Write an Engaging Newsletter Stress-Free

Every message you send should promote your product, service, or mission successfully. But writing a newsletter can seem frustrating. Where do you begin: with the design, the content, or both? Will people even find it engaging? As a blank screen stares back at you, you may feel overwhelmed. Keep calm and read on to learn all about newsletter writing from start to finish.

What Are 5 Elements of an Effective Newsletter?

For a summary of the main points in this article, read 5 Elements of an Effective Newsletter. If you prefer to absorb everything, dig into the details below.

What Should Be Included When Writing a Newsletter?

Your goals can determine the newsletter content and the design. Michael Katz of Blue Penguin Development suggests you answer the question, “What is this about?” in one clear sentence. And aim to give your readers information that will appeal to them. Ideally, it will help them do better jobs or live better lives.

If you’re in business, your priority may be to get more leads, which can eventually turn into sales. You can address every stage of your buyer’s journey, from their awareness of your business to consideration, decision-making, and loyalty. So, when writing a newsletter, feature content that informs potential customers about you and your products or services and how you can help them.

To build a great newsletter, plan what to include in each issue.

Content Ideas to Help You Build a Relationship With Your Readers

• News or upcoming events: your own or from sources you credit
• One or more of your recent blog posts (links with or without summaries)
• Discounts, special offers, or giveaways (a free guide, a prize drawing, etc.)
• Your comments on a topic tied to your product or service
• Readers’ comments, including questions and answers

And it doesn’t have to be all business. Katz also recommends you blend stories about your life experiences with your business knowledge to form a connection with readers and build trust. A more personal touch may make you stand out as someone people can relate to rather than a faceless brand name. Engaging with subscribers also helps them keep reading and maintain interest in your offerings. Their responses to your content can reveal how popular it is or how well it converts.

When it comes to formatting, research and marketing firm Fenwick studied 100 email newsletters by B2B (business-to-business) companies in different industries. After three months of analysis, they found four common newsletter formats:

• The Summarizer: about 69 percent of the emails repackaged pieces the firms had already published
• The Hard Sell: 18 percent of the messages focused on product/service benefits
• The Homepage: eight percent of the newsletters curated content from across the web and provided analysis/context
• The Forwarder: five percent of the emails the firm generated when it published a new piece of content without any context

Need more ideas? See the samples below.

What is a Newsletter Example?

If you run a professional services firm (lawyers, insurance, real estate agents, etc.), these are some examples of excellent e-newsletters. I also have some thoughts on healthcare emails.

Among 501(3)(c) charitable nonprofits, I like the National Hemophilia Foundation’s HEMAWARExpress. It features a tasteful design with images and brief descriptions that link to the full articles. The headlines are short. Other copy, such as the sponsored content, is formatted into two columns to stand out from their own articles. Every image is eye-catching, designed to help tell the story. The newsletter could, however, be shorter. With fewer content blocks, readers would scroll less and save time.

Editing tip: Make sure your headlines follow a consistent case style. In the example above, one of the headlines among the sponsored content is lowercase, but the rest of the words in the headlines are capitalized — consistency is key for easy reading.

My e-newsletters for nonprofits have been on the economic development side. One of my local chambers of commerce, the Bangor Region Chamber, excels at keeping their content and design short and sweet, without bold colors, large fonts, or other distracting elements.

These examples can guide you in choosing the content, design, and style of your newsletter. As shown, depending on your audience and subject matter, your copy should keep a friendly and informational tone throughout.

How Do You Start Writing a Newsletter?

Next to your copy, the design also determines the basic newsletter structure.

To outline your emails, follow AIDA, which stands for “attention, interest, desire, and action.”

