Create the Perfect Email Newsletter - Part 1

So, is there a formula for putting together the perfect newsletter? Err.... nope. But there IS a best practice approach to putting together a newsletter that works because it is an approach that is tried and tested here at Mailvivo. Our series considers 3 main areas: Strategy, Structure and a Checklist to use every time you want to create the perfect email newsletter.

Strategy

The best marketing campaigns are often the best prepared and the best thought out. Your email newsletter should form part of your marketing strategy and likewise an element of care exercised during this part of the process will reap better dividends when that email starts hitting the Inbox.

• Evaluate Frequency. Regular communication helps foster a relationship, both in the offline and online world. But communication that is uninteresting leads to boredom and puts that relationship on the rocks. Think more personally about your newsletter and only communicate when you have something interesting to say. Be warned, though, that quarterly communications tend to get forgotten and we advise every 6 weeks as a maximum window.

  Other issues to consider include the fact that new subscribers are often more responsive than older ones. Your newsletter should be just one part of a more complete marketing communications strategy. Consider how many times your subscribers will receive emails with this in mind.

  Our belief at Mailvivo is that any email should form part of a genuine conversation with your subscriber. We recommend that you look at your lead-to-purchase sales cycle to help you decide on when and how many marketing emails, including newsletters, you should be sending each year. B2C (business-to-consumer) sales cycles are often very short whereas B2B (business-to-business) sales cycles are typically much longer. This translates to regular B2C newsletters (2/3 times a month) and less regular B2B newsletters (1 a month). Either way have a calendar that plans all your email marketing activity ahead of time.

• Decide on Timing. Many people still ask, "What is the best day/time to send my email?". Today, however, that rather futile argument has moved on. The best day and time is down to the type of communications your organisation sends out, to whom and where those subscribers are located. Test some alternative send times, observe the results and go with what worked best.

  Or to take it to the next level: why not send out your newsletter based on the last time each individual subscriber clicked, opened or signed-up? This means you have the best chance of capturing your subscriber online (based on their previously recorded activity) before your email newsletter gets buried out of sight in their Inbox. At Mailvivo we call this technology the Email Optimiser and it works a treat increasing open rates by up to 50%!

• Establish your Identity. So who are you then? Sound like a silly question? Well it is, but it might come as surprise that the identity of the sender of your email newsletter should reflect your business. Careless thought given to the Sender Name and From address will lead to subscribers getting confused and becoming disengaged from your emails. Use your company name in the Sender Name. It is the first place people look so decide on something and be consistent. Relationships can get mightily confusing if the person you are talking to keeps changing their identity!

  Next, your subscriber will turn their attention to the Subject Line. This is the call-to-action to your subscriber to get them to open the email once they have established trust by accepting the Sender Name. Subject lines are a whole topic in themselves¹. We recommend you keep them short and snappy. Under 40 characters in length is best. Also, very important, make the subject line consistent with the goal of your email (next point) as just trying to get someone to open an email and having that not relate to your actual message is a complete waste of time.

• Have a Goal. The best emails, including e-newletters, work best when there a single, clearly defined goal. Newsletter writers typically communicate many different topics. Our advice is to avoid cramming your newsletter full of press releases, company news, product releases, case studies, etc. Have a focused goal and stick to it. Marketing-wise we can think of translating that goal into a suitable primary call-to-action within each newsletter you produce.

• Decide on Content. Your newsletter content is mainly about text, images and links. Most newsletters are not direct selling pieces hence we recommend an 80/20% ratio of information over marketing content. For each content section, or story, within your newsletter leverage eye tracking statistics that tell us that most people do not read beyond the first 45 words of any article. Aim to get measurable clicks by linking off to more content or an offer on a suitable landing page. Our basic advice on content strategy is don't try and use your content to sell inside the newsletter -- use your landing page (where people go after they click) to do that.

  Struggling to actually write the content? Well, maybe you don't have to! Tap into all relevant sources to extract information that is valuable because it is either useful or exclusive. Relevant sources include your website, blog, Facebook page, sales material, internal docs, etc. Think laterally and you need never struggle again to find suitable and adaptable content. Also remember re-hashing old content is fine because, due partly to list churn, not every subscriber (read none!) has been actively reading every email newsletter your company has ever sent.

• Be Relevant. The biggest reason email is junked is because it is not relevant to the reader. One factor in the relevance equation is understanding the emotional connection you have with your subscriber base. An intelligent way to do this is to ask your subscribers (when they subscribe) what interests they have. Furthermore you can also set interests against subscribers on the basis of their conversion activity (purchases, downloads and the like).

  Decent email marketing platforms allow you to profile your subscribers in this way and then move it to the next level which is targeting content based on subscriber interest profiles. At Mailvivo, we give our clients a highly accessible point & click dynamic content interface. This allows for an email newsletter to be produced with a variety of content but only have elements relevant to each subscriber's profile appear when they read it. This is true one-to-one marketing and subscriber response can be as much as eight times greater as a result. Being relevant has never been easier!

• Be Sociable. Facebook has become a more visited site than Google². Twitter and LinkedIn are social networking sites that serve business interests as well as being of personal value. If your customers or potential customers are using any of these channels then you should consider having a presence there as well. Moreover, you should link to your Facebook page or equivalent from every email newsletter. That Facebook page should also have a tab that contains a sign-up form for the newsletter. On Twitter? Then use your Twitter account to announce and link to a web version of your latest newsletter.

  Part of being sociable within the digital world is to give the opportunity for your subscribers to share content from your newsletter across their social network. But don't forget that still by far the most popular way people share their emails is by forwarding it on via email! Linking off to a subscription page from your newsletter is a must for all those people who get your newsletter and who are not actually subscribers yet.

• Look for Feedback. It is a fairly typical human reaction that people don't like criticism. Bear in mind, however, that feedback from your subscribers is potentially the most valuable opinion you will get. Giving your recipients the opportunity to vote whether they did or did not enjoy the newsletter you just sent them is the easiest option. Use this feedback to positively impact future communications as it helps to keep things fresh.

  

• Measure Results Intelligently. The most commonly measured statistics are open, clickthrough, bounce and unsubscribe ratios. Some of the least measured are conversion rates and response by segment which happen to be one of the most important when looking at the results of your campaign. Consider an open rate of 35% for your newsletter. Now, consider that 3 newsletters with the same open rate could reach around 85% of your subscriber base -- not everyone reads the newsletter each time it is sent. Measuring this type of user engagement is key to understanding the impact of your newsletters.

  Mailvivo have been pioneers of engagement tracking, a way of indexing individual contacts as well as segments by an engagement score that reflects their activity, weighted over time. Therefore, a highly engaged subscriber is one that has been recently and regularly responding whereas less engaged subscribers have more distant and less frequent activity patterns. Once you have this visibility your marketing can be transformed from a stab in the dark each time you send to a much more informed and effective communications strategy.

In Summary: Better planning will mean better results.

References
1) Marketing Experiments: Optimising Headlines and Subject Lines
2) Hitwise: Facebook outranks Google

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