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How to Write an Email Newsletter – Top Tips and Advice

Are you running a start-up or any other business where it’s important to stay in touch with potential customers? Well, these days this means almost every business!

This means that an online newsletter must be the crucial element of your marketing strategy. It is a great way to stay in contact with your audience, share the latest news and updates about your business, and promote your products or services. However, creating a good email newsletter requires more than just collecting a few links and sending them out every other day. Engaging content and breathtaking presentation also count. Think about how often you read other companies’ newsletters – and, more often than not, you probably add them to your spam filter, don’t you?

In this blog post, we’ll share some top tips and advice on how to write an email newsletter that your subscribers will actually read and wholeheartedly enjoy. We’ll discuss everything from creating catchy subject lines, personalization with a useful email template, and writing engaging content, to using effective calls to action and automating campaigns using specialized email marketing software.

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Understanding the Purpose and Audience

Before you start writing texts for your email newsletter, you need to understand your purpose. The purpose is the actual reason why you write. It is what you want to achieve through your writing. Your purpose may be to inform, persuade, entertain… or just about anything else, really.

One reason why an email newsletter might fail is that it does not have a specific purpose: The writers said ‘Hey, let’s throw in some text about free shipping to remind people that we exist.’

Imagine two clothing companies – one sells men’s fashion and the other women’s fashion. Stereotypically – of course, we’re taking just a few examples here – women are more likely to buy new clothes to improve their mood, while men tend to buy them to look nice for a specific occasion. Therefore, the two email newsletters will have different purposes – because of the audience.

Customer target audience

The recipient is the person or group of people who will read your text, your email clients, and your target audience. When writing, it is important to consider the needs and interests of your recipients. You want to make sure your texts are clear, concise, and relevant to your audience. Think about what you want your audience to do after reading your text. Do you want them to learn something new? Do you want them to take action?

Once you have a good understanding of your purpose and audience, you can start to adapt your email newsletter accordingly. For example, if your goal is to inform the email clients, you will need to provide your audience with accurate and relevant information. If your goal is to persuade, you will need to use evidence and logic to support your argument. And if your goal is to entertain, you will need to make your writing engaging and interesting.

One great way to make your company newsletter seem engaging is using Publuus HTML-5 enabled flipbook. You can convert PDF documents to create newsletters that resemble prestigious magazines, but can be easily browsed on any digital device from mobile devices and smartphones to big screens!

Selecting the Right Email Marketing Platform

We will start our journey into the email newsletter world by deciding how you want to publish your newsletter. Do you want to opt for an HTML message, send a couple of links to landing pages, or perhaps embed the newsletter in the form of an interactive magazine into the content of your mail message? It is also worth choosing the form and software for sending out the email newsletter.

Choosing the right email marketing platform is an important part of marketing strategy for any company that wants to reach its target audience and achieve its marketing goals. There are many different platforms available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, so it is worth considering some key ideas.

  • Your budget: Email marketing software can range in price from free to hundreds of dollars per month. Consider how much you are willing to spend and what features are most important to you. Many small businesses, for example, send one email once a month to two hundred customers: very often many of the companies we listed below have a free option for such small recipients.

  • Your needs: What features do you need from email marketing software? Do you need the ability to send automated emails, track results, or integrate with your CRM system? For many companies it is very important whether you can make purchases directly in the content of the newsletter, others care about multimedia capabilities or integration with social media platforms.

  • Your goals: Think about what you want to achieve with your email marketing campaigns? Do you want to drive website visitors, increase sales, generate leads, or perhaps build brand awareness? Some platforms are better suited to certain objectives than others. If you like to have a starting point before writing an e-mail, make sure to check out b2b email marketing examples. They can serve you as a template, or inspiration for creating your own newsletter message.

Once you have considered these factors, you can start to narrow down your choices. Here are some of the best email marketing tools available online!

  • Publuu (recommended): Our newsletter maker allows you to create elegant newsletters that you can distribute in the body of an email. You can combine it with other tools on this list – embedding a prestigious-looking professional email newsletter in your email content.

Publuu

  • Mailchimp: Mailchimp is a popular choice for small businesses and start-ups. It is easy to use and has a wide range of features, including automatic email sending, email templates, A/B testing, and market segmentation.

Mailchimp

  • Constant Contact is another popular choice for small businesses. It is known for its excellent customer service and ability to integrate with other marketing platforms.

