A Step-By -Step Guide on How To Create a Successful Newsletter

CopyPress

May 7, 2021 (Updated: February 3, 2023)

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What Is a Newsletter?
Why Is Creating a Newsletter Important?
How To Create an Email Newsletter
Are Newsletters Still Relevant?

Learn how to create a newsletter that stands out from the competition. With these expert tips, your email will pop out of your subscriber’s inbox. Get top industry advice on today’s most influential online trends and best practices that you can put to work today. Use this guide to maximize your publication’s results and boost your bottom line.

What Is a Newsletter?

Image via Flickr by _foam

A newsletter is an electronic, or more rarely a printed, journal that features news about your business. This type of campaign could be one of your company’s most valuable and sustainable marketing tools when properly executed. It’s the ideal opportunity to:

Gain access to your audience’s inbox.
Get your message in front of potential customers.
Keep your clients informed about webinars and events.
Share engaging content to foster goodwill.
Promote specials, like year-end inventory clearance sales.
Drive traffic to your company’s website.

It may include one or more topics of interest to its recipients, with subsections such as:

New product introductions.
Product reviews and demonstrations.
Periodic specials.
Heartwarming stories.
Employee of the month spotlight.
Contact information.

An organization’s marketing team uses a newsletter to share relevant and valuable information with their network. Plan to send your publication to all or a combination of recipients, such as:

Customers.
Prospects.
Subscribers.
Members.
Employees.
Vendors.

Why Is Creating a Newsletter Important?

If your business doesn’t periodically drop a newsletter, start doing so right away. A whopping 81% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are the type of content marketing they turn to most. When backed by proven strategies, email marketing campaigns:

Are Easy to Measure

Another benefit of these publications is that they are easy to measure. You can track each edition’s performance and use those metrics to make meaningful adjustments to achieve more benchmarks.

Deliver a Stable ROI

If your company is looking for a cost-effective way to generate consistent revenue, create a newsletter. Successful campaigns can generate as much as $38 for every $1 spent. Do the math. That’s an astounding 3800% ROI, making it one of the most effective tools in your marketing arsenal.

Help You Keep in Touch

Newsletters build awareness and maintain relationships through regular—weekly, monthly, or quarterly—contact, without having to make sales calls. According to Twilio, around 83% of people worldwide prefer email over other forms of business communication, and a measly 12% of consumers want to hear from businesses via text. Which means, newsletters are the ideal medium to remind your customers about conferences where your company is making a presentation or other exciting events where you can connect in person.

Demonstrate Your Company’s Expertise

A well-designed newsletter is a terrific place to showcase your team’s skills and accomplishments. Sharing heartwarming stories around the proverbial “water cooler” helps build confidence in your company and a sense of familiarity. In your newsletter, provide your customers with information on recent industry research or other hot topics of interest.

Deliver Valuable Content

An important issue in every business’s publication is valuable content. Use articles that cover the latest topics in your marketplace to engage customers and prospects. Once you’ve captured their attention, you can:

Promote products and services.
Launch new products.
Introduce deals and special offers.

Boost Your Target Audience

Every new subscriber that signs up to receive your newsletter has the potential to become a lifelong customer, and publishing a bulletin can help you grow your target audience. Use your website to obtain the contact details of new visitors by asking them to subscribe. The following methods will help you capture more email addresses:

Incorporate eye-catching calls-to-action (CTAs).
Offer gated content like eBooks, white papers, and other downloadable items.
Take advantage of free trial periods.
Host a virtual networking event or educational seminar.
Convert social media followers to subscribers by offering exclusive newsletter content.

How To Create an Email Newsletter

With the help of today’s technology and the multitude of available templates to kick start your campaign, it’s easier than ever before to create an unforgettable email bulletin. Consider following these six steps when creating your own email newsletter:

1. Pick a Design

The first step in the process is to pick your publication’s look and feel. Without a thoughtful design strategy, it won’t matter how compelling your organization’s content is. Choose or design an e-newsletter template that’s:

Easy to navigate.
Delivers a clear CTA.
Engages the reader.
Drives subscribers to your website’s conversion landing pages.

Key elements of an eye-catching bulletin include:

Headers: Pick a masthead that reflects your brand and invites your audience to keep reading.
Logos: Your company’s identifying mark reminds readers who sent them this valuable content.
Imagery: Your brand determines the color scheme, photos, graphics, and other illustrations, whether they’re vibrant and bold or classic and subdued.
Structure and layout: Use subheadings and bullet points to ensure readers can navigate the content at a glance and easily respond to any CTAs.

2. Create Your Content Plan

Personalize your organization’s content as much as possible. Use your customer relationship management team to help facilitate this step and incorporate these gems:

Address each subscriber by name.
Stick to topics that are highly relevant to your readers.
Provide tips and insights on specific topics of interest.
Keep customers informed with your expert insight into the latest industry news and trends.
Use interactive content like a puzzle or quiz to engage readers and prompt click throughs.

