t start with your company name or the name of the month. Go straight in with what’s in the email, and how it can benefit the reader.

    You haven’t got many characters to play with, so be direct and creative.

    Always have something to say

    You might aim to have a newsletter out once a month, weekly or daily, but the frequency should really be determined by how fast-moving your sector, or your business, is. The tech sector, for example, might merit a weekly or daily update, but if stories emerge less often in your business, slow down a bit.

    There’s no point emailing just for the sake of it – you’re more likely to have your emails skipped. Make it relevant and interesting and you’re halfway there.

    Invite feedback

    Is your newsletter a lecture or a conversation? Obviously, its primary functions are to inform and to trigger actions, but you can increase engagement by asking readers for a response too. It can be a simple “What do you think?” at the end, with a clear path for reply, or it could link to your blog, forum or social media page where a conversation is happening. If readers are interested in the subject, you might well get responses, and that’s a brilliant form of engagement as it allows you to show your human face and spark conversations.

    Monitor and react

    You won’t know if you’ve increased engagement if you’re not measuring responses. You can set up your emails to measure a host of metrics both within the email and onto your website.

    That way, you can see which subjects have got the most engagement and steer your future campaigns in that direction. Don’t be afraid to A/B test with subject lines, content and landing pages, either.

    Time them to perfection

    There’s plenty of research about what times of day and days of the week get more engagement with email newsletters. That could be why the ones you receive come in flurries.

    In our experience, you’re better off finding your own sweet spot through experience – all sectors and customers have different rhythms and expectations. Again, split testing identical emails with different times is your best route to finding the perfect moment.

    Keep them professional

    Finally, potential customers are looking for quality and consistency in their emails. They expect a certain level of design and creativity, and will respond when it’s just right – not a basic text email, but also not so rich that it takes 20 seconds to download.

    One of the things we do at Gooey is designing HTML templates for emails. You can use them with all the major email marketing solutions like Mailchimp, Omnisend and Campaign Monitor, and it’ll make sure your emails look great in any device and maintain your branding and message – from inbox to landing page to checkout.