An effective newsletter is a precious asset to any business. It can help you with everything from connecting with your audience deeper to driving sales.
Like most business owners, you've probably considered starting a newsletter at some point but haven't leaped yet.
You might not know where to start or how to get people to subscribe and read it regularly, leaving you wondering if it's worth your time and effort.
If this kind of email marketing strategy is new to your toolkit, let us help you understand the purpose of a newsletter and the essential components to create one that gets results.
Table of Contents
Why Your Business Needs a Newsletter?
Build Trust
A newsletter is an excellent way to establish a relationship with your customers and let them know who you are and what you do.
Customers will feel more comfortable doing business with you if they know who owns the company and what they believe in.
Doing this allows you to build up credibility as a company. It can also help you show off your expertise and knowledge on certain subjects to gain potential clients' trust.
Develop Your Brand
Newsletters are an effective way of promoting your brand, especially when you send them regularly so that people get used to seeing them in their inboxes.
The more often people see your newsletter in their inboxes, the more likely they'll be able to recognize it when they see it again later down the line—and this increases its effectiveness as a marketing tool.
It'll also give you a compass for deciding what direction to take your company in moving forward.
Get Customer Feedback
Newsletters also give customers feedback about how well their experience with your business has been so far.
In turn, their feedback can help improve your future services or products so that customers keep returning.
Increase Sales
Whether you're selling products or services, newsletters can help increase sales by building rapport with potential customers.
Customers will trust you more when you provide relevant and valuable content.
According to studies, 77% of marketers have witnessed an increase in email engagement over the past year by providing quality content.
Newsletters give customers a reason to repeatedly come back and buy from you— especially when you send out a discount code, free shipping offer, or other special promotions.
Increase Website Traffic
A newsletter is a great way to boost daily website traffic. If you have an email list, you can send out a link to your latest blog post or something else valuable on your website.
Doing this will get people interested in what you're doing and encourage them to visit your site! You can also include links within the newsletter so readers don't have to search for them.
Elements of a Newsletter
Now that you know the purpose of a newsletter and how to write one, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty.
These are the elements that will make your newsletter work:
Good Design Layout
While an email can be a great way to tell your story and show off what you're all about, it can also be a visual storytelling platform.
Your design needs to look good and easy on the eye so readers don't feel overwhelmed by too much information in their inboxes.
However, it also needs enough whitespace, so there isn't too much space between paragraphs and sections on each page, making them feel bored quickly.
Show off your product. A picture is worth a thousand words. If you have beautiful shots of your product in action, don't hesitate to share them with readers.
Tell the story of how you got started. If there's an interesting backstory behind how you started doing what you do now—or even just one awe-inspiring moment from working at the company—share it!
Make your design mobile-friendly. When writing an email, remember that most people get their information from small screens like phones and tablets.
Engaging and Relevant Content
When writing the content, consider the following:
- What content does the reader need to understand why they should read your email or click through one of your links?
- What information will help them make an informed decision about how they want to engage with you further?
- Are there any news updates that may affect their relationship with you?
- How can you position yourself as an expert in this market while demonstrating customer loyalty?
- How can these two things best work together so that both parties get what they need from the transaction?
Once you have figured out what to include in the content, it's time to compose the subject line, intro, and body.
Subject line - The subject line is the first thing people see when they open their inbox, so it's important to be compelling and engaging. You can use this space to highlight some of the key points from your email, but also try to keep things short and sweet if possible.
Introduction - The introduction should be concise and easy to read. It should also include a brief overview of the topic, including what you're offering and why people should care about it.
Body - The body of your email is where you get into more detail about what you have to offer and why it matters to the reader. Make sure each paragraph has a clear point and purpose; don't just write long paragraphs full of information to fill space on the screen.
Call to Action
If you have an excellent call to action (CTA), people will know what they should do after reading your content.
The CTA should be clear and direct so there is no confusion about what action you want them to take.
It can be as simple as "Click here for more information" or "Click here for our latest discount offer!" or even just an image with text like "Click here!"
3 Tips to Build an Effective Newsletter
1. Personalize Content and Emails
People can get tired of generic content and emails. Triggered email marketing can help you make the most of your message by personalizing it based on where your audience is in their journey.
Research says 72% of consumers would most likely respond to personalized emails.
Make sure you have an email segmentation system in place so that you can send different newsletters to different people based on their interests and needs.
2. Keep it Short
Attention spans are getting shorter these days, so create a newsletter that will grab people's attention quickly.
A short email will help keep readers engaged throughout the entirety of your message because they won't be overwhelmed by too much information at once.
3. Deliver Value
When writing content, most people tend to err on the side of too much information. They assume that the more they say, the more knowledgeable they'll appear.
In reality, this is often not the case; unless you're working on a technical paper or dense academic article), readers are likely to lose interest if you're lengthy or overly wordy.
So how do you give your readers value in less time? By being concise yet still conveying key points and valuable information.
Purpose of a Newsletter FAQs
- How often should I send newsletters?
- When's the best time or day to send newsletters?
- Can I measure the success of my newsletter?
- How is sending newsletters better than other email marketing strategies?
How Often Should I Send Newsletters?
In general, it's best to send out newsletters regularly.
If possible, try to send them out at least two times per month to help keep your customers engaged and remind them of the value they get from your business.
If you have many new products or services launching, consider staggering your newsletter dates so that each one gets its email campaign.
When's the Best Time or Day to Send Newsletters?
According to HubSpot, 34.9% of marketers said their emails get the most engagement between 9 AM and 12 AM, while 27.6% said between 12 PM and 3 PM.
Can I Measure the Success of My Newsletter?
The best way to measure success is by tracking click and open rates on each newsletter send date. If those numbers trend upward over time, you know your strategy is working.
Use email marketing software like MailChimp or Constant Contact to track how well your newsletters are doing.
How Is Sending Newsletters Better Than Other Email Marketing Strategies?
Newsletters give people more information about your brand than any other email marketing strategy, so they're an excellent way to keep your customers engaged and up-to-date.
You'll have more room to tell stories about yourself and your products/services in a newsletter than in an ad or promotional email.
Newsletter Purpose: Final Thoughts
Over the years, email marketing has proven to be one of the most powerful channels for growing your business, especially when it comes to generating leads and driving sales.
By the end of 2023, research predicts email marketing revenue to hit roughly 11 billion.
With this guide about the purpose of newsletters and the elements that make an effective one, you can be on your way to building an engaged audience who trusts your brand and will become customers because of it.
Professional email companies can also help you with this process, so we advise looking for the right agency to partner with for your project.
