How to Make a Good Newsletter - Step by Step Guide
Updated: 22nd September 2022
Reading time: 5min
Newsletters are used for continuous communication with customers to inform recipients of news, changes, offers, updates in the given business or subject.
Do you want to build a client base that you can reach with an even more accurate advertisement? Are you interested in developing and maintaining good relations with your clients or employees? Would you like your customer to remember you longer? One of the ways you can do all of these things is by creating an impressive newsletter. In this article, we are going to show you how to prepare one.
What is a newsletter? Good newsletter characteristics
As mentioned above, the newsletter is a short form of a 1/2 page newsletter used for regular communication with clients. You send it to inform the recipients about news, changes, offers, updates in the given business or subject. It should have a fixed template design, with only the content changing in subsequent editions. Thus, the receiver gets used to the look and arrangement of the message. It is best to send a newsletter on a particular day with the same frequency. Your newsletter should include premium content which is an added value to whatever is on the website or in the shop. There must be a reason the recipient would like to receive messages from you. Everybody is busy these days; why should your readers spend their time reading about your business? There has to be a good incentive. Examples for premium content include discounts, tutorials, eBooks or first-hand information on new products or sales. Share the value. Your audience will notice and appreciate it.
Why should you send newsletters? Main benefits
You create a customer base.
People who have accepted to receive your newsletter are interested in something you had or will have to offer. Once they agree, they can receive a newsletter and, with it - your offers, discounts, promotional materials, advertising. Until they unsubscribe, they stay in your client base, and there is a chance that you can make a successful sale or find other opportunities every time you send a newsletter. And with email append services, you can actually curate your email database on the go.
You reach all your clients.
The newsletter you send reaches all your subscribers - unlike communicating through social networks. By sending newsletters, you don't lose contact with your customers; you don’t risk your posts’ reach will be decreased because one of the algorithms wishes so. You don't depend on others with your communication and don’t need a filtering go-between anymore.
You improve sales results.
Prior to receiving a newsletter, your customers must provide their consent. Thus, you’re in a better position right from the start, because your mailing won't be perceived as a pushy attempt to reach the customer. This translates into better selling results. Some statistics show that messages received as part of e-mail marketing activities influence purchasing decisions of nearly 60% of users.
You will increase brand awareness.
Let's say you're hungry and you want a hot meal. Let's go pick up some fast food! ... But where from? Have you got any fast-food restaurants in your mind already? Well - that’s brand awareness specialists’ success. The companies we thought of have invested a massive amount of resources in getting to the top 3 associations that come to your mind when someone brings up a fast food topic. However, this is not confined to the food industry. Fast car? Ferrari. Good watch? Rolex Good coffee? Starbucks. In fact, they don't actually have to be the best or the fastest, but they come to mind very quickly. That’s brand awareness. There are plenty of ways you can create it. One of them is writing a newsletter. A regular newsletter will not let your customers forget about you. This is an integral part of an even better selling success.
Maintain a positive relationship with your customers
You can encourage the customer to return to you again after purchase. A newsletter helps you achieve this goal, as sending it regularly - with the recipient's permission - helps build a positive long-term relationship. You can compare it to a good friendship. A good friend asks you how you feel, what's new, encourages you to do cool things together, and helps you get through life easier and happier. Offer value to your clients ... friends through an awesome newsletter!
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10 Steps to Create an Effective Email Newsletter
1. The purpose of your newsletter
You must define a clear objective for your newsletter, as this means that you will have to adapt its form accordingly. Why do you reach out to your clients? Do you intend to:
- Know your audience better?
- Increase sales?- Educate your audience?
- Build a brand, company image?
- Engage your audience?
- Increase your website’s traffic?
Define your target audience. Think about the type of recipients your offer is targeting or the customers who will be interested in your company's activity. If you already have some form of email marketing, it is worth thinking about preparing a short questionnaire to collect crucial information about the recipients. You should focus on a few key questions in the first place and ask further questions when mailing the newsletter.
We recommend writing down all the goals you’d like to achieve with your newsletter and the target group you’d like to reach and then continue reading the next part of the article.
