How to develop a successful email newsletter

Developing an effective email newsletter is a matter of planning.

The three main considerations when developing an email newsletter are the content, the design and the technical structure. Get these right and you are on your way to a successful email campaign.

Content

The content of your email newsletter should consist of either a value proposition, a call to action or information of value. A mixture of these three content types is ideal.

1. Value Proposition: Provide the audience with all relevant information that will lead to a purchase decision, whether now or in the future.
   Value propositions can take the form of content (product advantages, customer testimonials, etc), incentives (limited time offers, warranty extensions, etc), coupons (purchase discounts, etc), giveaways (prizes, samples, buy-one-get-one-free) and urgent offers (where an immediate purchase decision is required).
2. Call to action: prompt the audience to take a specific action.
   Examples: visit a website, call for more information, download a file, print an offer, visit a showroom, save this email (because…), forward this email to a friend (because…), read the rest of this email (because…) or fill out an online form.
3. Information of Value: provide content based on knowledge and experience relevant to the audience to keep them interested.
   Examples: advice, facts & research, opinion, interviews, entertainment, customer FAQs and questions.

Design

How the email looks is important. Use the layout, your brand, focal points and the preview pane to maximum advantage

1. Layout: use and intuitive, easy-to-follow layout that matches the email newsletter to the type of information it is presenting. This communicates content before the audience even starts reading. Common formats include newsletters, promotions, invitations and announcements.
2. Branding: email newsletters should be clearly branded and include a masthead, organisation name, date, website and contact information. Keep the layout of the email newsletter consistent, even across formats, to reinforce brand recognition. Importantly keep the look of email newsletter consistent with the rest of your marketing collateral.
3. Focal Points: use design elements such as headlines, images and graphics to draw attention to key parts of the content.
4. Preview Pane: Maximise the exposure of important messages and key aspects of content by ensuring they appear in the preview pane.

Technical Structure

Make sure that your email newsletter is percieved as “trusted”, is not too long (or too short!) and is programmed to reach all of your readers, no matter what software and operating system they use.

1. Trusted: Make sure that the email newsletter is easy to unsubscribe from, includes an actual “reply-to” address, clearly identifies your business, is consistent with the frequency of delivery and utilises a subject line is not misleading.
2. Length: email newsletters are generally more effective when they are concise—however this does depend on the audience and the perceived value of the content. Make sure that content is broken up into parts which can be easily navigated to and, where possible, use images instead of lengthy passages of text.
3. Coding/Programming: Email clients are inconsistent in how HTML emails are presented to end-users. Key considerations when building an email newsletter are to use HTML tables to control the design layout, ensure that “inline CSS” (style) elements are implemented and that images are not embedded but are referenced from the net, preferably using the same URL as the “From” address. Always provide an easy to see link to an online version for people who cannot view the email newsletter in their email client.