How To Create An Email Newsletter That Your Audience Will Love

In this day and age where information is easily available at the touch of a button, is email newsletter dead? 🪦Definitely not!

Email newsletter is alive and kicking and will not go away any time soon. In fact, they continue to be a very popular and effective communication channel, with very strong performance and should be part of every business’ marketing strategy.

To help you create an email newsletter that your audience will love, we have created this guide with our top tips. Follow them and you’ll find that not only will your newsletter engage your audience, they will also increase your average click through and conversion rate.

But what is an email newsletter? And how will they help your business?

What Is An Email Newsletter?

An email newsletter is a digital publication that is regularly sent via email to subscribed mailing lists containing curated content that the sender feels are of interest to their subscribers. Things like product and service updates, promotions, industry news, tips, resources and so on.

An email newsletter serves as a way for businesses to maintain a direct connection with their target audience, providing them with relevant information, while fostering engagement and communication between the sender and the subscribers.

Email newsletter subscribers usually opt-in to receive them and subscribers have the option to unsubscribe or manage their subscription preferences at any time. So, how do you make sure that your email newsletter is well received by your audience and that they won’t unsubscribe? Read on to find out.

1. Targeted & Relevant Content

When creating a newsletter, it's essential to make sure that the content is relevant to your business and your target audience. Remember that subscribers to your newsletter have willingly opted in to receive information from your specific business. It is therefore crucial that you keep the specific interests and needs of your target audience in mind when creating your newsletter.

For example, if you run an events production and management company, you are not going to send a newsletter discussing politics or food recipes because these things are irrelevant to your business. They are not what your target audience signed up for.

Here are some tips on how to make sure you deliver the most relevant content to your audience:

Regularly gather feedback and conduct surveys with your customers so you can better understand their interest, needs and pain points.
Analyze your engagement metrics to see what your subscribers find most relevant and valuable.
Give subscribers the opportunity to select what type of content they want to receive at the signup stage.

2. Give Value To Your Newsletter

People don’t sign up to an email newsletter just because you ask them to. You have to give them a reason to sign up and to remain subscribed. How do you do this? Simple, you have to give value to your newsletter and ensure that subscribers find them valuable and useful. Here are some common ways in which newsletter can offer value to their subscribers:

Provide Information and Knowledge: By providing curated information, insights, and knowledge directly to subscribers' inboxes, a newsletter can save subscribers time and effort in staying informed and up-to-date. Things like industry updates, expert advice, educational content, research findings, or practical tips and tricks.
Offer Exclusive Content: Offer exclusive content that is not available elsewhere. This can include sneak peeks, early access to new products or services, special promotions, or exclusive discounts.
Solve Problems: Identify common challenges or pain points that your target audience faces and offer practical advice, recommendations or actionable steps they can take to overcome those challenges in your newsletter.
Inspire and Motivate: You can provide inspiration and motivation to subscribers for example through success stories, case studies, personal anecdotes, or uplifting content that resonates with the subscribers' interests or goals.

Ultimately, the value of a newsletter lies in its ability to provide relevant, timely, and useful information that caters to the subscribers' interests and needs. By consistently delivering value, not only will your subscribers love your newsletter, they will also help you build trust, engagement, and loyalty amongst your subscribers.

3. Personalize Your Newsletter

An email newsletter is normally sent out in bulk to a group of subscribers making it often seem impersonal and automated. So, how do you maintain a personal touch in your newsletter and give readers that sense of connection to your business or brand?

Most email marketing platforms like Platformly offer personalization as part of their email builder, so you can personalize things like the receiver’s name, company name, address and so on. You can do this in both the subject line and the body content.

But note, personalization isn’t just about addressing the receiver by their name in your newsletter, it’s also about personalizing the content of your newsletter as well. You can personalize the content based on subscriber preferences, demographics, or past interactions.

How? Use segmentation and targeting strategies to send more relevant and customized content to different subscriber groups. We will deal with audience segmentation a little bit later on below.

