Email Newsletters Should Not Be Scary
Posted by Beth Hrusch on Mon, Mar 15, 2010
No, really, it’s true! So many people delete them out of their inboxes. And yet, 
there is something so enjoyable about a truly well-done email newsletter. Some call them garbage. I call them bite-sized nuggets of fun.
Well, OK. The ones that are good are fun. In fact, it may surprise some of you to know just how much your customers look forward to receiving good email newsletters. The problem is, of course, that they get tired of wading through the crappy ones.
Needless to say, the adversarial relationship between consumers and e-marketing sort of defeats the purpose of using it for marketing purposes. You can fix this problem. I suggest that you stop wasting your time on sending people crappy email newsletters and start taking a little time to craft good ones.
As a content marketing tool, email newsletters are relatively easy and inexpensive, and they are effective. In their 2009 Response Rate Report, The Direct Marketing Association found that 57% of respondents were increasing their email budgets. Email marketing accounts for about 12% of marketing budgets, which is third only to direct mail and Internet marketing.
And, despite the fact that so many are deleted, about 15% of email newsletters are in fact opened by the recipients. Of those who open them, 10% will click through, and about 6% of those people will actually purchase. The catch? Your emails must be good. They should grab attention, and they should offer something of value.
Email marketing is an aspect of content marketing in the sense that it, like blogs and press releases, is a vehicle for content. If you think of it as such, you’ll be starting at the right place when creating your newsletters. One of the great things about newsletters (and a reason I like them) is that they offer a way for you to compile lots of different kinds of content. Like a newspaper or bulletin, an email newsletter can have a section for company news, a place for articles and a call to action all in one place.
Want to repurpose some of your internal documents? Summarize them in your newsletter. Just made a short video? Link to it in your newsletter. In this way, your newsletter becomes a portal to your business.
If you want an example of email newsletters that work, check out Subaru.com. Actually, you’d have to subscribe to get it, but take a look at their site anyway. See if you can recognize some examples of great content marketing. Sign up for the awesome quarterly newsletter. Do it now.
And, while you’re waiting to receive your first awesome newsletter, memorize the following tips for creating effective email newsletters:
1. Have a clear subject line- Don’t make people have to guess who the message is from—they’re more likely to delete it. I like “Your March Subaru newsletter”, or “What’s New at Subaru”.
2. Keep your reader in mind- When it comes to content, think about what your reader would be interested in, not you. Your product may be fascinating to you, but that doesn’t mean you should talk about it. Post articles about related topics, news stories and events that tie into your product or service. Include fun stuff like contests and surveys. This is not the place for a hard sell.
3. Keep it short- It’s better for people to have to click on links that say “read more” than to have to wade through big blocks of text. Use links to tighten up your newsletter. It really shouldn’t be longer than a couple of pages worth of scrolling.
4. Offer options- Give people the option to receive your newsletter on the Web. Some of your subscribers may have trouble rendering your images, so you want to make sure they can access it somewhere.
5. Organize- The text and graphics should be easy to read and not visually cluttered. Photos are a great way to break up text as well as draw attention to your content. Just make sure there’s not too much going on.
There’s a lot more to implementing a successful email marketing campaign. For now, just think about how effective your emails could be if you start looking at them like pieces of useful, compelling content instead of as sales material. And yes, you can make it so that your subscribers start looking forward to them. Like bite-sized nuggets of fun.