How to Create an Email Newsletter People Actually Read
By gsoskey@hubspot.com (Ginny Mineo)
You’re sitting around a conference room, trying to figure out how to best engage your leads and customers, sell more products, or just “stay top-of-mind” for your target audience, and someone decides there’s a solution that can solve all of those problems at once: an email newsletter!
Suddenly you’re “volunteered” to do it. And you’ve got to make sure that open and clickthrough rates don’t dip. Oh, and the first one needs to go out tomorrow.
I’ve been in that situation before, and I was terrified. Even though e-newsletters are one of the most common types of emails to send, they are actually some of the hardest to do right. In this post, we’ll teach you how to create an email newsletter your customers will enjoy reading.
Want to ace your new email newsletter project, or rejuvenate an old one? Beloware 10 things you need to make sure to do. And if you’re looking for some inspiration, here are some awesome email newsletter examplesyou can check out.
1. Review successful newsletter examples.
Where do you start? Before you get started creating an email newsletter, look at some examples in (and outside of) your industry. We’ve compiled a list of dozens of our favorite email newsletters into an ultimate lookbook.
2. Evaluate whether or not you need an email newsletter.
I know it can be kind of scary pushing back on your boss about a project you’ve been handed, but if an email newsletter isn’t right for your marketing, you shouldn’t waste your time working on one.
To figure out what you need to do, first do some research. In your industry, are there successful email newsletters that people like to subscribe to? What’s in them? With the resources you have available to you — budget, time, and internal support — could you be successful?
Then, re-examine your business’ goals. Are they trying to increase the number of leads? Better qualify leads to speak with salespeople? Close more deals? Retain more customers?
If your industry isn’t really interested in email newsletters, or if your goals don’t line up with what a newsletter could accomplish, your time might be better spent creating something else like alead nurturing email workflowor content for your blog.
So gather some data, create a plan-of-action (either for a successful newsletter or another activity), and go chat with your superior. Even if you disagree with his or her vision in doing an email newsletter, your boss will be glad you came prepared with a plan for success.
Okay, let’s say you’ve found that you should do an email newsletter. What next?
3. Figure out what kind of newsletter you want to send.
One of the biggest problems with email newsletters is that they’re often cluttered and unfocused because they’re supporting every aspect of your business. Product news goes right next to PR stories, blog posts go next to a random event week … …read more
Source:: HubSpot Blog