2. Choose the right type of your newsletter
Authority building newsletter
They help you boost sales by presenting your business as trustworthy and showing that you are a credible source of information. It includes tutorials, tips and tricks, insider information, news and expert advice - reputation Builder.
Trust-building newsletter
Imagine you own a car repair shop. You have a great workshop, tools and a great crew of mechanics ready to fix anything. Why should clients choose your services rather than others? We all had a situation where we were not entirely satisfied with the quality of a repair delivered. It all seemed right at the beginning. How do I know my car won't be broken down again after I leave it with you to fix it? Do I have any warranty? You have to prove that you will not let your customers down and that people can already trust you and are satisfied with your service. Include testimonials, comments, photos of services performed and work you are proud of.
Sales newsletter
Now, you’ve built your reputation and trust, it’s time to offer something great to your clients and get paid for it accordingly! Whether it is a service, product, solution, a company has to make money to function and grow. Include product description, photos, testimonials and everything else you have in your sales arsenal. Use ads, special discounts, offers, and holiday sales to successfully boost your sales.
Company newsletter
The newsletter is used for internal communication in your company. What have you accomplished over the last month? Have you any successes you would like to highlight? Are there employees you’d like to commend for their work publicly and motivate others? Celebrating great results, share statistics? The choice is yours.
Organisation newsletter
It is similar to the company newsletter but is intended to be used internally and externally. It is usually used to share important information about business developments, news and other things that could have an impact on your customer relationships (improvements or mishaps), the entire market (game-changers like new domestic or international law) or services provided (better technology, new features etc.).
Curation newsletter
Let’s imagine you have a collection of coins of all types, origin and age. Now, let’s say you have to prepare a numismatic set for a special museum exhibition. You can't bring your whole collection with you. You must decide what will be worth presenting and will be of interest to museum visitors. Do you have a lot of content that needs to be filtered out? Focus on what’s the most important with the curation newsletter. Leave a collection of links to the articles, products or services you find the most valuable.
Practical newsletter
It usually provides value through the information you can use - “Have you wondered how to build a treehouse for your son or little brother? Check out how doing this in this article!” “Would you like to know how to make the best pancakes? ’ - Get your frying pan ready!’’ “Don’t use a word newsletter in your newsletter’s subject title - here are the best alternatives….”
Blog newsletter
Choose it if your website has a supplementary blog, helping to drive traffic to your website and provide value through your articles. Great for affiliate marketers and companies willing to bring potential customers to their selling offer.
Artistic newsletter
Show your vision, share your work, create something beautiful. A piece of art, a song, creative design? Sky is the limit.
Analytical newsletter
This is typically a graph or statistic done by experts. It can be extremely helpful to specialists working in a particular niche. They have to be up to date with all the trends and technologies, so they will very much enjoy this kind of newsletter.
Different objectives mean different ways in which they can be achieved. We already know what our target audience is. Let us give them what they need in a way that they want it.
3. Credible Sender
Every once in a while, we all get a message from the e-mail address that looked a little bit like this: lucas2theking132@shadydomain.com, sales@scamaccounts.com or youwon!@loseyourmoneynow.com. You don't want your email address anywhere near this. Don’t use nicknames or weird looking domains. Set up a professional business e-mail address. Use your name or the name of your organisation. If you need access to a special, unique business domain, we’ve got you covered. As a user of our Premium Plan, you can set up any email address you like!
4. “Dear Sir… What!? You just missed your…” - create an engaging subject line
What if you create an awesome newsletter, but nobody opens it? Well, we all hate click baits, but we also know the occasions on which we were lured into opening a message or a link and then we found something of great value. Let's create a positive clickbait! Create emotion in your readers, capture their attention and allow them to see the value you have to offer.
Also, avoid using the word ‘’newsletter’’ in your subject line as many people find newsletters boring/spammy; it may lower the opening rate. And don’t write anything in ALL CAPS as online, it symbolises shouting. Use Fear of Missing Out in your content (FOMO) to create a sense of urgency for opening your mail and then clicking your Call to Action.
5. Header
This is the first thing you see after opening an email or website. You need to make it the most interesting and engaging it can be. If you lose your readers’ attention here, they will probably won't continue reading. Make sure they will be intrigued by what's in it. Choose the correct text and artwork. Catchy title? Colourful image? What about a dynamic picture? An attractive person or eye-catching graphics? The choice is yours.