Lastly, you can add a personal touch to your newsletter by including contents like a behind-the-scenes look at your team, introducing new team members, or sharing personal stories or anecdotes that relate to your business or brand.

4. Pay Attention to Your Subject Line

The subject line of your email newsletter is the first impression that subscribers have of your newsletter. It is therefore crucial that you pay attention to the subject line of your newsletter because it directly impacts the open rate and engagement of your subscribers.

Subject line should grab attention, create interest, and accurately represent the content inside. Here are some things to consider when crafting out your subject line:

Be Clear and Concise: Keep your subject line clear, concise, and to the point. Avoid being too vague or misleading. Subscribers should have a clear understanding of what to expect when they open your newsletter.
Personalize when Appropriate: Personalize the subject line by including the recipient's name or referencing their specific interests or preferences. Personalization can grab attention and make the email feel more appealing to the subscriber.
Be Intriguing or Curious: Spark curiosity or intrigue with your subject line to entice subscribers to open the email. Pose a question, make a bold statement, or create a sense of mystery that makes them curious about what’s inside.
Tailor to Your Audience: Consider your target audience and their preferences when crafting subject lines. Use language, tone, and vocabulary that resonates with your audience and aligns with your brand's voice.
Avoid Spam Trigger Words: Be mindful of spam trigger words that might cause your email to be filtered or flagged as spam. These words include “free”, “urgent”, “guaranteed”, or excessive use of exclamation marks. Strike a balance between being engaging and avoiding spam filters.

5. Maintain A Consistent Schedule

You have probably already heard that consistency with your newsletter is key when it comes to maintaining your subscriber lists. Subscribers expect you to keep to the schedule that you told them when they sign up. They don’t want to miss out on industry news, product updates, promotions and exclusive offers.

To make sure you don’t lose subscribers to your competitors, below are some things you can do to help maintain a consistent newsletter schedule:

Be Realistic: Determine a frequency that is realistic and manageable for you to consistently produce quality content. Consider your resources, availability, and the expectations of your subscribers. There is no fixed schedule that applies as different industries have different notions of what is considered a desirable frequency. It could be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or any other interval that aligns with your business capabilities.
Plan Ahead: Create a calendar or content schedule to plan your newsletter topics and content in advance. This will give you a clear roadmap and ensures that you have sufficient time to prepare and organize your content.
Set Deadlines: Set deadlines for you or your team to complete each step of the newsletter creation process. Assign specific dates for content creation, editing, design, and scheduling. Having clear deadlines can help you stay on track and prevent last-minute rushes.
Batch Content Creation: Consider setting aside dedicated time to work on multiple newsletters in one session. This approach helps you streamline the process, maintain a consistent flow, and reduces interruptions between newsletter creation cycles.
Use Templates and Guidelines: Create templates and guidelines for your newsletter design, layout, and formatting. Having predefined structures and styles can save time and ensure consistency across your newsletters. Use email marketing tools like Platformly that offers email templates to simplify the process.

We recommend you try out the above strategies as not only will it help you establish a consistent newsletter schedule, but it will also help you maintain a strong connection with your audience over time.

6. Segment Your Audience

As email newsletter provides a direct channel to subscribers' inboxes, you are going to be fighting with other businesses and brands for that all important open and click through rate. In addition to the content of your newsletter, it’s also important to make sure that you are sending the right content to the right audience at the right time.