Constant Contact

  • HubSpot: HubSpot is a more comprehensive marketing platform that includes email marketing, CRM, and marketing automation features. It is a good choice for companies that want to integrate all their marketing activities into one platform.

Hubspot

Creating and Building Your Email List

Your email subscriber list is one of a marketer’s most valuable resources. This collection of potential recipients allows you to stay in touch with existing and potential customers, promote your products or services, and build relationships.

How do you create an email list for your email newsletter? Many small businesses are tempted to buy back email addresses from some shady company somewhere in Asia, but you can be sure that legal issues aside, your email newsletter will then go straight to the spam filter. You need to build an email list only of trusted customers who will agree to sign up for your newsletter… but how do you tempt them to do so?

Email list

How to build your email list?

There are many ways to create and build an email list. Here are a few strategies:

Offer a lead magnet: This is an incentive you offer in exchange for someone’s email address. This could be a free e-book, an information document, or a discount code. With Publuu, you can integrate e-books into your lead magnet acquisition panel – the reader can open the e-book, read the first few pages, and access the rest of the valuable content if they are interested.

Organize a competition or giveaway: People are always looking for free stuff, so organizing a competition or giveaway is a great way to collect email addresses. Remember to comply with social network regulations and laws in your country or state.

Use social media: Social media is a great way to connect with potential customers, drive them to landing pages, and collect their email addresses. You can do this by holding competitions, giving away gifts, or simply asking people to sign up for your email list. New subscribers can be attracted thanks to exclusive content!

Personalize your emails: People are more likely to open and read personalized emails. You can personalize your pre-made templates by using the recipient’s name or by referring to something they have previously expressed an interest in.

Segmenting your list for targeted messaging

Once you have a large email list, it is important to segment it so that you can send targeted messages to different groups of people, using A/B tests to compare. This will ensure that your emails are relevant and interesting to your subscribers and that you don’t waste time sending emails to people who aren’t interested in what you have to say.

Newsletter

You can segment your list by location: specific cities may have different reputations, some may be more liberal, while others are more conservative. Where the population is younger, you can easily sell toys or games. You can also segment your list by demographics such as age, gender, or income level – as in our example with men and women.

It’s also a good idea to segment your list by behavior to send different messages to people with different levels of engagement with your business. For example, you could offer special discounts to active fans who support your company at industry events. Use various email templates to distinguish between these.

Preparing Your Email Content

You already know how to send your email newsletter, but what should be in it? Start working on the content by planning what you want to say. This includes identifying the overall message, as well as the specific points you want to include. It is also important to consider your audience and what they would like to read.

Content

Crafting engaging content and headlines

Today, people are busy, so they don’t have time to read long email newsletter posts. Get to the point quickly and make sure the content is easy to scan. Be also sure to use various visual elements: Images and videos can help break up the text and make your email more visually appealing. Be sure to add your company logo to your e-mail so that the readers’ attention will be focused on your brand identity.

Your email newsletter must also include a call to action: Tell subscribers what you want them to do, whether it’s to visit your website, read your latest blog post, or sign up for your email list.

The subject lines tend to be the first thing people will see in the email, so it must be catchy and attention-grabbing. Use strong verbs in them: Verbs in subject lines help create a sense of action and excitement. Many experts also encourage asking questions straight from the first line: these can pique people’s curiosity and make them want to read more.

Designing an attractive newsletter template

Another important thing is the design of the newsletter template – you can use a ready-made design from our email template gallery. This newsletter should have a consistent look and style so that people can easily recognize it as yours and associate it with your company. Publuu also allows you to customize the background and choose icons so that the whole page immediately communicates your values.

Use high-quality images and videos: These pictures and videos can make your newsletter more visually appealing. With Publuu, you can integrate animated gifs and YouTube videos into the content of your newsletter, creating a one-of-a-kind message.

Newsletter template

Adding Personalization and Customization

Personalization and customization are two important ways to make your email newsletter more effective. Personalization is the process of tailoring an email or newsletter template to each recipient, while customization is the process of creating different versions of an email for different audience segments. You personalize messages for John Smith, you customize for young men 18-24.

Using recipient data for personalization

For personalization, you can use recipient data, such as name, location, or purchase history, to personalize your email newsletter. For example, you could greet each recipient by their first name or send them information about products or services they are interested in. For example, if someone has been browsing for information about new computers, they might be interested in peripherals like mice or keyboards.

