7 Email Newsletter Best Practices

There’s no secret to effective online marketing. If you browse the website for resources and ask marketing practitioners and experts, you’ll get a few common responses, with email marketing through newsletters as one of their top picks.

Emails may be over 50 years old, with the first email sent by Ray Tomlison over ARPANET in 1971, but they remain relevant as ever. Through tools like newsletters, you can connect with your target customers and keep them informed about your latest products and services.

The statistics on email usage paint a huge potential. Statista says there are over 4.3 billion email users, with over 7.9 billion email accounts worldwide—a huge audience ready to receive and read your messages. Sending weekly email newsletters keeps your audience in the loop, whether offering a new service, planning a new campaign, or building a new business.

Why should you send newsletters?

Newsletters are helpful marketing tools for business owners who want to consistently engage their customers. Sending regular newsletters lets you communicate directly with your audience and potential customers personally by sharing helpful content and promotions in their inboxes.

While other marketing emails are designed to sell and convert customers, newsletters are primarily suited for education, awareness, or entertainment. The aim is to create an interesting and helpful newsletter rather than a hard sell from your company. But this doesn’t mean you’ll only use your newsletters to connect with your customers. 

Often, marketers and business owners rely on email newsletters to encourage a specific action  like:

• Check out the latest products and services
• Read the latest company news or blog post
• Join a contest and win coupon codes or other prizes
• Sign up for an upcoming event

When done correctly, newsletters will increase your brand’s visibility and convert new customers. However, not all business owners know why they should send email newsletters. Some want to integrate newsletters into their campaigns and engage customers but don’t know what to do. For these business owners, creating and sending newsletters is given to another person who doesn’t know or care about the business.

If you still can’t decide or cannot seem to find the right formula for creating 'a killer newsletter,’ our tips and suggestions below can help.

Customize and personalize the subject line

The email’s subject line is a crucial part of your email content. It’s the first part of the message that your recipient sees and sets the tone of the overall email reading experience (or absence of it).

Think of your audience when tweaking the newsletter’s subject line. Or, think about the subject lines that catch your attention. Are you drawn to friendly or casual language? Are you fine with using emotions, colors, and different font types? A/B testing your subject line can also help identify the best approach to writing the subject line.

The shorter the subject lines, like 30 to 50 characters, the better and more engaging it is for your readers. Remember, the subject line is just a teaser, so it pays to keep it short and always intriguing.

Plan your email newsletter design

Aside from the subject line, you must consider the newsletter’s design. The design isn’t just about choosing fonts and colors. You also need to consider the readability of your newsletter and the use of images with alt texts in the right places. The content must be well-organized, using simple words with clear calls to action (CTAs). In short, you should design for accessibility. 

If you’re creating your first newsletter, you may want to integrate the following:

• Use alt text for images. Integrating this step can help users who rely on screen readers or if the images don’t load properly. Your alt text should include a description of the image, including the times and dates. Never send an all-image email newsletter to your customers.
• Keep the newsletter layout simple with great readability. The newsletter’s template should not be overloaded with columns, texts, images, or other sections. The font style and size choice are also critical in creating a readable and powerful newsletter. Many email marketers recommend using sans-serif fonts with at least 14-font size and 1.5 line space. Also, left-aligned texts are easy to read compared to center-aligned ones. Also, add blank spaces on your messages to enhance readability.
• Use high-contrast colors to your advantage. Dark colors such as black, navy blue, and darker shades of red perfectly contrast your white background. Use these dark colors on the email body, button, and image texts. Skip low-contrast colors like yellow and brighter green, red, or blue, as they don’t work well with texts. For the background, stick with white or lighter colors. If you must use a dark background, use white text for contrast.

Remember, your email newsletter is an extension of your brand, so its looks and overall messaging should align with the brand experience across all platforms.

As part of the recent email regulations in different jurisdictions, you must add an option for subscribers to unsubscribe if they want to opt out easily.

Write a compelling call to action

Marketers often have something they want to link their recipients to when sending a newsletter. It can be a news article or a story about the company, a new product or service, or an upcoming event. Either way, it helps to write a clear and direct call to action to make sure readers pay attention, click on the link, and take that action.

There are plenty of literature on the best tips and tricks for crafting a compelling CTA for any campaign. Here are a few tips to get you started when creating your next CTAs:

• Keep it short. Two or three words are good, but don’t exceed six words when writing your CTA,
• Use action-oriented words. Since they’re called calls to action, you must be decisive and use actionable text to encourage your readers. Forget about the usual words like ‘submit’ and ‘enter’ and include ‘get’ and ‘read’ instead. Here’s one effective CTA to promote your next event: Reserve my seat now.
• Use the first person. One study found that changing the button text from the second person to the first person resulted in a 90% increase in clicks. Of course, the increase in clicks depends on the product or how well the text is written, but this statistic shouldn’t be dismissed outright. So, try A/B testing your action words: instead of saying ‘Reserve your seat,’ you may want to use ‘Reserve my seat.’
• Create a sense of urgency. Including a sense of urgency in your newsletter can improve the click-through rates. For example, if you’re trying to promote an exclusive concert and product launch, you can write: Reserve your seat now!

Integrate videos into your newsletters

Email newsletters aren’t just about words and CTAs. You can also include videos in your newsletters to encourage raiders to open and click their emails. Videos are engaging and can be an effective way to deliver loads of information without boring them.

There are different kinds of videos for newsletters, and the choice depends on your current needs and strategy. For example, you can include how-to videos, testimonials from previous customers, or advertisements for an upcoming product. A one-minute video can also pack plenty of information and entertain the readers.

Optimize for mobile devices

More than half of your subscribers are likely to receive and read your newsletters on their mobile devices. We’re now dependent on smartphones for communication, entertainment, and doing business, so we can expect that most will view their emails on their preferred devices.

With this in mind, it pays to use a newsletter template that looks good across devices. Again, you can rely on A/B testing for the best layout or subject lines. Before sending your newsletters, previewing your subject lines for devices is best.

Email timing and frequency is everything

What’s the best time and frequency of sending your newsletters? Sending it too often can result in unsubscribes, and sending it infrequently may lead to a bad reputation. There’s no hard and fast rule when creating and sending newsletters. If you’re a beginner, you may want to benchmark with the other companies and marketers in your industry. Again, A/B testing your sending time and frequency can help you crack this marketing puzzle.

Give something valuable

A newsletter isn’t just about your business or a pressing need to build your brand and reputation. It’s also a creative way to connect with your readers and potential customers and a platform to deliver exclusive content and information. Your newsletter can become an effective marketing tool and cultivate relationships if you give something valuable. For example, you can give them exclusive information or give away free products or other valuable items.

Another trick is to get your subscribers involved. You can ask them for feedback and suggestions on topics to feature in future newsletters. You’ll create a more compelling and effective email newsletter campaign by involving them in the process.

Wrap up

Use these seven email newsletter best practices and tips to create a powerful newsletter that impresses, converts, and improves customer experiences. Just remember these important things:

• Pay attention to your subject lines
• Plan the newsletter’s design, from the choice of texts and fonts to picking colors
• CTAs must be clear, concise, and compelling
• Use informative videos to engage and get their attention
• Optimize newsletters for all devices
• Timing and frequency in sending newsletters are important
• Give them something valuable

Can’t decide on specific courses of action, like what colors, texts, or subject lines to use? Don’t forget to A/B test your content and other changes before sending them to your list. Need help in setting up your next email marketing campaign? Don’t forget to browse our blog for other tips and resources on transactional email marketing, or contact Maileroo for professional help!