I’ve begun receiving questions about how to create an effective email newsletter. We use email newsletters to keep in touch with interested people and keep providing them value. We also use them to tell our community about our information products, services, and special offers.
At first glance, it might seem that a colorful email newsletter will attract attention, but creating effective email newsletters is quite different from designing a print newsletter. Here are the factors to consider and recommendations to create an effective email newsletter.
Factors to Consider to Create an Effective Email Newsletter
- People cannot and do not read emails the same way they read print pages. Research shows that interesting subjects and interesting headings throughout the e-mail get people to read, not photos or colors.
- Not everyone can see colors, photos, bold, lines, or bullets in their emails because many have text-only email providers. At least 25% of readers use text-only e-mail providers.
- Photos and art don’t automatically download, so most people won’t see them anyway! Even HTML email providers, like Outlook, actually block pictures of all kinds because they are trackable and identify our activities. What people see is empty boxes that say “Click to download pictures”. Often, people don’t download pictures because there’s a warning and extra steps involved, so they just read the text.
- Also, instead of photos, text only readers see and long lines of HTML code where pictures would be. That’s just ugly and confusing, not the effect we want. This confusion makes them not want to pick through the e-mail to find what they need, so they won’t read it.
- Avoid using lines or bars between sections. Lines and bars attract too much attention and stop the eye from reading. They add tension. We want people to read down the whole email. And people with text-readers would see more unintelligible code!
- People scan the left side for interesting headings. Bars or lines stop them from scanning. White space makes a great, attractive divider that everyone can see, even text readers.
- Professionals and businesses that send e-newsletters usually use mostly text for the above reasons.
Recommendations to Create an Effective Email Newsletter
- Use large headings and subheadings and put extra white space above and below them. That way, HTML email readers can see them, and text readers will see the headings in regular type separated with white space. My email provider, MailChimp, will automatically add asterisks on either side of headings in text versions of the e-mail.
- If you want to use color in headings, use something fairly dark so you have contrast with the background. Just make sure you keep your background white or very light for readability. And, remember that people with text-only e-mail won’t see the large, colorful text at all.
- Provide a few links to blog pages, landing pages, sign-up pages, art, and photos for all the reasons stated. Interested people will click. The rest will not. This will keep clean, and easy to read for everyone to get the messages they need.
- Keep it simple to revise, not complicated. Working in Constant Contact, MailChimp, or another email system is not as easy as working in Microsoft Word. If you make changes, you have to clean the HTML code out of the text or go into the HTML code to make the change and/or remove previously set patterns. It’s easy to mess it up and have trouble fixing it if you don’t know HTML.
- Save your email design as a template. Then, you just copy it and revise the contents for each new one. If you change some of the elements, just re-save as a template over your old one or create a new one with a different name.
- Make sure that the from line contains both your name and your company name, if it’s different. Then, people will know who it’s from. I have several emails coming in that I don’t read because I don’t remember who the people are. Eventually, I unsubscribe.
The first time you create an e-mail template takes a few hours. The second and third time you prepare your newsletter, you may improve your template some more. After that, you’ll be able to focus on the content.