Segmenting your newsletter audience means putting your subscribers into different groups based on specific criteria or characteristics. This allows you to deliver more targeted and personalized content to each group. Below are some ideas on how you could segment your newsletter audience:

Demographic Segmentation: Divide your subscribers based on demographic characteristics such as gender, age, location, or language. This can help you target content specific to your audience demographics, regional events, or cultural interests.
Interest-Based Segmentation: Categorize subscribers based on their interests or preferences. Review their past interactions, website behavior, or any data indicating their interests. This can help you create content tailored to their specific interests or needs.
Purchase History Segmentation: Segment subscribers based on their purchase history, such as frequency, amount spent, or types of products or services purchased. This allows you to send targeted offers, product recommendations, or updates related to their past purchases.
Engagement-Based Segmentation: Divide subscribers based on their level of engagement with your newsletters. Categorize them as highly engaged, moderately engaged, or inactive subscribers. This segmentation helps you tailor content and re-engagement strategies to each group.
Life Cycle Stage Segmentation: Consider where subscribers are in their customer journey or relationship with your brand. Segment them as new subscribers, loyal customers, potential leads, or past customers. This allows you to deliver content appropriate to each stage and nurture relationships accordingly.

Segmenting your audience isn’t the end of the process though as you need to continuously review and refine your segments based on the evolving needs and behaviors of your subscribers. Regularly review your segments and edit them accordingly to ensure your segments remain relevant and effective.

This is where software like Platformly comes in handy as we offer segmentation and tags and part of our CRM. Read our article: Advantages of Segmenting Your Email Marketing Campaigns to find out how to segment with Platformly.

7. Keep An Eye On Your Engagement Metrics

To ensure that your audience is loving your newsletters and staying subscribed, it is important to keep an eye on your engagement metrics. Regularly monitor these metrics to help you gain valuable insights into subscriber behavior, identify areas that need improvement, and refine your newsletter strategy to better meet the needs and interests of your audience.

Here are some important newsletter engagement metrics to keep an eye on:

Open Rate: The open rate indicates the percentage of subscribers who opened your email newsletters. This helps measure the effectiveness of your subject lines, sender name, and overall appeal. A high open rate generally suggests that your newsletter is capturing attention and generating interest.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The CTR measures the percentage of subscribers who clicked on links within your newsletter. It indicates how engaging your content is, as well as the relevance of the links you provide. A high CTR indicates that your newsletter is driving action and engagement.
Unsubscribe Rate: The unsubscribe rate reflects the percentage of subscribers who opted out of receiving your newsletter. It is important to monitor this metric to gauge subscriber satisfaction, content relevance, and overall health of your subscriber lists. A consistently high unsubscribe rate may indicate issues with your content or audience targeting.
Forwarding and Sharing: Keeping an eye on how often your newsletter is forwarded or shared by subscribers can provide insights into the relevance, quality and shareability of your content. Look for trends in forwarding or sharing activity to understand which content appeals to your audience.

8. Don't Forget Your Mobile Users

This one may seem obvious but you will be surprised how often businesses forget to take this in account when crafting their email newsletters. The latest stats show that more than half of all emails sent are opened on mobiles. So it’s crucial that you optimize your email newsletter for mobile devices.

This means making sure that everything, from visuals to text, is legible for someone checking your email newsletter on a mobile phone. If you use Platformly, you’ll find that we offer mobile preview as part of our email builder so you can preview what your newsletters will look like on mobile before sending them.

Additionally all our email templates are responsive design that automatically adjusts and adapts to different screen sizes and devices. This ensures that your newsletter looks and functions well on mobile devices, providing an optimal viewing experience for subscribers regardless of whether they are viewing on their computers, laptops, tablets or mobiles.

Wrap Up

Email newsletters remain a popular marketing and communication tool because they offer a direct and personal way to reach an interested audience. They provide an opportunity to deliver targeted content to subscribers and can be used to drive traffic to websites, promote products or services, nurture leads, and ultimately build a loyal and engaged community around the sender's business or brand.

If you use Platformly, you will find that we have all the tools that you need to create an email newsletter that your audience will love. If you're not a Platformly customer yet, what are you waiting for? We're sure you'll love it!

Hit up the comment section if you have any questions, and remember you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Platformly can help you create the perfect email newsletter for your audience. You can create it from scratch using the drag-and-drop email builder or use one of the email newsletter templates. Try it today!

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