If you’re sick and tired of seeing low to no opens, clicks, or engagement, it’s time you learned how to write better newsletter content.
If you’ve just about had it and you’re looking for reliable tips to create interesting email newsletters, then we’re glad you’re here. This guide will share the steps seasoned email marketers use to create engaging newsletter content to help you get better results.
Tips for creating captivating newsletter content
Follow the tips below to create engaging email newsletter content.
1. Set goals for creating and sending email newsletters
Start with why your brand needs a newsletter. Just by asking that question, you can introspect and gain clarity on your marketing goals and targets for sending newsletters.
Setting goals is crucial because it gives focus and direction to your newsletter content strategy. It is your guiding compass.
If you’re creating newsletter content for your company, your goals can be the following.
- Highlight staff accomplishments and achievements to encourage your employees
- Establish a distinct and consistent company culture
- Keep all employees updated about your company activities and events
- Inform, motivate, connect, and educate employees
If you’re creating newsletters for your prospective clients, below are some angles you can consider:
- Help them solve a recurring problem they’re facing
- Share product updates
- Offer new discount offers
- Share case studies
Establishing objectives from the get-go gives your team a guardrail that prevents you from creating content that doesn’t align with your goals.
2. Get inspiration from high-performing newsletters
If you’re not happy with your existing newsletter content, then study how other established companies are writing their newsletters. Take inspiration from your competitors, including those from outside your industry.
You can also leverage inspirational newsletter ideas using templates from reliable graphic design tools such as Canva. Canva offers professional-looking newsletter templates you can easily take inspiration from and customize to make your own.
Image source: Canva.com.
Choose from hundreds of styles of email newsletters, including minimalist, corporate, modern, and elegant newsletter designs and content examples.
3. Use catchy and compelling subject lines
Your subject lines can make or break your email marketing campaigns.
After all, you could create stunning, valuable newsletters, but your subscribers won’t bother opening your emails if your subject lines are boring.
To create catchy subject lines, consider personalizing them. Include your contacts’ names and add a touch of excitement and humor to spark interest.
Adidas used “Slip-on Happiness!” as a subject line to showcase the brand’s comfortable Slides. It’s a classic example of injecting humor while keeping your subject line relevant to the newsletter content.
Image source: Gmail.com.
Ensure your email subject lines are:
- Actionable
- Personalized
- Clear
- Brief
- Consistent
Also, improve your email deliverability and open rates by avoiding spammy words such as “Free” or excessively using exclamation points. Besides your email subject line, it’s vital to hook your subscribers in with your newsletter’s opening line.
A killer subject line with a boring, generic newsletter introduction can make for a disappointing follow-up. It can cause your subscribers to close your email message without reading it till the very end.
Get creative in your subject lines. Include words that add an element of scarcity, social validation, or words that remind your email list of their burning issues.
4. Keep ‘em short and crisp
Don’t overcrowd your newsletters with too much information or design elements. Otherwise, you risk overwhelming your readers. For example, instead of adding over 300 words worth of text to your email content, you can keep ‘em in under 100 words — or 50 words, even.
Just focus on the important stuff and stick to one message. Keep your newsletters short while highlighting crucial texts by making the fonts bigger.
This email newsletter from J!INS is a great example.
Image source: Gmail.com.
Notice how short the email copy is and how it focuses on one message, which is to share the frames. With short and clutter-free email newsletter content, your message “pops,” making it easier to read and digest.
Game-changing benefits of sending newsletters
Newsletters have an average open rate of 15 to 25%. You can go even higher by using engaging subject lines, improving your email list’s health, and knowing what works best for your industry. Besides increasing your email open rates, newsletters have other advantages.
1. Boost your brand’s authority and credibility
Sending newsletters allows you to deliver valuable information to your subscribers regularly. It helps cement your business’s credibility and authority while building trust with your contacts.
For instance, providing well-written newsletters about industry-related topics can lead your customers to rely on your company as a credible source of knowledge.
You can also leverage newsletters to strengthen your employees’ morale and trust in your company. Send quarterly or yearly email newsletters about your company’s important milestones to your staff.
Get company newsletter content ideas, including the best format and style examples from popular, successful companies.
2. Cost efficiency with high return potential
Email newsletters can cost way less than other marketing channels, such as online advertising, and have the potential to bring you higher returns.
Plus, your contact list generally consists of people who expressed some interest in your business, making them more receptive to your newsletters than cold leads or social media audiences.
If you use email newsletters correctly, you won’t always have to resort to elaborate and costly marketing tactics to get people to act on your offers and drive conversions.
You won’t need to invest a huge amount to create effective email newsletters while getting your expected results.
3. Foster long-term subscriber relationships
Regularly sending newsletters to actively-engaged subscribers can help them get to know your brand more and better. By constantly giving them value, you lay a good foundation for building lasting relationships with your prospects and existing customers.
Frequently asked questions
Learn from some of the commonly asked questions about email newsletters below.
What are the elements of an effective newsletter?
While your overall content can vary depending on your goals, audience, and other factors, an effective newsletter should include the following.
- Relevant featured content. Focus on captivating and valuable content and features and place them at the top of your newsletter. Start your content pieces with the most important details, such as your discount offers or event details.
- Attention-grabbing design and graphics. Use colors and graphics to draw attention to content pieces and elements you want to highlight in your newsletter, such as your call-to-action (CTA).
- Minimal texts. It’s a newsletter, not a novel, so keep your newsletter content organized and short with a simple and clean layout. Consider using layout options such as the zig-zag and inverted pyramid to direct your readers’ eyes to specific directions and elements. For example, if you announce an event through your company newsletter and invite employees to sign up, use clever design elements to lead them to your signup link. Get inspiration from employee newsletter content ideas.
- Unsubscribe button or option. Make your unsubscribe button visible and easy to access. You must allow your contacts to unsubscribe to avoid violating regulations and laws.
What do you write in a company newsletter?
Your company newsletter content can depend on what you want the emails to achieve. For example, newsletters about your upcoming company events can include images and videos to spark excitement and anticipation, encouraging participation.
You can even ask other employees to contribute to making your content more relatable and inviting. Learn how to ask for newsletter content from your employees ahead of the event to give them plenty of time to prepare and polish the material. Other company newsletter content can be more information-focused and text-based, such as when sharing stats and figures.
Which is the best way to design a newsletter?
There is no one-size-fits-all formula for designing a winning newsletter. Your best bet is knowing what works for your newsletter content strategy and subscribers, looking at excellent examples, and following best practices.
Also, regularly test your newsletter content and track and measure metrics such as open rates, click-throughs, and conversions to find gaps and improve.
Is it a good idea to add social icons to newsletters?
The short answer is yes. Adding social sharing icons makes sharing your newsletter content easier for your email list. Also, linking to your social media pages allows your audience to follow you on social media, giving you an extra channel to reach out to them.
Start creating engaging newsletters
Creating interesting newsletter content that drives engagement, generates leads, and increases your conversions can take time and effort. ClearVoice has a team of seasoned freelance writers who can write interesting and high-converting email newsletters for you.
If you don’t have the time to write engaging newsletters and are looking for writers with tried and tested results, look no further. Chat with a content specialist to learn more.
