The Small Business Guide to Writing Email Newsletters That Keep Readers Engaged
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
If you're like me, you subscribe to no less than what feels like a zillion newsletters. Some, without hesitation, get dumped into the trash just seconds after hitting my inbox. Others, I devour like a starving wolf that's eating its first meal in weeks.
The goal of this post is to write a newsletter like the latter one I described. I want you to write a newsletter so juicy, so delicious, that your readers down it in one sitting and can't wait for more.
To do that, you need to understand the purpose of email newsletters and how to create an email content strategy that works. Luckily for you, we're going to cover all of that and more in this blog post!
No more small talk- let's dive right in.
What is an Email Newsletter?
An email newsletter is a habitual email sent out to a list of subscribers. These emails contain updates or valuable content. Newsletters can include:
Updates about your brand
Educational content
Promoting services or goods
Driving traffic to a website or social media page
The ultimate goal of an email newsletter is to help a business reach goals like lead generation, sales, or brand awareness.
Email Newsletters vs. Other Email Marketing Tactics
Let's look at how email newsletters compare to other email marketing tools:
Email Newsletters vs. Promotional Content
Newsletter emails focusing on delivering value through education, updates, and insights.
Promotional emails advertise a service or good. They are useful for letting the audience know about special offers, discounts, and product launches.
Email Newsletters vs. Cold Outreach Emails
Newsletter emails are sent to an email list of individuals who willfully opted-in to receive your regular emails.
Cold outreach emails are sent to prospective customers who have not subscribed to your emails.
Email Newsletters vs. Automated Sequences (aka Drip Campaigns)
Newsletter emails are typically sent out on a regular basis. Some examples include weekly newsletters and monthly newsletters.
Drip campaigns are automated & sent out by triggers. An example would be a welcome email sequence sent out when an individual subscribes to a newsletter.
Email Newsletters vs. Transactional Emails
Newsletter emails are market-focused sent out to a broad audience.
Transactional emails are similar to drip campaigns in that they are sent out on trigger. The difference here is that the trigger is generated by the user by actions like password resets or an order confirmation.
Benefits of Having a Newsletter
Email newsletters have huge benefits for your business and your customers! We're going to focus on two of the benefits of an effective email newsletter, but know that there are more!
Strong Customer Relationships
Successful newsletters build strong relationships with their subscribers by providing consistent value over time, thus fostering trust, loyalty, and engagement. The best email newsletters do this through:
Nurturing leads and driving action by reinforcing the belief that the purchasing decision was a good one (for past clients) and guiding potential customers through the buyer's journey.
Raising brand awareness. Sending out regular emails keeps your brand top of mind for customers, ensuring that you'll be their first choice when they need your service or product.
Delivering value over time. Effective newsletters provide helpful content that informs, inspires, and encourages action.
Establishing a two-way connection. The old saying, "communication is a two-way street" applies to email marketing campaigns. The best newsletters encourage subscribers to communicate by asking for feedback, including polls, and asking for replies.
Building community & exclusivity. Remember when you were in school and wanted to be in the cool crowd? There was something so alluring about it because it was an exclusive bunch (or maybe you were in the cool kids club, in which case, I'm readily admitting I wanted to be you). Email newsletters should do the same thing. Your subscribers should feel like a sense of belonging. Your newsletter should make them feel like insiders because they are the first to know about special events, company updates, and get exclusive content.
More Traffic Driven to Your Website
Email newsletters shouldn't only provide valuable content; they should also drive the target audience to perform an action. This is a crucial point we'll get into more a little later. Each email newsletter you send should encourage subscribers to do something, whether it's responding to the email, checking out a sale, or clicking affiliate links. An important action is driving traffic to your website or social media site. You want your target audience on your website because you're trying to make sales! More people on your site increases the likelihood that you'll make more sales. Email newsletters are a fantastic medium through which you can lead more people to your website.
How to Craft Irresistible Email Newsletters
Writing email newsletters that keep your target audience coming back for more doesn't just happen. It takes intention and strategy. In this next section, I'll give you my best tips for making irresistible email newsletters that keep attention and guide your subscribers through the buyer's journey.
Identify Your Target Audience
In order for your email newsletters to lead to business growth, it is imperative that your emails are reaching the right people. When your subscribers feel that your emails are providing value and helping them reach their goals, they will be more likely to open and read your emails, and take action.