1. Attention– Get people to click on your emails. Put the most interesting parts at or near the top. Start with a compelling subject or headline — the first thing readers will see. Use power words, numbers, and/or scarcity (“available for a limited time”) to get attention. Subject Line, CoSchedule, Emotional Marketing Value, and other headline analyzers can help. If your email marketing platform allows for it, include some preview text. It can build on the headline and offer more details to influence opens through helping readers see the value of your email. Inside, much of the age-old writing advice for articles applies, such as starting with enticing sentences to keep people reading. I won’t bore you with everything, but generally, that involves stating an intriguing fact, using a good quote, or asking a question. Images should also draw readers in.
2. Interest – After you’ve started, the challenge is to keep people reading. HubSpot suggests you do that through “building relevance.” If you’ve already decided why you’re sending people your newsletters, ask yourself, “What value are they going to get from it?”
3. Desire – Build on the initial steps through showing readers the value of your product or service.
4. Action – This is the goal of your email. It involves a clear and eye-catching “call-to-action” (CTA), such as a sentence or a button that links to your website where readers can learn more. It could be a paragraph about your featured article with a link to the full piece. Action verbs help. Focus on the benefits of the content to get clicks.

To write a great CTA, HubSpot recommends you ask yourself:

• What do I want the reader to do?
• Why should they do it?
• How will they know to do it?

Beyond CTAs in link form, buttons are easy to see. You can change the design and add white space around them. Some copywriters suggest you use the word “me” or “my” instead of “you” or “your” in your CTAs to enhance their appeal.

Examples:

• Learn More
• Book Your Tour
• Schedule My Appointment

The footer can include links to any social media pages and information that complies with CAN-SPAM (U.S. and Canada) and GDPR (Europe) laws.

Keep It Simple to Maintain Interest

Whatever you decide to include in your emails, the Content Marketing Institute recommends they be “simple and focused.” Stick to one topic. If you must add more information, mention it briefly after the main body of the email. Too many details can stop the flow and make readers lose interest. The text should be conversational and helpful, written in a tone appropriate for your style and brand and your target market or buyer’s “persona.”

Some experts recommend the average newsletter be 300 words or fewer — or about six to seven lines of text per message — with simple words, short sentences, and action verbs.

Research backs this up. The Nielsen Norman Group (NNG), which studies internet usage patterns, analyzed 117 newsletters using infrared emitters and webcams to capture people’s expressions. They also used eye-tracking heat maps that showed where users looked.

Their research reveals that people tend to skip introductory text. A little over one-third of the time (35 percent), users skimmed or glanced at the material. The average time users spent opening a newsletter was 51 seconds.

Another of their usability studies of ten emails showed that “users have highly emotional reactions to newsletters.” Because they arrive regularly in their inboxes, readers tend to see them as an ongoing relationship, with more of a bond between them and the company than a website or a blog. And the format must be simple. Only 23 percent read them thoroughly. Users skimmed, scanned, or didn’t open the rest.

A heat map, like those the NNG used that connects to your email marketing platform, can note where people tend to look. Tracking readers’ activity, including open rates, can help you determine future content.

Later, we’ll cover how to create a newsletter template to house your content.

Get The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Newsletter ?

What Should I Write in My First Newsletter?

Your first newsletter can set the standard for later emails. It may serve as an introduction, apart from a “welcome” message or script you send new subscribers automatically. It can also state the purpose of your newsletter and cover content you feel is most relevant to readers. And you may mention when they can expect to receive it.

HubSpot follows a holistic approach to writing a newsletter. They suggest you “consider how to send the right email to the right person at the right time.” They recommend you ask yourself:

• When will this contact see value from this email?
• Will they be able to do something with it right now?
• Is this information relevant to their needs or goals?

Each potential customer is at a different stage in the buying process; some may be in an “awareness” stage and need more educational content compared to someone who is still deciding and needs more information, such as a consultation about the product or service.

How Do I Create a Newsletter Template?

Popular email marketing platforms such as MailChimp and Constant Contact offer templates you can customize with your own colors, fonts, content, stock photos, and branding. You can also choose premade templates based on the audience and subject matter. They typically feature a header and a footer, with one column throughout or a mix of one- and two-column content blocks. There’s usually only one of each column style per email.

Fenwick suggests that when it comes to design, you should keep it simple (like your content). The B2B newsletters they studied “buried whatever point they hoped to make in walls of tiny text, crammed non-essential images into two-column formats (not a death sentence, but difficult to pull off).” They also “produced an experience that felt nothing like their website.”

