Newsletters are potent in not only staying top-of-mind with existing customers to keep them returning, but also setting yourself on a prospective customer’s radar. Because of the ability to segment prospects and reach specific target audiences, email marketing is still one of the most profitable methods of marketing. Email marketing enables you to create newsletters that are optimized to appeal to specific audiences, and easily reach prospective customers. To optimize your newsletter you’ll want to focus on these five things:  

Don’t Overwhelm your Audience

With a high volume of emails flooding inboxes, sending out newsletters too frequently can overwhelm your audience and deter them from being interested in your content. Newsletters should add value, be informative, and offer insight to readers. By sending out a high-quality newsletter once a week, it allows your audience to look forward to your emails, not dread them. It is also important to note that you should not underwhelm your recipients either. Quality content is the most important thing to remember in deciding when to send out your newsletter. Finding that perfect rate in which to send out your newsletter should be an organic process that feeds off the need to give out more information and updates, not simply because you haven’t sent one out in a few days.

Link Everything

By the point of newsletter creation, you should know your audience, have a handle on what information they’re looking for, and know what topics will be of value to them. Once you know who you are marketing to, it becomes clear what information will attract their attention. By linking every aspect of your newsletter (headlines, images, descriptions, etc.) to its prospective article, you allow viewers easy access to their desired content which ultimately drives traffic. Readers who invest their time to read further on a particular subject are genuinely interested—thus a better representative of a potential client or customer.

Don’t Skip the A/B Split Test

A/B split tests are a way to create the most intriguing subject line by testing it out on a portion of your audience. By formulating two subject lines and sending each of them out to roughly 10% of your target market, you can see which test (A or B) has a higher open rate. Whichever subject line has a higher open rate, that version is then sent out to the rest of your audience. The A/B split test method allows you to test different versions of the newsletter email and push out the version that’s performing better.

Create a Balance

With a myriad of purposes ranging from brand awareness to updates in industry trends, the content you include in your newsletter should be well balanced in its topics. By implementing an educational focus in your newsletters, you attract viewers to your site who possess a  common interest. Integrating your social media accounts into your newsletter also creates a deeper connection with prospective customers, and supports the “show, don’t tell” principle.  Rather than simply stating your profound knowledge on certain topics, it is far better to explicitly demonstrate your expertise.

K.I.S.S.

As always, never forget to Keep It Simple, Stupid. This is the mantra to live by when it comes to email marketing. The truth of the matter is that most people just scan the emails they receive. As a result, long paragraphs of copy derail the viewer from tackling the email at hand. Short, caption-like teasers for blogs and events have much more success in capturing your reader’s attention, informing them, and enticing them to click on the link to read more.

The necessities for every newsletter are different based on who you are trying to reach, but the principle is ultimately the same. Email marketing plays a major role in determining how consumers view your company. Frequency, linking, subject lines, well-balanced content, and simplicity are the first five aspects of a email marketing you should consider when crafting a newsletter. Are you receiving high response rates on your newsletters? Let us know how you keep your readers engaged in the comments below!