Email newsletter campaigns might seem a bit old hat – social media is
the place to focus your online marketing efforts, right? Well, yes and
no. Though certainly the importance of social media marketing has upped
its game in recent years, the email newsletter is still just as
important for your overall marketing strategy.
When we think of the email newsletter, we can sometimes fill our
heads with images of the plain text, black and white, yawn-inducing,
trash-bin-destined emails that used to jumble up in our inboxes from god
knows where. But, if you do take a moment to open up some of yours from
the more forward-thinking companies that somewhere along the line you
managed to subscribe to, then you will soon realise that these things
are of the past. The trend these days is to jazz up the email newsletter
with some funky fonts and groovy layouts, some nice bright colours and
cool images to pique the interest of subscribers.
As with everything, there are of course some essential dos and don’ts
when it comes to crafting the perfect email newsletter, and so below
are a few tips to set you off on the right path.
Content Is Still King
Before we get into the bells and whistles, the bright fonts and cool
colours that will grab your subscriber’s attention, the first thing that
we have to remember is that your copy is still the most important
element of your email campaign. Indeed, without superlative written
content, no amount of design skills will actually amount to the
conversions that your newsletters are essentially designed to generate.
So, focus on your written content first, and build your design around
it. In the end, the success of your email campaign will come down to
the persuasiveness of the words you write, so get them right, and
everything else will act as amplifiers. Your words will achieve the
lasting interest in your brand and the conversions you covet, not your
background images.
A great tip in creating this content is indeed to tell a story with
it. Indeed, this can be an on-going story about some element of your
product, service or business. What you don’t want to do is shamelessly
fill you emails with self-promoting copy that is neither inspired nor
interesting. Indeed, this sort of thing can even put your subscribers
off from buying your product.
Instead, try and build a narrative into your text – tell a story with
your words that not only puts your product and your business into
context, but also entertains the reader as well.
Graphics
Ok, so, you’ve written a few hundred words of great copy, now it’s
time to try and make sure that it gets read – or at least the important
parts aren’t missed, and this is all about finding the perfect balance
between the graphics and the text. The more eye-catching your graphics,
the better the chances are of your subscribers taking those few extra
seconds it takes for your newsletter to grab their attention and thusly
start reading your great content.
So, you’ll want to start with the banner and headline. Make it bright
and of course in keeping with your brand’s colours if appropriate, and
that headline needs to be short, punchy and concise. Whatever colours
you use in this banner heading, make sure that they are echoed and
repeated all over the rest of the newsletter as well so that the
reader’s eye is drawn to all the different and important sub-headers and
sections.
When it comes to images, make sure that you get the balance right,
however. If you need to include quite a lot of text if the case is that
indeed you have quite a lot to report, then you can’t of course dedicate
too much space to your images. Email newsletters that are too big and
too long are off-putting in the first place, so you have to make sure
that everything is in proportion, and you don’t really want the size of
it to exceed anything bigger than what would be an A4 piece of printed
material.
Make Sure To Include Some Quotes
If you’ve got some testimonials from satisfied customers or good
quotes from industry authorities, then make sure that you get them all
into your newsletter. Nothing is more convincing to a potential customer
than a recommendation from a thoroughly satisfied one, so make
testimonials sing loud and proud in your newsletter. This means
highlighting them with a different font, or perhaps making the text bold so that it’s not missed when your subscribers are skimming the page.
Indeed, offsetting your quotes from your main body of text is a very good idea. You can use a slightly larger, possibly italicised font
to indicate that here is something special to read. The whole point of
including these quotes – especially those from disinterested third-party
industry professionals – is to add some extra layers of interest and
intrigue to your newsletters, so make sure that you don’t bury them
amidst the columns.
Crafting the perfect email newsletter is becoming more and more like a
fine art, since more and more companies are rediscovering their worth
and value when it comes to customer engagement and conversions. And so,
even if you don’t have the budget to hire a professional designer to
create something of magazine-quality, then you must still nonetheless
take the time yourself to create something interesting and visually
entertaining for the reader. Do this, and you will find that your great
copy will get read by more people, you will generate more click-throughs
to your site, and ultimately your sales and conversions will grow and
grow.
Source: www.markitwrite.com/crafting-perfect-email-newsletter/
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