The StyleSheet - For businesses that use the internet

Five Ways to Improve Your E-Newsletter

Posted October 19, 2009 By Sarah Buser |

Have you started your e-newsletter yet? If you haven’t, check out Nick’s article on the basics. If you’ve already taken the first steps, here are five tips to make your e-newsletter better and increase your open rates and returns:

1. Know your audience.

Keep content relevant, and grab your readers’ attention with useful and innovative topics. It can be very effective to use a friendly, informal tone if it’s appropriate, but for highly technical articles, a more formal tone may be the best way to inform your readers.

2. Send it regularly.

Generally, sending between once a week and once every six weeks is ideal. Any more can be an annoyance; any less and your readers might forget you. When you decide on your frequency, think about what’s useful to your readers and if you can keep the quality high enough to send a newsletter however often.

3. Give them a mission.

Your readers should walk away with an action in mind. If you’re a non-profit, maybe that means donating. If you’re a store, that means offering them something special. Think about what your goals are with your newsletter and try to steer them that direction.

4. Make sure your subject line gives a sneak peak.

This is one that we here at TradeMark Media and the StyleSheet have just recently adopted. People are more likely to open your e-newsletter if they know they’re going to benefit. Also, chances are they already know what month it is and they couldn’t care less about what volume it is. For more on subject lines, see this article: http://www.enewsbuilder.net/enewsbuilder/e_article001334533.cfm?x=b11,0,w.

5. Don’t overload it.

Keep it brief. If you have a lot of subjects to cover, consider dividing your newsletter up and having your subscribers choose which topics they want to read about.

Looking for more tips? Here are some good resources:

• http://www.nonprofitmarketingguide.com/resources/email_newsletters/nonprofit-email-newsletters/

• http://blog.subscribermail.com/2009/09/25/4-quick-ways-to-improve-your-b2b-email-newsletter/

• http://www.mailchimp.com/articles/improving_your_email_open_rate/

• http://www.michelfortin.com/how-to-improve-your-email-open-rates/

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