How to Create a Newsletter Your Audience Will Actually Read
Photo credit: Kon Karampelas
Opening an ever-flowing inbox can trigger a sense of dread in many of us, making us want to ignore the unread messages. If you’re a marketer who sends emails, it’s likely your audience feels the same pain.
Despite your readers feeling overloaded, emails can still benefit them and your business. According to the B2B Content Marketing 2020 report, marketers surveyed say that email newsletters are the top-performing channel for nurturing leads. When done correctly, a newsletter can help you build a stronger relationship with your target audiences. Better yet, because it’s a property you own, a newsletter gives you more control than spaces like social media feeds and search results.
Though I ignore a lot of promotional emails I receive, I do read quality newsletters to which I’ve subscribed and make a point of making sure they land within the Primary tab of my Gmail inbox. Getting your audience to feel the same excitement about your emails is achievable. Try out these five steps to create a newsletter your audience will actually read.
Include content your audience will love.
Your audience needs a reason to open your newsletter, and a way to incentivize them is to consistently provide them with great content. One of my favorite newsletters that I’ve been subscribed to for years is Girls Night In, which focuses on self-care for womxn. Every Friday, the contributors share hidden gems and resources that help me relax and focus on myself after a long work week.
To know what content will resonate, you’ll need to have a deep understanding of your readers and their needs. Creating empathy for your audience is a great first step to unlocking this information.
Develop a writing style.
Though there’s no single right way to write a newsletter, you do want to have a distinguishable voice and be consistent about using it.
Every other week I receive a newsletter from the incomparable Ann Handley, an author and thought leader in the content marketing space. Her emails, which focus on writing for marketers, are fun, quirky, and full of fresh ideas. Often they’ll include a personal anecdote, like the time she made it as a news reporter and ditched her imposter syndrome, which ties back to the main theme of the newsletter.
How will you speak to your audience? Will it be in the first, second, or third person? What type of voice will you use? What is the tone of your writing? A style guide is one way to document your process and help you stick with it. To learn more, check out Mailchimp’s Content Style Guide to find out how the marketing platform uses voice and style in its writing.
Organize your newsletter to make it easy to read.
Formatting your newsletter into chunks and reusing the same design week after week not only makes it easier for you to write, it makes it easier for your audience to read. Your audience may not read your newsletter word for word, but that’s okay! Sometimes they’ll just want to review the sections they find most relevant.
Each morning I get the Daily Skimm, a newsletter that masterfully breaks down the news. It has a predictable format that I’ve come to appreciate. From top to bottom, it includes
An image and call-to-action to check out a piece of content
A quirky quote
The big news stories of the day
Other news stories of the day
Sponsored content
Random lists of Skimm picks
A summary of things happening with readers (including birthdays)
A CTA to share the newsletter
Religiously, I’ll read the quote and then skim the headlines of each story, before digging in to read the details of the ones I find most interesting. If I have time, I’ll check out the Skimm picks toward the end.
There’s a lot to the newsletter, but the Skimm’s structure, including headlines, makes it easy for me to hone in on the content I care about.
Format your emails for desktop and mobile.
Though you likely write and design your emails on a desktop, don’t forget to format them for all devices.
According to Litmus, mobile is more popular than desktop for email opens, with 42% of users opening an email on a smartphone or tablet. Having a poorly-formatted mobile email can lead to attrition with up to 70% of users deleting your email and 15% of readers unsubscribing!
It’s a scary statistic, but there are many ways to ensure your email is looking pretty across devices. Using email software that provides responsive templates does a lot of the dirty work for you, no coding required.
Formatting newsletters for mobile is a big topic and worthy of its own article. Check out Copyblogger’s 10 tips for mobile-friendly emails for more information.
Send newsletters with a regular cadence.
Like a TV show, your newsletter should become a regularly scheduled program that readers look forward to and anticipate. If they know when it will land in their inbox, they may be more likely to create a routine involving how and when they read your newsletter. This can help increase open rates and build consistent engagement.
Every week I get the newsletter UX Design Weekly, which includes a list of handpicked articles about user experience. I know exactly when I’ll get the newsletter—every Monday morning, right before 8 am—and therefore make a point to make it a part of my morning routine. I read it right before work as I eat breakfast.
If your newsletter is sent daily, decide the time of day it should go out. If your newsletter is sent weekly or bi-weekly, pick a time of day and day of the week to send it.
Rather than decide these send times arbitrarily, consider your audience’s context for reading your newsletter and how it will fit in with their routine. Next, A/B test a few time slots on a few different issues to find out which leads to the best engagement rates. Once you have a winner, dedicate yourself to this chosen day and time.