The newsletters Fenwick ranked highest were:

• An average of 241 words long
• Used fewer images
• Had one column
• Featured the same colors and branding as the company websites

What Does A Well-Designed Email Look Like?

Fenwick gave the average newsletter a score of 1.83 out of three –- just below average; newsletters in their top ten percent achieved a 2.6. They granted only 20 percent of the companies high marks. The top email newsletters were simple, visually appealing, and kept readers’ attention throughout. As they wrote, “The lowest scoring email newsletters were cluttered, poorly formatted, and featured several different nested headers, many columns, and a disorienting amount of text.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, great writing and great design are correlated. Companies that have good copy also have good design instincts and vice versa.”

ADA Guidelines for People With Disabilities

An overlooked part of newsletter design is compliance with accessibility standards such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and the European Union Accessibility Directive. The ADA requires certain businesses to accommodate people with disabilities. Web content for them should be accessible for navigation by voice, screen readers, or other assistive technologies. The ADA guidelines apply to businesses that run 20 or more weeks yearly with at least 15 full-time employees (which they classify as “Title I”) or those that provide “public accommodation” (“Title III”), such as inns and restaurants.

Often, people believe websites must be ADA compliant — they can be subject to financial liabilities if they aren’t — but newsletters and emails aren’t often discussed. The ADA guidelines aren’t specific, so much of them are based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The ADA legal requirements for an email include:

• Maintain a logical reading order
• Use heading elements in code — if you rely on templates and don’t know HTML, this won’t apply
• Include enough contrast between text and background colors (WebAIM contrast checker tool)
• Provide “alt text” for images
• Feature meaningful link text
• Keep your code concise (not applicable if you rely on templates)
• Use a descriptive subject line

The design elements can also include providing enough space around your text and not using colors that are too similar. People with vision problems may find italics hard to read. Links, ideally, include three or more words. Linking to an entire sentence (if it’s short) can be easier to read. Campaign Monitor recommends avoiding “click here” and “read more,” in favor of the more precise, like “Read our recommendations for better links.”

Many of these guidelines are for the visually impaired, so the content should make sense and work well with other devices, such as screen readers.

A descriptive subject line should refer clearly to the newsletter content.

Example: “Picked for you: Light Wash Jeans” (Levi’s?).

Whether or not your business must meet government guidelines, it’s practical to make your content easy to read for everyone.

Planning Your E-Newsletter by Design

MarketingProfs suggests you type or hand-draw a basic design before you begin. If you’re working with a designer or programmer, you can give it to them and they can go from there. They also suggest you ensure the look and feel are clear and consistent with your brand and its voice.

HubSpot suggests it’s important to keep the type of device your readers will use to see your messages in mind. Smartphones are among the smallest screens. Plain text emails work best for newsletters that focus on content. This format is also helpful if you’re linking back to a blog post or a website. Newsletters in HTML format may be more eye-catching than text.

To quote HubSpot, “Regardless of which type of email you are sending, your reader needs to know what you’re trying to convey. Aim for a clean, straightforward design to display the value you are sending.”

Elements of Design

And as covered earlier, every email, to comply with your country’s laws, should have a footer. Per the CAN-SPAM Act in North America, it must have your physical address and links for readers to unsubscribe or to email preferences. It should include your company name, street address, city, and state. The option to unsubscribe is a “goodwill” gesture. HubSpot sees it as a way to build and maintain trust.

For faster load times, use fewer images and keep them fairly small. MailChimp, for example, prompts users to make them 800 pixels wide and 600 pixels high.

Also, too many columns can look confusing. When you’re ready to test your design, check how it looks on other devices. Some email platforms offer this feature. You may also send yourself a copy. This helps with all parts of editing and proofreading, from design elements (images, content blocks, fonts, white space) to checking links and the content itself.

HubSpot uses the following steps when creating a template to show the reader value, explain the action they should take, and create a conversation that feels natural:

1. Set a goal.
2. Outline your email design; write and design the content to involve the reader in your conversation (and convert).
3. Focus on creating a consistent experience.
4. Bring everything together and create a call to action to guide the reader to their next steps.

Essentially, everything should support the goal of your message and be consistent throughout. And make the writing and the design elements easy to scan and understand. ?? That’s another part of building a relationship with your readers.

