4 Ways to Breathe New Life into Email Newsletters

Did you know that the average time an email newsletter is viewed by a recipient is 51 seconds? That is if it even gets read it at all. Newsletters are a brilliant way to connect with your subscribers and share informative, insightful and exciting content. If you find your subscribers – or yourself – feeling bored and unenthusiastic about the content you are currently putting in your newsletter, you’ve come to the right place! Here are four simple ways to breathe new life into your newsletters:

1. Use the power of visual content. It’s safe to assume that most customers don’t want to read long boring paragraphs in a newsletter. Today, visuals can make or break an email newsletter. Of course, text is essential, but take care to not overload recipients with information. Think instead of having text in digestible bites. Also consider how you can tell a story with your visual elements, so you don’t need to rely on copy so heavily. The human brain can grab context from images almost immediately. Visual content is the perfect way to get your message across to a consumer and engage them. This can help you draw in the reader so they take action. You’re likely already using visuals in your email newsletters but take the time to audit your newsletter content to see where you can cut text and add images to avoid stagnant email newsletter performance.

2. Be personal. No one likes to feel like just another email subscriber, right? Consumers today want personalized communications from and interactions with brands. This can be accomplished in a few different ways. Personalization through dynamic content is one way to add a customized feel to email newsletters. Segmentation can also be effective here. For example, you could have separate newsletters for customers with different interests or who purchase different products or services from your company. Another approach is to alter the tone you use in your text. Instead of thinking like you are writing to a large group of people, imagine that you are writing to one. Think of how personal a letter written just to you feels and try to capture that feeling in your copy.

3. Consider recipient viewing habits. As a marketer, you can reap big benefits by accommodating recipients’ habits and preferences. Today, 46 percent of emails are opened on a mobile device, which means the trend in email design is moving towards mobile first. This goes beyond just having a mobile responsive newsletter, which most major email service providers will handle for you. It means thinking first about what an email will look like and how it will perform on mobile first, rather than prioritizing desktop viewing in your design. But just because email is steadily trending towards mobile viewing doesn’t mean that is the case for all email senders. Dig into your email statistics to determine what your unique audience prefers. For many B2B organizations, that could very easily be a preference for desktop. Tailor your email formatting to what type of device your audience prefers to create the most engaging and accessible email newsletters.

4. Have an effective call to action. A call to action (CTA) encourages your newsletter readers to act. It can often be found in a line of text, a button or text over an image. Having effective CTAs can directly impact your sales. Make sure they catch the reader’s eye. It is important to make the CTA large enough to be noticed but not too large that it overshadows the rest of the email. Make the language of your CTA easy to understand. It is essential the reader understands the message you are trying to get across and the action you want them to take so that they do not brush past it.

Happy Marketing!