Also, avoid using the word ‘’newsletter’’ in your subject line as many people react negatively to it; it may lower the opening rate
6. Content creation for your newsletter
How do you create great email content? How do you customize content depending on your audience?
As we already have our goals, newsletter type, audience and subject line sorted, we now have to decide what content we need to show to our readers. You should offer value, so the people who receive your message will come back for more. If you waste their time, you can be sure they will not open anything from you again. Pay attention to adjusting your communication style according to the audience; should it be more formal or informal? Are jokes ok here or not really? Should I write to the general public or knowledgeable readers? Should there be more images or text? What colours do I have to choose?
I'll leave it all up to you - I think you already know and have a lot of excellent ideas how your newsletter should look like!
7. Create an email newsletter template
We spoke about regularity in your newsletter earlier, remember? You must ensure that your newsletter follows a certain kind of pattern that your users get used to. It's like when you go into your favourite fast-food restaurant, or use a favourite app or website. You already recognise it, know where’s what and you know what to expect. To give you one more example, we can compare it to music/songs - listeners expect the same elements of the song structure (verse, chorus, etc.), but they like to be positively surprised when the details inside change. They enjoy hearing new instruments, sounds, lyrics, feeling new emotions. Create your verses and choruses, mix them together and fill them with your great content.
8. Design - make it look great
Your newsletter needs to look good. Boring and empty newsletters that look like a notepad document won’t get anyone’s attention. No one wants to read a newsletter that looks like a page printed in the eighteenth century (unless that’s what your target audience wants). Use colourful graphics, themes, modern fonts and colour schemes. There is an abundance of possibilities. If you are interested in website design you can check out our article here.
9. Call to Action - read this now!
Now we have our content and design done, it seems we have everything we need. But wait a second… Should your audience just read your newsletter and close it? If they opened your mail, took the time to read it, there is a chance that they will also want to click on a button/ link sending them to the desired webpage or perform the desired action. Want to sell the latest cool t-shirt you just made? Add a button that your clients can click on to access your product page. Have you just taken an additional course and are now qualified to deliver a new type of service? Leave a button for direct communication or booking! The best practice is to leave just one Call To Action in one newsletter - it means your effort will be focused, and your audience clicks on just what you want them to click on... Look here!
10. Contact and social media information
There may be a potential partner available to work with you. Maybe one of the customers would like to contact you directly. You can make a fantastic sale and build partnerships if you only allow the easiest way to contact you. All modern companies understand they need to establish a good presence in social media to be relevant on the market. It is also relevant because it allows you to connect with your audience. They may be your new, existing or returning customers, contractors, employees, their families, governmental organizations, influencers. You'll be contacted by people. All you need to do is keep the door open and let them know your details.
Write your best newsletter now! Checklist
After we learned what the most critical newsletter elements are, I would like now to let you know how to write it. Open your text editor. Then, with all the steps in mind, create a fantastic newsletter!
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What is the purpose of my newsletter?
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What is my target audience?
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Do I have existing newsletter templates I can use/update?
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What type of newsletter I have to choose to reach my goal
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Does my email address look professional?
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Write 10-20 different subject lines, select the best one.
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Research how great headers look like, get inspired
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Design a header, prepare eye-catching graphic and text
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Think about what sections and link you’d like to have in your newsletter.
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Write and select headings/ sections’ names
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Create a text template, outline
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Writing, creating content
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Selecting and pasting hyperlinks
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Considering where buttons/call to action should be placed
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Creating a template
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Design
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Filling everything with content
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Placing buttons,
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Creating a footer
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Posting social information
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Mail-testing + spamtest
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Selecting correct recipients
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Sending the newsletter
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Response
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Tracking the statistics
Conclusion
Newsletter is the most well-known tool in e-mail marketing. It is used to collect leads, acquire customers, increase sales and to build relationships with customers. Writing a great newsletter helps your business, it allows maintaining continuous communication with customers and lets everyone know what's happening in your company. I hope you enjoyed reading this article and are now ready to create a fantastic newsletter! See you around!
Author: Przemyslaw Mike Pajdak
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