Customizing content for different audience segments

You can also segment your email list based on factors such as location, interests, or purchase history. This allows you to create different versions of emails for each segment, so you can ensure that each custmer receives the most relevant content.

In addition to personalization, you can also tailor the content of your emails to different recipient segments. You can do this by creating different email versions for each segment. For example, you can create a different version of the email for each country or region or each different type of customer. This is what the A/B testing offered by email marketing services can help you to do.

The language and tone of your emails should be different for each segment. For example, you can use more formal language for business customers and more casual language for individual customers. Once you have created different versions of your emails, test them to see which one works best.

Setting Up Tracking and Analytics

Once you start sending your emails, your work is not finished – you need to analyze your results. Tracking and analysis are essential to measuring the success of your email newsletter. By tracking your results, you can see what’s working and what’s not, and make the necessary changes to improve your results.

Crucial conversion rates

Key to this will be OR and CTR. OR or opening rates measure the percentage of recipients who open your email newsletter. This is a good measure of how engaging your subject line is. CTR or click-through rates measure the percentage of recipients who click a link in your email newsletter. This is a good measure of how relevant your content is to your audience.

However, conversion rates are key here. Conversion rates measure the percentage of recipients who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or subscribing to a weekly newsletter. This is the most important indicator to track because it measures the overall effectiveness of your email campaign.

When a recipient opens your email, the tracking apps will record the event. There are many different ways to add tracking pixels to an email. Usually, you can do this through email marketing software, but another great solution is Publuu.

How Publuu can help you with Statistics and Tracking links?

Publuu has a very powerful email tracking system. In our dashboard, you can see who is opening your messages, at what times, and even which pages are the most popular. This allows you to analyze the data to make your email newsletter PDFs even better. This will help you improve your performance and get better results from your email marketing campaigns.

Statistics

Ensuring Compliance and Legal Considerations

Email newsletter marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. However, you should be aware of the legal conditions related to e-mail marketing. Some of the most important laws and regulations governing email newsletter examples include the US CAN-SPAM Act, which requires companies to identify themselves in their emails, provide recipients with an easy way to unsubscribe, and not send unsolicited email messages.

The GDPR is a similar regulation applied in the European Union, which protects the privacy of individuals’ data, and is also very important. GDPR applies to companies whose addresses are addressed to individuals in the European Union, regardless of where the company is located.

In addition to complying with e-mail marketing regulations, companies should also include in their e-mail messages the necessary information regarding unsubscription and deletion of data from the mailer’s database.

Sending a Test Email

Once you have an idea for a newsletter message, send a test email to yourself or a team member before proceeding. This is a good way to test the overall look and functionality of the company’s newsletter, as well as any links and images included.

Creating an email

The subject line of the email is the first thing recipients will see, so make sure it is clear and concise. Make sure the email is error-free and the content is relevant to the recipients. The HTML should be formatted correctly and the text is easy to read both on computers and on mobile devices. Also, check links and images to make sure they display correctly. It is also worth remembering whether the email application and server detect your message as spam.

Once you have sent a test email and checked its final design and functionality, you can send it to your target recipients. This will help you discover whether your email newsletter works and whether you have chosen a good newsletter template!

Avoiding Spam Filters

One of the biggest problems faced by the creators of email newsletters is various types of anti-spam filters. Of course, customers can ignore your emails, but you have to work hard to make sure your carefully written newsletters don’t end up in the trash.

Use the double opt-in process. This means that the recipient must confirm their subscription to your email newsletter before they start receiving emails from you. Thanks to this, you will be sure that only people interested in receiving your e-mails will actually sign up for your email newsletter.

Your subject line is the first thing your audience will see, so make sure it’s clear and concise. Avoid using spammy keywords such as “free”, “win” or “urgent” and capital letters in your topics. Excessive punctuation such as exclamation points and question marks can also cause your email to be considered spam.

Instead, it is best to use a reputable email newsletter marketing service. A reputable email marketing service will have a good reputation in spam filters and will help ensure your emails are delivered to recipients’ inboxes.

Monitoring and Analyzing Performance

Only by relying on statistical information can you grow and develop constant contact with your readers. There are many email performance metrics to monitor for performance analysis purposes, including open rates, click-through rates, and unsubscribe rates – some of them we described above. All of these can help you determine the effectiveness of your email campaigns and identify areas for improvement.

