Best methods to make a professional newsletter

A newsletter is an email that is sent with a predetermined frequency to the people who subscribed to receive that email. We can translate the term newsletter as “newsletter” and this type of communication, which includes offers or other types of content, is capable of creating a close relationship between brands and their audience.

Have you thought about creating a newsletter for your business?

If you never considered this possibility, we invite you to give it a try, because the newsletter will allow you to strengthen the bond with your audience and, consequently, make your brand the obvious option for people when they decide to buy the type of product or service. that you offer.

This email marketing strategy can be decisive in captivating your audience. According to data from the American company Greentech Media , a visitor who comes to a website through a newsletter spends 80% more time on that page than those who come from other channels.

Can you imagine how many conversion possibilities these people who browse your e-commerce can generate?

If you are excited to use this tool, here are tips, examples and tools to create your company’s newsletter . Let’s go! 📧

What is a newsletter?

A newsletter is an email that is sent to the people who subscribed to receive that email . Newsletter is a term that comes from English and we can translate it as “newsletter”.

This format is a fundamental piece of the e-mail marketing strategy of companies, since it is responsible for maintaining contact with the target audience with varied messages that go beyond offering exclusively the sale of a product.

There are different types and formats of newsletters and each company chooses the one that best suits its needs. To find yours, we recommend that you subscribe to some of them, including those of your competitors, to see how they do it.

As part of your research, we invite you to subscribe to the TANNUBE newsletter through the form that you will find below. In addition to seeing what a newsletter looks like in practice, you take the opportunity to discover relevant information about e-commerce and digital marketing.

How to make a newsletter?

It is possible that, at this point, you think that it is time to go directly to the design and delivery of your newsletter. However, there are some preliminary steps that we suggest you complete before doing so.

Let’s see in detail what are the 10 steps to make a newsletter:

Define your goals

Like any other digital marketing strategy , the first thing you have to do is establish your main objective. Do you want to attract more visitors to your website? Or do you just want to increase your sales?

After this, we recommend that you define more specific objectives, regarding the open and click-through rate that you expect to have when you send your campaigns.

If you don’t know what these rates consist of, don’t worry, because in step number 9 we are going to explain how to track the results of newsletter campaigns and we are going to delve into these indicators.

Establish the frequency of sending your newsletters

At this point we regret to inform you that there is no magic formula that works for all segments and audiences.

For this reason, you have to pay attention to two main aspects about periodicity:

It should not be too constant to the point of saturating the recipients;

And it also shouldn’t be so spaced that it makes people forget about your brand.

We also suggest that you run as many tests as necessary. Here the technique of trial and error applies . You can start by sending one newsletter a week, see the results, and then try sending it twice a week.

In step 10 we are going to talk about the tests or tests that you can apply when doing email marketing to improve your results.

Determine the type of newsletter

The two types of newsletters most used by companies are content and promotional. Let’s look at each of them.

Content newsletter

As the name suggests, this type of newsletter works closely with your content marketing strategy.

The idea of this type of newsletter is to send information and interesting materials to your audience , with two key objectives: for your brand to become a benchmark within your field and to bring visitors to your website.

Some examples of content that your newsletter may have are:

Blog articles : here you can write a brief summary about the post and add a link that directs your subscribers to read the full text on your site.

Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) related to the category to which your business belongs.

Case studies related to your business.

News from other blogs or media that you think may be of interest to your audience.

Promotion newsletter

In this type of newsletter you are going to disseminate information about your products or services . The idea is to keep your audience informed about the news of your brand.

In this sense, the messages you can send may refer to:

Launching of new collections.

Offers and benefits that will take effect on some special date.

Tips on personalized gifts that your audience may find useful to give to family or friends.

Choose an email marketing tool

For your newsletters to have a more professional image, we suggest using an email marketing tool.

Currently there are multiple platforms that you can use without having technical knowledge. Likewise, these tools have custom fields (such as the recipient’s name at the beginning of the e-mail) that help prevent your e-mails from being considered spam.

Design the newsletter

Now everything is ready to move on to the design phase! To do this, we share some good practices:

Avoid that your e-mail is a great image . When the text is in the image file, it makes it difficult for visually impaired people to access the message, who use software that can only read text, not images. Also, when the email is just an image, it is more likely to fall into the “spam” tray.

