An email newsletter can deliver a very strong return-on-investment for your business or organization. That’s not just a baseless claim: Research indicates the average ROI for an email marketing campaign is $44 for every dollar you spend.
Of course, not all campaigns are equally effective. You need to develop newsletter ideas and execute on a design that will resonate with your followers.
Don’t stress about this, though! The following newsletter best practices and design ideas will help you come up with a campaign that yields results.
How to Make a Newsletter that Engages New Followers With You Brand
Brand storytelling is crucial to your success as an email marketer. People don’t sign up for your newsletter because they want you to try to make a sale with each email you send; they sign up because they want to receive valuable and engaging content. That said, they may not be that familiar with your brand when they first sign up.
Knowing this, you might create a newsletter format in which you introduce new followers to your organization. The first few emails you send to them could merely explain what your organization’s values and mission are. This engages new followers with your brand right away and boosts your chances of retaining them.
This newsletter idea also highlights an important point: you shouldn’t send all your followers the same content. That’s among the most common email marketing mistake to avoid. Different followers will simply be at different stages in the customer journey. A new follower may need an introduction to your brand, but someone who has been following your newsletter for years certainly won’t. Segment accordingly and use a different newsletter design for each audience.
Incorporate Expert Roundups in Your Newsletter Design
Depending on the size of your business, you may find it difficult to consistently generate content for your newsletter. A small marketing team could stretch its bandwidth too thin if you’re constantly writing all of your own content.
Expert roundups are a newsletter idea that offer a solution to this problem. You can simply pick a topic your followers would be interested in and send a series of emails featuring several quotes from experts weighing in on it. You may reach out to these experts directly, or use quotes from other sources (as long as you cite them properly).
For example, maybe your business is a digital marketing agency. A newsletter design featuring a series of emails where marketing gurus provide their favorite tips would certainly appeal to your readers.
Loyalty Emails are An Easy Newsletter Idea for Customer Appreciation
People often follow a brand’s email newsletter because the brand’s core values resonate with them. For instance, maybe you’re handling email marketing for an app that helps people manage a health condition. You might therefore develop a newsletter format in which you highlight true stories of people who’ve benefited from using it.
With this newsletter idea, you could thank your loyal followers for helping the brand achieve its goal. This makes your followers feel appreciated. It also gives them the sense that they’ve contributed to the brand’s overall success.
Keep Newsletter Best Practices in Mind
Don’t forget to adhere to common newsletter best practices when developing your campaign ideas. For example, when coming up with newsletter design ideas or format, remember that people typically check email via mobile devices more often than via computers these days. Your newsletter design should account for this. You want to break up large blocks of text with other formatting elements (headers, lists, etc.) to make it more “scannable” on a mobile device.
Consider signing up for your favorite brands’ newsletters as well. The ones that make the biggest impression will inspire you on how to make a newsletter that’s unique to your brand!
Keeping the above newsletter ideas in mind and following best practices will help you create campaigns that both expand brand awareness and boost your bottom line. Experiment with your own newsletter format to see what works best and always continue optimizing!