With as many emails as people get these days, you only have a few seconds to grab your readers’ attention to keep them reading. Make sure your email is designed to serve your readers.
Subject Line Grabs Attention
First and foremost, you need to make sure your audience opens your emails. Sounds like a no-brainer, but think about how many emails you leave unopened in your own inbox. Staggering, right? The subject line on your emails needs to grab readers’ attention and encourage them to open it. I wrote about some best practices when writing your subject lines and what you should avoid. Check it out.
Make Sure It’s Branded
If you want your readers to identify with you right away, use your brand colors, fonts and logo at the top of your email. I like to use a template that has my banner at the top so my company name is one of the first things my readers see when they open my emails. Readers know it’s from me right away and know they’re about to get some serious value.
[bctt tweet=”Brand your email newsletters so readers know who it’s from immediately.” username=””]
How Will They Contact You?
If your readers like your content, they may want to contact you—to work with you or gather more information. Your contact information should be easy to find within your emails. This includes your email address, phone number, website url and even social links. You’ll hopefully leave your audience wanting more, so make sure it’s easy to find more!
What Should Readers Do?
Just like a good blog or sales page, your emails should include a call to action so readers know what you want them to do. Whether you’re offering a free webinar, introducing a podcast, talking about some new trends or giving kudos to a client or colleague, include links embedded in the text so readers can go grab more information from your various sources.
Mostly Marketing, Some Sales
The purpose of your email newsletter is to connect with your audience and provide some additional value—NOT to sell to them. If all you’re doing is pushing products and services at your subscribers, they will ignore your emails or quickly unsubscribe. Use your emails as relationship-building opportunities and incorporate true sales to only about 10 percent of the total content.
[bctt tweet=”Put value in inboxes, not sales pieces.” username=””]
Follow Best Practices—and the Law
We don’t like unwanted phone calls from salespeople at dinner, and we don’t want our inboxes junked up by emails we never signed up for. Follow best practices and the law when it comes to growing your email list. Everyone on your list should have opted in to the list, and they should always have the opportunity to unsubscribe if they find your content is no longer serving them. The Federal Trade Commission has pretty specific rules about the use of email. If you’re a business based in Canada or the U.K., you have your own set of rules to abide by. And, of course, anyone must follow the rules of the country they’re sending emails to. SO confusing. In short: Provide good content, don’t spam and allow recipients to opt out if they so choose.
Today, using email marketing via an email newsletter is crucial. Sure, it takes time, but it’s one big piece of the marketing puzzle if you want to stay in front of your audience—and ahead of your competition. Struggling with where to start and how to organize your emails? I can help! A Map It Out session can get you on the right track to email newsletter success.
