6 steps to writing a newsletter that people will read

6 steps to writing a newsletter that people will read


A couple of years ago we re-launched the Heart Internet customer newsletter to great success. All the metrics we use to benchmark newsletters went through the roof; open rates, click through rate, conversions and revenue. Here’s the approach we took to make this happen.
Before we get on to the ‘how’, I’d like to quickly touch on the ‘why’. Customer newsletters, in my opinion, should be a no brainer. A good newsletter that is sent regularly will increase sales and revenue for immediate purchases, keep you in contact ready for future purchases and provide customers something to pass on and share.
1. Segment your customer base
If you sell multiple products which are targeted at different audiences don’t group them all in to one mailing list. Each audience has different levels of knowledge, different motivators and varying degrees of interest in a subject. A newsletter that goes to all your customers is only partially relevant to each segment.
2. Content that benefits them
A newsletter is not an excuse to copy and paste your press releases, write about the MD’s thoughts on the industry or provide a detailed explanation of widget X’s specifications. Give your customers content they want to read and keep these two questions in mind; “Is it interesting?” and “Is it useful?” This could be promotional prices, articles to help them improve an aspect of their business/ life, competitions/ prizes, new products/ services/ features they can use etc.
3. Take your time
The customer newsletter should be given the same care and attention as any other marcomms. You wouldn’t quickly knock up a magazine advert in 10 minutes and send it out, and you shouldn’t do the same with your newsletter. I receive newsletters from design agencies that have clearly only been written and built minutes before they are sent (or at least they look like it). At Heart Internet it takes a week from starting the first draft through to it being sent out.
4. Keep it short
No matter how long you spend on it and how ground breaking the content is, no one will read an email that rivals War & Peace. Short punchy paragraph are the order of the day with links taking people to a full article hosted on your site if they want to read more. Get straight to the point and skip the introductory paragraph about your company, they are your customers, they know who you are.
5. Clear calls to action
Research has found your newsletter has only got 51 seconds before the reader loses interest and only 19% of recipients will fully read a newsletter, the rest will scan the page. With such a short time and general lack of involvement, make your calls to action (e.g. click here to buy) prominent using buttons, highlighted text, arrows and any other disturber that fits in with your design.
6. Cross reference across all channels
Rather than duplicating our efforts writing content just for the blog and just for the newsletter, we regularly run blog articles through the newsletter. This catches customers who don’t read the blog and raises the awareness of our blog. After each newsletter we see a clear increase in visits to our blog.