Do you feel a sense of glee and anticipation when you open your email app? All those gems of wisdom cascading towards you certainly are quite overwhelming. If you’re one of the 99.999% of recipients who does not feel this way, it’s because on the whole, your inbox probably isn’t something you look forward to clicking. Have you ever wondered why that is? After all, in these post-spam days, you probably signed up for most of them.
Now could be a good time to take a look through the emails that you routinely ignore, because it can actually be quite an instructive way to find out what turns you off. Compare them with the ones you do open and read – how are they different?
We think you’ll probably find a few characteristics that push you away and others that pull you in. Identifying those pull factors is the key to a successful newsletter. But here’s what we think they are.
Getting the attention
If you’re an ecommerce company you’ll no doubt study your sales funnel, where large numbers of people are converted from being oblivious to your existence into paying customers. Your email newsletter should have a mini-funnel of its own, both in the form of a credible, planned campaign and in the way you present it.
You’ve already won a sign-up, but don’t take them for granted. Make sure you have a striking subject line that gives them a reason to open it, have a professional looking email layout, write a great headline then have an opening paragraph that guides the reader into the email. At every step you’re giving the reader an extra reason to trust you and to know you’re about to tell them something that will improve their life.
Essential components
Now you’ve hooked them in, it’s time to get down to business. Here’s what the most successful newsletters have:
A quick list of contents. A bullet list will do – just a short summary of what is included so readers can skip to the parts they want to.
An offer or feature that benefits the reader. This will be the headline story, and should have been alluded to in the subject line. It can be an offer (for example money off the next purchase), some insider information that will be useful for the reader, or anything else that is all about them, not you. Don’t forget, by linking your email newsletter to your CRM, you can send different messages to different people, so lapsed customers can get a welcome back offer, while regular ones might get a loyalty bonus.
Secondary stories. It’s always good to include a few more stories that show off your understanding of your industry and give news about what’s happening and what should be in the calendar. It is a newsletter after all – keeping it friendly and informative is always better than making it all about conversion.
A bit about yourself. Don’t go over the top here, but always include a short paragraph about who you are and what you do, with links to your website. It can look quite arrogant to assume the recipient already knows who you are.
A call to action. This is a standard marketing technique – place a sentence near the end suggesting what the customer should do next. The main story might well have had a CTA but this can be an all-encompassing one, either generically linking to your contact page (for example) or reiterating the main story.
Social links. Readers shouldn’t have to wait for your next newsletter to get news about your company – if they can connect on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or anywhere else, but the links along the bottom.
Find out more about increasing your emails’ effectiveness, measuring email impact, judging email length and much more on our blog.
