How to Write a Newsletter That People Will Read

Email marketing is a popular and highly effective digital marketing strategy, but to harness the full power of email marketing, you’ll need to write emails that get results.

Newsletters are a type of marketing email and can be helpful to share relevant, valuable information to a network of leads, prospects, and customers.

What is a newsletter?

Newsletters are one of the most common types of emails in an email marketing strategy. As the name suggests, newsletters aim to keep the audience engaged and updated with the latest news from the business or brand. 

Email marketing is one of the oldest and most established ways to market on the internet. When done well, newsletters can effectively promote business growth and boost sales. 

Benefits of newsletters

While the purpose of newsletters is to inform and educate, they also come with many benefits. 

1. Increase trust and credibility

People connect with brands that they resonate with. Being transparent and detailing exciting updates, upcoming events, or behind-the-scenes looks at product launches can make your customers feel part of your business. You can also highlight your expertise in your field with valuable tips and tricks or how-to’s to increase your credibility and build trust.

2. Establish strong relationships

The competition can be huge with digital marketing. To stand out from the masses, businesses need to give more to get more in return. While it might seem counterintuitive, providing value-rich content before visitors become paying customers can convert more leads. By highlighting your expertise and experience, you give the user a glimpse into what you have to offer. Continually producing high-quality content will nurture the relationship with your visitors.

3. Increase website traffic

If you want to increase blog traffic, or website landing page, email newsletters are a great way to achieve this. By including high-value content that piques the interest of your audience, they’ll be more likely to visit your website and see what else you have to offer. Many businesses also like to include links or call to actions (CTAs) during a newsletter to directly drive traffic to their website.

4. Boost sales

While newsletters are generally non-commercial and not intended to advertise or persuade, they can boost sales indirectly. As mentioned in the earlier points, sharing valuable content highlights your expertise and can encourage readers to purchase your product or service. You can also include client highlights like testimonials or case studies in a newsletter to influence their intentions towards your business.

5. Improve brand awareness

Building brand authority and understanding helps increase your customer reach and retention. If your newsletters are unique and high-value, your network will start to look forwards to what you have to share and associate your sender name and brand with positive experiences.

While drafting up a newsletter may seem simple, producing a well-written one might take a little bit more work. Here are eight tips for writing a newsletter that compels, convinces, and eventually converts as many customers as possible.

Tips for writing a newsletter

1. Create a catchy subject line

The first thing the reader will see is the newsletter’s subject line. If it’s not catchy or intriguing enough, your open and click-through rates will decrease. However, make sure your subject line is fun and enticing without sounding like clickbait, as this will increase your chance of being reported as spam.

A great way to come up with a great subject line is by identifying the potential pain points of your customers. By addressing common concerns, you can craft a subject line that intrigues and identifies a pressing issue, so readers feel compelled to open the email and read the rest of the content.

2. Capture attention within the first few sentences

Once the reader has opened the newsletter, this is your chance to draw them in within the first few lines. Most of us tend to skim read over the initial part of every email that we receive, and if the content isn’t relevant or interesting, we’re more likely to click out. The first few sentences aren’t the time to pitch your business or craft a lengthy introduction but summarise the main points of the newsletter from the get-go. 

By getting straight to the point in a clear and concise manner, you’ll be able to capture their attention immediately.

3. Make it personal

Email personalization can achieve between an 11-15% increase in email open rates, and including your customer’s name in the email opening can boost an extra 5%. While you might have hundreds or thousands of email subscribers, talk to them on an individual basis and make your writing as personal as possible. 

A simple yet effective way to incorporate personalization into your newsletters is to include your customer’s name a few times throughout the body of the email. This will immediately engage them and capture their attention — which is great when you’re trying to stand out from the other hundreds of emails in their inbox. You can also use their buying habits to recommend other products and services to them or remind them when they’ve left an item in their cart.

4. Use emotive words

Emotionally connected customers will buy more of your products and services. They are also more likely to become repeat customers, pay more attention to your emails, and refer you to others. Cultivate a strong emotional connection by showing respect and concern for your customer’s needs. Don’t be afraid to get personal, and utilize emotion-rich words during the newsletter. 

Sometimes, using overly technical words can put the reader off, which causes them to disengage from your brand or business and what you have to offer. By using a good mix of “everyday” words and emotive adjectives, you’ll be able to engage them and drive better results.

5. Make it easy to read

We’ve all got busy schedules which can decrease our attention spans. When confronted with a large body of text, most people will simply click off, as long paragraphs or big chunks of copy can look intimidating. Make it easier for your readers to go through your newsletter by incorporating a good mix of shorter paragraphs, subheadings, bullet points, and lists. Draw attention to specific key points by highlighting them in bold or varying the sentence lengths.

6. Don’t just advertise, inform 

Highly educational and informative content demonstrates your expertise and solves the problems of your website visitors and potential customers. If all the content you publish in your newsletters is promotional and aims to pitch your business, prospects are more likely to tune out and not convert. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t drive traffic to your website and increase your sales with your newsletters, but tactfully showcasing your products and services while remaining informative and educational is essential. A few powerful CTAs are great, but when your entire newsletter is a big ad for your business, it might be time to rethink how you communicate to your audience.

7. Add relevant visuals 

The question of whether to include visuals in newsletters or not has always remained polarising amongst content marketers. However, adding a few relevant visuals to an otherwise dull article of text can help break up the monotony, add some color, and bring a fresh element to the reader’s eyes. Emails that contain some form of imagery have a 4.5% higher click-through rate than purely text-based emails.

It’s also important that the visuals are relevant and high-quality. This means avoid generic stock photos as much as possible (unless it’s the only option you have!) and use them sparingly. A typical text to image ratio for most email newsletters is 60:40. Try to avoid using too many images or irrelevant visuals, as you might get flagged for spam.

8. Close with a strong CTA 

Once you’ve filled out the subject line and body of the newsletter, it’s time to close it with a strong call to action (CTA). Besides the opening few sentences, the closing is the most crucial part of any email newsletter. While most of the newsletter can be informative and non-commercial, ultimately, you want the reader to take some form of action. This is where a CTA comes in. Make it strong, obvious, clear, and concise what you want the reader to do. This could be clicking on a specific landing page, contacting the team, downloading a free resource, or buying a product. 

CTAs can be a sentence with a clickable hyperlink, or they can also be a CTA button that helps direct the reader’s attention. 

The bottom line

Newsletters are a great way to engage and connect with your audience. It’s vital to capture their attention almost immediately with a powerful opening and keep them engaged throughout, so they ultimately convert. 

Creating a compelling newsletter requires some planning and effective strategy, but it’s always worth it.