We’ve all received them. Those completely useless, spammy, newsletters from a company that we had subscribed to in the hopes it would be worthwhile. Well after one message from them, you’ve decided that’s enough, unsubscribed and banned them from your inbox. Not the greatest experience for you or the business.
There’s no point in beating around the bush when you are contacting your newsletter subscribers.
If you were promoting an exclusive 24 hour online sale, which gets the point across more clearly?
- Save 25% Off Everything For 24 Hours!
- You Won’t Believe What We Are Doing!
Both subject lines are short and might get your attention but #1 gets directly to the point (we are having a sale and you need to act NOW!). #2 might pique someone’s curiosity, but if your subscriber is in a rush, they may not have time for games.
People don’t read emails the way they would read a book or even a magazine.
- They are going to glance through the photos, headlines and maybe a line or two of text. Writing a gigantic wall of text is going to scare off even the most bookish readers.
- Do everyone a favour and make your information easy to digest.
- Headlines and lists are great tools to get your point across quickly and easily. Add complimentary photos to the email that highlight what you are contacting everyone for.
- Pictures are great, but don’t go overboard with the photos, one or two is a good number – consider that many email applications will block photos, or render them differently and can cause your email to look all jumbled up.
Give your audience a reason to follow through on whatever it is you are contacting them about.
If you are promoting a sale, provide a short reason for the purpose of the sale, or what they could be doing with the products you are selling.
A dry, purely informational, message, while not confusing, isn’t going to tap into someone’s emotions. But a message crafted with a story can be more persuasive and engaging.
It’s certainly not as easy to write, but it will provide more life to your message and give your brand a personality that people will keep sticking around for.
- Find a Service. Designing newsletters from scratch can be a tricky business. Ensuring they look great on all screen sizes and devices is a difficult job, so it’s best to use a service like MailChimp or Constant Contact. They will also ensure you are abiding by the increasingly strict anti-spam laws which can be difficult to navigate. Creating a standardized template will help you in creating your newsletters more quickly but also give you a consistent look that your readers are used to.
- Build Your Subscription List. Before you can send your newsletter out, you first need to build a subscriber list. You can’t just send out your newsletter to random people or customers whose email addresses you possess – this is not just spammy, but now illegal and costly. Ask for people’s permission to send them cool or helpful information and have them opt-in to receive more. Carefully curate your list and ensure it’s being updated frequently. People will unsubscribe and resubscribe regularly so make sure you playing by the rules.
- Don’t Know Where To Start? We would be happy to help you out with that! Hope Media House have years of experience in successfully creating, writing and tracking newsletter campaigns for online stores, subscription services and major public announcements. If you have questions on how to start your newsletter or how to improve your messaging, we would be happy to help you out. Let us know if you need a hand below: