Email newsletters are a cost-effective marketing and branding media, a great way to stay connected with customers, and a tool to reach new audiences. Successful businesses use email newsletters to build relationships, offer advertising and promotional material, and provide an in-depth look at innovations. The best email newsletters feature an innovative design, strong visuals, informative and engaging content, and a clear CTA with a logical and intuitive off-ramp to help your audience go further.
This article from the Greater Ashtabula Chamber of Commerce highlights a few ideas to get you started by focusing on compelling design concepts and data visualizations.
Start with an Engaging Subject Line
In today's crowded inboxes, it's more important than ever to have an engaging subject line for your email newsletter. After all, if your subscribers can't be bothered to open your message, they're certainly not going to read it. So how do you make sure your subject lines are irresistible? Start by keeping them short and relevant. Then, make sure they clearly communicate the benefits of reading your newsletter. Try to add a sense of urgency or curiosity to encourage people to open your message. If you can master these elements, you'll be well on your way to increasing your open rates — and ensuring that your subscribers actually read the content you've worked so hard to create.
Create an Attractive Design
Structure and style can make or break an email newsletter. Campaign Monitor notes that good design complements your messaging and delivers content smoothly without getting in the way of the message. Start with the purpose of your email newsletter. What do you want your newsletter to accomplish? Is your message informational and educational? Are you focused on time-sensitive updates to promotions and advertising material? Is your newsletter weekly, monthly, or just whenever? Answering these simple questions helps clarify the type of newsletter best suited to your needs.
To save time, consider using a free online email newsletter template rather than designing your newsletter from scratch. Choose a template to match your content structure, engage readers, and facilitate a clear path through the material. Remotish Agency points out that you want your readers to enjoy their reading experience and to feel you've created a space for shared dialogue and interaction. Use the subject line of the email to grab the readers' attention. Speak directly to your audience's motivations and vulnerabilities with a clever and catchy subject line.
And don’t neglect the power of graphics. Highlight your brand identity with consistent placement of your logo, and use a standard color scheme, fonts, and graphics. You can also create memes with an online meme generator and meme text tool using templates that you can customize with your own images and choice of fonts and color schemes. Many businesses these days are posting content that engages customers through humor and insight, and memes are a great way to drive your brand in memorable fashion.
Get Complex Messages Across Faster
You've heard this many times, and it remains true today: a picture is worth a thousand words. But not just any picture. Thoughtful data visualizations break down the most complex ideas and stimulate compelling and satisfying insights in your target audience. Easily uploaded and stored PDF format files are an excellent way to incorporate strong magazine-style visuals in your email newsletter. Using a PDF converter allows you to convert other file types into PDFs using drag-and-drop techniques that simplify editing and file sharing.
Move beyond standard photographs, bar charts, and plots to incorporate strong story-telling visualizations such as animations, time-series maps, and 3D data models. Effective visualizations and infographics help people make decisions faster and move the reader intuitively to a well-crafted CTA.
Build on Your Momentum
Email newsletters are a reliable small business tool to maintain and grow your customer base and reach new audiences. Take advantage of helpful tools, like newsletter templates and PDF converters to make designing a quality newsletter easier. Elegant design, consistent and meaningful content, and powerful visualizations are key elements of memorable and influential newsletters.