To pin down your ideal audience, follow these six steps:
Clearly define the purpose of your newsletter. Ask and answer questions like, how frequently will I send out this newsletter? What is the main goal? What type of content will be shared?
Identify your ideal customer. Get uber specific here. I'm taking demographics like age, location, gender, occupation, and anything else that might be relevant to your business. Consider the pain points they face along with their interests, values, and dreams.
Segment your audience. Email segmentation is the step that most small business owners miss. You should not send your email newsletters to every person on your subscriber list. Let me repeat that: you should not send email newsletters to your entire audience. Your entire audience doesn't have the same needs. Your entire audience is not made up of warm leads. You want to send email newsletters to audience members who are engaged, warm, and and need what you're writing about. Consider segmenting according to engagement level, industry, experience, and pain points. This is a critical step that I include in my email marketing overhaul service because I believe that you cannot get your best results from email marketing without segmenting your audience.
Research and validate. Don't guess what will work in your business newsletter. Get clarity on what will work from past data like social posts. Which social media posts received the most attention? You can also poll your audience and ask them what they want to see in your newsletters.
Create audience personas. Make a fictional profile of a person who would be the perfect fit for your email newsletters. Include info like name, age, occupation, pain point, business, and goals. Let's say you're a social media manager. You could make a fictional profile for Susie, a 40-year-old florist who knows flowers like the back of her hand but doesn't know how to craft a content strategy. She wants to start posting on TikTok but doesn't know what to post. Her goal is to grow her business by at least 20% this year. Keeping Susie in mind when you write your email newsletter campaigns will keep you zeroed in on your goals outlined in step 1.
Test, Analyze, and Optimize Your Emails. Sending out your newsletters isn't the last step in your email marketing strategy; it's testing and analyzing what you've written. To get a sense of how your email performance, take a look at data like clickthrough rates, bounce rates, unsubscribe rate, and conversion rates. Most email marketing software platforms have this data available for you. Pay attention to it, learn from it, and continuously optimize your emails based on this data.
Set Clear Content Goals for Your Newsletter
As I mentioned in point one above, you need to have crystal-clear goals for your email newsletter. Identify the who, what, when, and why.
Who: Who is my newsletter for? Who is my target audience? How will I find them and invite them to subscribe?
What: What is the purpose of my newsletter? How will I deliver value to my audience? What new insights can I bring them?
When: When, or how frequently, will I send my emails? Daily? Weekly? Biweekly? Monthly? Remember, a goal of sending email newsletters in the first place is to stay top of mind for your audience. Pick a realistic frequency you can handle while keeping that goal in mind.
Why: Why should people subscribe to my email?
Develop a Unique Voice that Resonates with Readers
In your email campaigns, it helps to generate a voice that's so uniquely your own, your audience would know it's you even if your name wasn't on the email.
The average Joe receives 121 emails per day. Joe's getting content shoved in his face left and right. Multiple businesses are competing for his attention. Making newsletter content that's generic isn't going to win Joe over. He gets dozens of those a day. What Joe wants is something fresh. He wants to read an email that sounds like it was written by a human with a personality.
Give Joe what he wants! Create a voice that stands out from the crowd. You don't have to be a Pulitzer winner to do it. What you need to do is to find your brand voice. I've touched on this topic in a previous blog post (scroll down to Secret #3).
Have an Effective Design and Layout
We all love pretty-looking things. An email without a thoughtful design and layout is not a pretty-looking thing. You don't need anything crazy, and there's a good chance your email service provider has templates you can use. Make a newsletter that integrates your company logo and colors, has some white space, and is organized to highlight the relevant content.
Enhance Readability with Proper Formatting
Help your audience read your emails with proper formatting that lends itself to readability. Follow these simple tips to help your audience binge your email content:
Use short paragraphs and white space. No one wants to come across an 8-sentence paragraph in an email. Short and sweet is best. Forget what your English teacher taught you! A one-sentence paragraph is acceptable and even good, in emails.
Use bullet points and lists. Lists are helpful for a quick skim!
Use headings and subheadings for structure. Keep your email content organized with headers that clearly show what each section will talk about.