Only after reviewing email performance metrics you can refine your campaigns and readjust your content marketing strategy to improve their effectiveness. For example, if your open rate is low, you can try changing the subject line of the email newsletter or sending emails at a different time of day.

Analyzing

Many of the email newsletter platforms described above allow you to use analytical tools that will provide you with detailed reports on the performance of your email campaigns. Publuu is also a great analytics software that allows you to monitor key statistics – who opens your PDF email newsletter, at what times, and what they read most often.

You can identify areas for improvement and make changes to your email newsletter campaigns to improve their effectiveness by tracking and analyzing the performance of your email campaigns. This will help you improve the results of your email marketing efforts.

Resending to Non-Openers

Re-sending an email newsletter to people who did not open the message can be a good way to re-engage subscribers who did not open the first email. However, it is important to do this strategically. That’s why you need to have good analytics so that you can assume why your readers didn’t open your email newsletter the first time.

Timing is key here. If you resend an email newsletter too soon, it will probably be marked as spam. A good rule of thumb is to wait at least a week before resending. Try to add something new!

Regardless of your plans, don’t send the same e-mail again. Update the content to make it more relevant to the recipient. You can also add a new call to action and consider changing the subject line. The subject line is the most important part of the email, so it’s important to change it when resending. Use a different subject line that is more likely to catch the recipient’s attention.

Remember, that if you’ve sent several emails to a subscriber who hasn’t opened any of them, it’s time to remove them from your email list. This will help you keep your email list clear and up to date!

Newsletter tablet

Feedback and Subscriber Engagement

You can’t grow without subscriber feedback and engagement. You can find out what your subscribers want and need by asking them for feedback, and then you can use that information to improve your emails. But how to get your readers to help you grow your email newsletter?

Well, the easiest way to get feedback from your email newsletter readers is to simply ask them for their impressions. Simply ask for their thoughts in your emails and what they would like to see more of. However, not everyone wants to waste time responding, so provide an incentive in exchange for feedback. This could be in the form of a discount, a free gift, or early access to new products or services.

You can also include a feedback form on your website or in emails. Make sure the form is easy to use and the questions are clear and concise.

Another great way to encourage feedback and engagement is to create a sense of community among subscribers. People are more likely to be interested in what you have to say and participate in your email campaigns when they feel part of a community. That’s why it’s also a good idea to ask for reactions on social media.

Handling Unsubscribes and Bounces

Unsubscribes and returns are a normal part of running an email newsletter. Often the CTR will be very low at first, and nothing is surprising about that – a 20% email opening rate is pretty good. However, to keep your email list clean and up-to-date, you need to handle it properly.

It is extremely important to respect a subscriber’s decision to unsubscribe from your email newsletter. You should immediately remove them from your list and refrain from sending them further emails. Include an unsubscribe link in each email. Subscribers will be able to easily unsubscribe if they no longer want to receive emails from you as a result.

Unsubscribes

A bounced email goes back to the sender because it could not be delivered. Bounces are divided into two types: Soft bounces occur when an e-mail address is temporarily unavailable, such as when the recipient’s mailbox is full. Hard bounces occur when an email address is no longer valid, for example, when the recipient’s account has been deleted, in which case the recipient should be removed from the email newsletter. If the rejection is soft, you can try sending the e-mail again later.

Automation and Drip Campaigns

It’s hard to overstate the impact of email automation. It’s the process of automatically sending an email newsletter in response to specific triggers, such as when a customer subscribes to your list, makes a purchase, or visits a specific page on your site. Drip campaigns are a type of email automation that sends a series of emails at a specific time based on a set of criteria – drop by drop. A drip email newsletter might start when someone is interested, then move on to sample offers and contain articles and blog posts on how to use a tool you’re offering.

Another example are welcome emails sent to new subscribers when they sign up for your email newsletter, or celebratory emails on birthdays. Birthday emails are a great way to express gratitude to your subscribers and provide them with a special discount or offer.

Cart abandonment emails are sent to subscribers who have placed products in their shopping cart but have not finalized their purchase. They are a great way to remind them of the products they left in their shopping cart and encourage them to finalize their purchase. Tour email newsletter can contain reminders that they have considered a purchase – and maybe they can still take it in the future.

You may be also interested in:
The Best Tools to Create an Effective Content Map
The Most User-Friendly Email Marketing Software in 2022


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