Making Your Design Flow

Think about the different elements of your email. The top, or header, should be a focal point — put details you want people to see first here, such as your logo.

Headers, links, bold text, and white space throughout emphasize certain parts of your newsletter, making it scannable. White space gives your content room to breathe, breaking up text and images for easier reading.

In most email marketing platforms, 600 pixels wide is standard, but you may be able to change the settings to suit different screen sizes.

How Do You Sign Off a Newsletter?

Depending on the content, each “block” or section can have its own call-to-action (CTA). These usually appear at the end of the block. Campaign Monitor recommends you add some personality to the end of your newsletter or CTA. Your final message should match the tone of the rest of your content.

They suggest you:

• Know your audience
• Keep it pleasant, short, and sweet
• Show gratitude when it’s appropriate

Less is sometimes more.

How Often Should You Send a Newsletter?

The short answer: it’s up to you. ??

If your emails will feature the latest news or promotions, it may be better to send them daily or weekly. For evergreen content, every two weeks or once a month can work well. At the very least, it shouldn’t be less than four times a year, or quarterly.

Ann Handley of MarketingProfs offers the following rules of thumb:

1. Quality matters more than frequency (with some exceptions). It takes her about eight hours to write and publish her newsletters, hence she issues them every two weeks. She also believes there’s no “right answer” to the question of how often you should publish. To her, weekly or every two weeks is a minimum. She sees monthly as “too infrequent.”
2. “Write only when you have something to say” doesn’t work. (The Content Market Institute has promoted that philosophy.)

For professional services firms or solopreneurs, Michael Katz advises that every two weeks is fine; he publishes his on that schedule and finds that “it keeps me very visible and top of mind.” And he says that nearly all of his clients publish theirs monthly. For many people, more often is too much work. He reasons that with social media and other tools, you can get more mileage out of your newsletter through posting on other platforms. Like other forms of content, newsletters yield benefits over time.

Research can help you decide the best schedule. Fenwick — remember them? — suggests that “For a newsletter to remain enjoyable, one email per week is probably fine.” Their analysis found that companies sent an average of six emails monthly. The ones they ranked in their top ten percent averaged 11 per month. They advise that sending an email every other day is a lot and suggest sticking to the average.

How Do I Make a Newsletter for Free?

Few email marketing platforms are truly free; many of them offer limited trials and then charge a monthly fee based on the number of subscribers and/or how often you send.

MailChimp is among the best and most well-known free providers for lists of under 2,000 subscribers. It offers a decent variety of templates for people who aren’t designers or programmers, but if you know HTML, there’s an option for that. You can also preview your newsletters, send tests, and check links. And you can send every new subscriber a “thank you” or “welcome” email. Plus, the platform provides solid metrics, letting you track clicks and opens, including the best dates and times for sending. A/B tests are available for paid accounts.

Other services offer similar options based on the number of contacts and emails you send. With Mailjet, the free limit is 6,000 subscribers and 200 emails daily. The plan includes:

• Unlimited contacts
• APIs
• SMTP relay
• Advanced statistics
• Webhooks
• Advanced email editor

ConvertKit, popular with content marketers, provides their free plan to users with up to 1,000 subscribers. It includes:

• Unlimited landing pages and forms
• Sending email broadcasts
• Selling digital products and subscriptions
• Email support

Other extras are available through their paid plans.

How Do You Write a Professional Newsletter?

After you’ve finished writing a newsletter, check for errors. A thorough read-through to catch mistakes before you hit “send” will make your newsletter look polished. Email yourself and anyone else on your team a test message (or three). Use this list to spot mistakes:

1. Check all links.
2. Go over the design elements, such as font sizes and colors, and links to images, to make sure they’re consistent.
3. Check the readability level. Some grammar experts recommend that your content read at an eighth or ninth-grade level. The Hemingway App works in a pinch.
4. Edit and proofread.
5. Make sure everything makes sense and is correct, including any names, dates, and times. Figures should add up.

If you follow all the steps I outlined above and avoid mistakes, you should be on your way to writing a professional newsletter.

The best of luck to you in your efforts.

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This article originally appeared here.