3. Pick the Right App

From MailChimp to Constant Contact, your marketing department can use a variety of apps to learn how to send an e-newsletter for your company. Some of them are free if you want to stick your toes in the water first before investing in a more costly option. According to Zapier, in addition to the two already mentioned, the best email newsletter apps for your business in 2020 include:

MailerLite: This app is both deliverable and scalable.
Mailjet: Use this app for projects that require team collaborating.
EmailOctopus: Take advantage of this free email newsletter app.
Sendinblue: It’s the ideal choice for advanced scheduling.
BombBomb: Designers offer this option for publications with videos.

When shopping around for an app to create a newsletter for your firm, consider the following:

Quality templates: In addition to numerous templates, look for a company that offers products with a quality look and feel. You want something that represents your brand and teaches you how to make a newsletter more interesting.
Segment options: As you develop your mailing list, you may want to consider who you email which newsletter. Segmentation strategies can improve open and click rates by narrowing down factors like age and location.
Price: Don’t let a low sticker price sway you from other considerations that are just as important as affordability, such as customer service and reporting capability features.
User-friendly console: It’s often easier to commit to releasing a periodic publication when the tools you’re using are simple to understand.
Robust reporting capability: Knowing your stats is a vital component to determining the success of your newsletter’s performance. They provide insight into how each email campaign worked for your business.

4. Choose a Drop Schedule

Timing is everything when it comes to newsletters, and to master the art of content marketing, you need a strategic drop schedule. When you release your publication is directly related to its open and click-through rate. Tons of factors are at play when choosing to send out a newsletter, such as whether your content is going to a personal or professional email address.

Email-first individuals are often more task-oriented and respond well to early morning mails. They approach online interactions with specific goals in mind, like finding deals or researching new product information. On the other hand, the end of the workday or during their commute is when many people look through their emails.

Numerous studies point to Tuesday and Thursday as the best days of the week to schedule your emails. You can also send them on Wednesday for less competition. Stick to a consistent schedule once you determine what works best for your firm, and choose a target time range from this list:

6 to 8 a.m.
10 to 11 a.m.
Noon to 2 p.m.
6 to 9 p.m.

5. Create Effective Landing Pages

When figuring out how to make a good email newsletter, don’t overlook the importance of your landing page. You want people to arrive on your website ready to dive into your firm’s sales funnel. By implementing a few pro tips, you can create a marketing campaign that does a terrific job of guiding visitors along a set path, so your company can obtain the most benefits from your marketing efforts. Use these ideas to create effective landing pages:

Align your offer with your audience.
Write a compelling headline.
Coordinate your ad copy with your headline.
Give prospects enough information to make a decision.
Appeal to your reader’s emotions.
Address specific customer concerns.
Craft a persuasive CTA.
Ask for the minimum amount of information.
Communicate value.
Add trust elements like testimonials and third-party certifications.

6. Test Your E-Newsletters

The mission of every e-newsletter is to capture your visitor’s interest so you can convert them into paying customers. This strategy falls apart if your email doesn’t work as planned. The best trick to creating email campaigns that work is to test them over and over again.

Even one change, such as a different headline, can dramatically affect the performance of your periodical. Putting all of your content, from the email to your landing pages, through the wringer ensures that what you put out there works as hard as you do. So refine and polish until you’ve got solid proof that it works as you intended. Take advantage of the following tests so you can see how well one strategy performs over another:

Version A and B: See how one variable, like changing the day it drops or adding “free” in the subject line, can improve your results.
Split testing: Another strategy is to divide your subscriber list into two or more different audiences and see which group is more receptive to your content.
Multivariate: Swapping out variables is another marketing technique that applies statistical hypothesis testing to determine which combinations of elements perform best.

Are Newsletters Still Relevant?

You might wonder if email newsletters are still relevant now that this technology lurks in the shadow of social media. If you’ve ever tried to maintain zero emails in your inbox, you know that it’s a challenging endeavor. Yes, it’s clear that newsletters are still relevant.

Your firm’s more contemporary communication methods, like social media, shouldn’t distract you from taking advantage of one of the most reliably effective marketing channels, sending an email. While social media visitors have grown to reach 3.4 billion people over the past decade, email marketing continues to outperform alternative strategies. Take a look at a few statistics that demonstrate just how powerful creating a newsletter can be:

Click-through rates: Newsletters produce more clicks, at 6.05% on average, as opposed to 1.9% with social media.
Larger demographic: Email reaches the largest user base overall of any age group.
Promotions: Around 60% of consumers subscribe to an email list for the promotional messages, while 20% go to social media for deals.
Conversion rates: Again, 60% of consumers made a purchase because of a message in an email newsletter. On the flip side, only 12.5% of shoppers even consider a buy button on Facebook.
It’s a priority: More than 55% of people check their email before they get out of bed, while only 14% check social media.

If you’re wondering, “How do I make an email newsletter?” start with these resources. These pro tips are helpful for anyone who wants to learn how to take their marketing campaign to the next level.

jross

CopyPress writer