E-newsletters are now a huge part of digital marketing, and can be very effective when marketing your business. The ease of having something delivered straight to your inbox rather than happening upon it by chance is much more appealing, so you will need to make sure that you are using the e-newsletter campaigns to their full potential to maximise the potential outcome.
Keep it snappy
The main purpose for an e-newsletter idea is to sign people to your website, fundraising page, event booking system or other online profile. This means that the majority of the desired information is going to be located at the end location, so you do not need to enter all of the information within the e-newsletter.
The reader will not necessarily be interested in all of your notices on the campaign, so if they see reams of text on their screen that does not interest them, chances are that they will close the e-mail. Make sure your text is snappy and to the point, no more than a couple of sentences for each notice. This way, each article on the newsletter will have a very similar amount of text which will also make for a tidier looking campaign, as well as ease-of-use for the reader as there will be less hunting for something that are interested in.
Use great photos
We’ve all heard the phrase “a picture paints a thousand words” – using images online has often been proved to be more effective than text, though it should not be used as a substitute. Using a high quality image with each notice on the campaign will do you favours as this will create a much more visual piece – ensure these are high quality, relevant images that suit each article. Try to avoid the obvious stock photos (people smiling in a board room, a group of friends jumping and holding hands in a field) as these are always very obvious stock images – if you have your own that you can use it’s always recommended as long as they are of sufficient quality.
The subject is key for CTR
The e-mail subject will be the first thing the (potential) reader sees, before any of the content inside the e-news campaign. For this reason, you need to make sure you have a great subject to ensure that you maintain a high percentage click through rate.
The subject should be relevant to your campaign, potentially featuring some of the key headlines. For example: “30% off all men’s footwear for 24 hours and buy-one-get-one free on selected women’s ranges”. This shows exactly what is being offered and people will be enticed to read the e-newsletter to find details of the special offer.
Use an e-news provider, not your standard e-mail provider
It’s imperative that you use an e-newsletter service provider rather than sending batch e-mails out through a programme like Outlook.
There are a couple of reasons to this:
- E-newsletter providers offer lots of features: These features include advanced styling of your e-newsletter that could not be achieved in a system like Outlook or Gmail. You also get the ability to track people’s behaviour when receiving the e-newsletter so you can find out if your campaign has been effective.
- Whitelisted servers: E-newsletter providers use whitelisted servers – this basically means that the server is capable of sending thousands of e-mails in one go with ease – if you tried to do this with Outlook, chances are you would get blacklisted and you would be considered a spammer. If this happens, it can completely discredit the domain name and stop you from sending and receiving e-mails.
Experiment with times and techniques
In your early e-news marketing days, it’s important that you identify who your target audience are. Once you’ve done this you’ll be able to better judge what days and times are going to be the most effective for clicks. Try campaigns on different days and times and see which has been the most successful, then continue to use that on a regular basis.
If you would like to know more about e-newsletters, get in touch with Cosmic’s experts who’ll be able to point you in the right direction – you can phone us on 0845 094 6108, e-mail us on info@cosmic.org.uk or even tweet us to @Cosmic_UK.
Don’t forget – you can also sign up to our e-newsletter list for the latest Cosmic news and updates – please click here for more information.