Test mobile-friendliness. Many people only open emails on their phones. Double-check your formatting to certify that your email newsletter will open well no matter where it's read.
Craft Captivating Subject Lines to Boost Open Rates
A subject line is for an email what a book cover is for a book. It gives you a sense of what's to come without spoiling the whole story. Writing irresistible subject lines is an art as much as it is a science. A post on email subject lines is for another day, so here and now I'll give you just a few tips:
Short is sweet: Research tells us readers prefer shorter email subject lines. Keep your subject lines under 50 characters, or 5-7 words max.
Make 'em curious: Give your audience a hint of what the body content will contain by giving a preview in your subject line. The more mysteriously you can hint at your email content, the better.
Choose your words wisely: Readers love words like "secret", "exclusive", "must-see", and "insider". As previously mentioned, email subscribers love to feel like they're insiders in your club. Encourage them to read your emails by using language that invokes curiosity.
Easy on the Emojis: Use one, maybe two emojis max in your subject line. Easy does it.
Better subject lines lead to more opens, which leads to more engagement, while ultimately lead to more sales. Thinking about how to craft the best subject lines is worth your precious time.
Maintain Subscriber Engagement Over Time
Having your email audience get excited over one newsletter email is great, but what's really cool is having your audience enthusiastic about your email every time it hits their inbox. Attaining subscriber attention is the first challenge; keeping that attention is the subsequent one.
To hold the attention of your subscriber base over the long haul, consider the following suggestions:
Prep your newsletter subscribers up-front: Let your subscribers know how often they can expect to hear from you, whether that's daily, weekly, or any other frequency.
Amazing subject lines: Every single time. See above.
Short & Sweet: No one likes reading long emails. Get to your point in 1-3 paragraphs. That would be about 200-300 words max.
Analyze your data: Pay attention to your email metrics. Do more of what works, and less of what doesn't.
Provide valuable content: Give your audience a reason to come back by consistently providing content that inspires, educates, or entertains. Each email should have a clear purpose and provide value, along with a deeper connection, to the audience.
Test Content Regularly to Gauge Effectiveness
Don't settle for good enough! Evaluate your content on the regular to ensure that your words are performing for you and you're turning readers into customers. In my email marketing 3-month service, I provide a deep dive into client's email strategy to make sure money isn't being left on the table. Your time is precious. Don't throw it away on an email strategy that isn't helping you. Perform A/B testing with your subject lines, content, and calls to action. Review your data, determine what works, and write your future newsletters accordingly. Remember, this is an on-going process, not a one-and-done situation.
Personalize Emails to Enhance Connection
Email personalization goes beyond an opening line of "Dear |FNAME|". Give your emails a human touch by adding:
References to past behaviors "since you've bought x, you may love y"
Segmentation based on interests, behaviors, or demographics
Stories of your real life
Audience can smell fake, ChatGPT'd emails from a mile away. These days, subscribers are looking for an emotional connection in newsletters. They want direct access to your life in a raw, non-salesy kind of way.
Establish a Consistent Sending Schedule
Decide how frequently you're going to send out emails, and commit to it. One purpose of email newsletters is to keep your business, services, and/or products top of mind. That being said, not everyone can crank out emails every day. At the minimum, I would suggest sending out weekly or biweekly emails. If you have the time to send out emails 2-3x per week, that's even better. What matters is sticking to your commitment. Your audience wants to know what to expect, and when.
You don't have to do this all on your own! Copywriters like myself do this for a living. It's an investment, but the ROI on regular, well-written emails is astronomical. Done properly, you'll reap your return and much more. Don't be afraid to hire a copywriter!
Creative Content Ideas For Your Newsletters
Variety is the spice of life...and newsletter content! Switch up your content by varying the types of emails you send. Use the list below as inspiration to get your email content creation process going.
Success Stories and Testimonials
In his landmark book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini writes that one of the key psychological principles that drives purchasing decisions is social proof. People want to know that what you're selling has worked for others. Take advantage of this well-studied principle by including success stories or testimonials from your clients in your marketing emails. The customer success stories don't have to be long; they just need to feature a before and after transformation. If you begin putting positive customer reviews and personal stories on your site, I can almost guarantee incredible results including an engaged subscriber list and more sales.