I included CTA . CTAs or calls to action seek to direct the audience to a certain offer or content. In general, they are written with imperative verbs to indicate what the person should do. This resource helps stimulate your audience to click on the links you shared.

Don’t write long emails . Keep in mind that few people have the time to read a long email, so it is best to get straight to the point.

I included a button at the end of the email so that people can unsubscribe . This prevents those who do not want to receive your content from reporting your emails as spam .

Inform your audience that they can register for your newsletter

It is a good practice to inform through your social networks that you have a newsletter. Likewise, we suggest you put banners on your website, informing how people can register.

Don’t forget to place the registration forms in visible places on your page, such as the header (the top part of your website) and the footer (the bottom part).

Do shipping tests

Before making each shipment, it is important to do the respective tests to:

verify that there is no error that prevents the recipient from opening the email;

identify that mail is being sent and received normally;

verify that the design works on different types of devices (especially mobile and desktop ).

For this, it is convenient to send the test e-mail to different servers. For example, send the newsletter to your corporate email address and another to your personal email. I opened the message on a computer and on the cell phone to verify that everything is working correctly before sending it to your contact base.

Offer good service to your subscribers

To gain the trust of the people who make up your contact base, you have to reply to their messages when they ask you any questions after receiving your newsletter.

On the other hand, if a subscriber requests that their email be removed from your contact list, respect their request.

By complying with this request, you will not only prevent your brand from having a negative image, but you will also be able to comply with the Personal Data Protection Law of Argentina.

Measure the results

Tracking the email marketing metrics of your newsletter will allow you to identify areas for improvement and what is working perfectly.

Some of the main indicators are:

📧 Delivery rate : percentage of emails sent that are actually being delivered to recipients.

If there is a significant difference between sent and delivered emails, it may be because your list contains a large number of invalid or obsolete emails. In this case, we suggest you perform a database cleanup .

Likewise, it is important to receive the permission of the users to be incorporated into the contact list. This is accomplished when people sign up voluntarily.

If this does not happen, it is possible that your newsletter is classified as spam and may even end up on the famous blacklists (antispam databases that filter messages).

📧 Open rate : percentage of emails opened by users among all those delivered.

It is calculated as follows: number of people who opened your email divided by the number of subscribers who received it and multiplied by 100.

According to Doppler, an E-mail, Automation & Data Marketing platform, the current market states that a campaign that has a 20% open rate is considered successful.

If your rate is below that percentage, we recommend changing the time for sending your newsletters . It is also important that you keep track of the type of issue that generates the most openings, so that you understand which messages your audience responds to best .

Finally, keep in mind that the segmentation of the lists is key : divide your contacts according to common interests, so that you can personalize the messages. This will help improve the open rate.

📧 Click-through rate : percentage of clicks on the links that were sent in the newsletter among the total number of opened emails.

This indicator shows the interest generated by your content among the contacts in your database.

For this reason, if the click-through rate is much lower than the open rate, it means that subscribers are not clear about where they should click or are not motivated to consume your information.

To solve this situation, we suggest that you improve the design of your newsletter, making sure that the message is understood, especially CTAs ( call to action ).

Also, try to vary your content so that you can find the topics that generate the most interaction.

📧 Subscription cancellations : number of people who asked to stop receiving your newsletter.

There are multiple reasons why people ask to unsubscribe. Two of the most frequent have to do with the type of content you broadcast and the frequency of your posts .

In the first case, segmentation – once again – is crucial: send the precise information for each audience. In the second case, we recommend you reduce the frequency of sending and allow the contacts, at the time of registration, to vote how often they would like to receive your emails.

💡 Keep in mind that most email marketing tools offer reports that have these metrics.

Do A / B testing

The A / B testing or A / B test allows you to send two different versions of the same email to a segment of your contact list. The goal is to identify the version that has the best results.

Some of the aspects that you can test are:

subject of e-mail or subject ;

CTA;

colors and location of buttons.

We suggest you make a modification for each test, since if you make several changes, you will not be able to identify which was responsible for the best results.