Share Industry News or Updates
Your email subscribers view you as an authority in whatever industry you're a part of. This helps your credibility in your industry. Brand yourself as even more of an expert by sharing regularly your take on domestic and international industry news. Get comfortable talking about your industry and giving your opinion on issues. You can also make company announcements in your email newsletters, keeping your subscribers in the know.
Provide Exclusive Offers or Discounts
Reward your email list by giving them exclusive, not-found-anywhere-else product sales. When they realize they get dibs on hot offers you won't advertise on your social media accounts or website, you'll give them another reason to stick around, and your current customers another reason to shop again. If you need a quick cash injection, you could implement flash sales, advertised only through your newsletters. Make it clear that the flash sale is only for a limited time only for subscribers. The short duration of the sale, plus the bonus of giving your email list a special offer, will encourage sales.
Feature Helpful Tips or How-To Articles
An email newsletter is the perfect space for a mini blog post or blog roundups. These could highlight tricks and hacks that your audience would love. Don't feel the need to put a bunch of tips in one email. You could have a series one month in which you share one tip per email. As a business owner, you have a wealth of knowledge that could easily translate into featured content.
Highlight Upcoming Events or Promotions
Give your subscriber list the first look at an upcoming company event, promotional sale, or new service. To boost subscriber engagement, you could offer hints in your email about what's to come. If anyone guesses correctly, they could win a ticket to the event, a free product, or something else.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Newsletter Writing
There are some very common mistakes that small business owners tend to make while writing email newsletters, but that's not going to be your story! We're going to nip those problems in the bud right now so your email serves and doesn't hinder you or your business.
Pitfall #1: Boring Subject Lines
Please, I beg of you...think long and hard about your short subject lines!! It's easy to fall into the rut of predictable, average subject lines. Believe me when I say that make a difference for your open rates. With all the average subject lines out there, your better than average ones will catch your audience's attention.
Pitfall #2: Being too Salesy
When it comes to value vs. sales, keep the 80/20 rule in mind: 80% of your content should be value-oriented, while 20% should be sales-driven. Too much salesy talk, and you'll drive your audience away. There's no such thing as too much value, but if you sacrifice value for sales, you won't make the money you could, and should, be earning.
Pitfall #3: Putting in too Many Calls-to-Action
Each single newsletter should have exactly one call-to-action. Keep it simple for your audience. Make it crystal clear what the next step is. If you make it confusing, they won't take any action at all. Create a clear call to action by using bold font or buttons, and using action verbs.
Pitfall #4: Not Optimizing for Mobile-Friendliness
Fact: most emails today are read on mobile devices. Double check that your emails are phone-friendly on your email service provider platform. If you make them easy to read, your readers will want to read them.
Pitfall #5: Not Keeping Up with Your Posting Schedule
It's worth repeating that you should choose a frequency that works for you, if you're writing your own email newsletters. Don't tell your audience one thing only to switch it up on them. Consider your email newsletters to be an essential business task. Just like you wouldn't skip your bookkeeping or inventory counts, don't skip your emails! If you need help creating emails faster, you could use newsletter templates, or you could hire a copywriter.
Pitfall #6: Forgetting to Put an Unsubscribe Link
Our hope is that every single subscriber will want to devour your emails like freshly made cupcakes, but that's not the reality. For one reason or another, you will have subscribers who will want to unsubscribe. Did you know it's illegal to not have an unsubscribe link in your newsletters? True story. No one likes feeling trapped. Give your subscribers an easy way out by making the unsubscribe link visible on every email you send out. In my experience, the best place to put it is under the email signature at the very bottom of the email.
Pitfall #7: Not Employing Segmentation
I feel like I'm a broken record at this point, but I want to drive my points home. You should not be sending out newsletters to every individual on your newsletter list. A good rule of thumb is to engage the most engaged regularly. Send emails to your warm audience, your people who open and read what you sent. You'll get higher engagement rates that way, and see more returns for your emails.
Conclusion
Woah, that was a lot. My goal was to bring you a value-packed email to walk you through what it looks like to create a home-run email newsletter. I believe I did that, and did it well, if I may be so bold!
If you're ready for level two, read my blog post on how to boost open rates. In it, I go deeper into topics like segmentation, A/B testing, and subject lines.
