How To Write An Engaging Email Newsletter

Starting your own email newsletter is paramount to enhancing your relationship with your customers. Big businesses recognize its importance, as these emails you send can be used to bring traffic to your website, promote your products and share useful information with your prospects.

But how do you optimize your posts for the results you want?

Writing an engaging email newsletter post is not as hard as you think. You just have to know some of the basics of online writing and marketing.

In this article, I’ll share some useful tips to create an email newsletter that brings you the outcomes that you want.

What Should Every Email Newsletter Contain?

Generally, email newsletters aren’t as big as blog posts in length. Still, they both are very similar in their writing style. Every successful email newsletter contains;

- A Subject line

This is the first thing your subscriber sees in their inbox of your newsletter. It should give them an idea about what’s inside.

- A Header

A header, or the first line is what your readers see under the subject line when they receive your email in their inbox.

- Body

Whatever you write between header and your call to action comes under the body which basically, is your copy.

- Pictures/Gif

Images or gifs aren’t a necessary part of an email newsletter, however a lot of big companies use them to make their newsletter more interesting.

- A Call To Action

This is usually the last line of your email, where you motivate your subscribers to take things beyond the newsletter.

Tips To Write An Engaging Email Newsletter

Now that you know about the necessary components of an engaging email newsletter, let’s dive into how you can make use of them.

So here are five tips to write an email that gets results.

1. Define The Goal Of Your Newsletter

This is the first step you need to take when you’re starting something new. Being clear about what goal you want to achieve with your email newsletter helps you while you’re writing all of your future posts. Think of it like a guide along the road.

And the goal of every newsletter is different. So you need to determine whether you want to share information with your customers, promote your products and services, or generate traffic to your website. Different goals lead to different styles of writing.

The point is, you shouldn’t use one newsletter to do several tasks. Instead you should direct all of your emails towards a one strong goal.

2. Craft An Irresistible Subject Line

As we discussed, the subject lines are your first impression to your readers. So, it can make or break the deal.

Let’s put first things first, your subject line shouldn’t be more than ten words. Because anything more than ten words will be cut off and the user won’t be able to see it. So better not write it.

But the good news is since these subject lines are small in length, it wouldn’t take much of your time to come up with them. You only need to know some basics of catching attention.

Grabbing attention comes down to two things: providing value while creating a sense of urgency. These two things, if you do them right, will increase your open rate.

You have to put something in your subject line that interests your reader. And all interesting headlines have one thing in common; they are not literal. Because if it’s too obvious, then it’s too boring. And people don’t like boring stuff.

So don’t give everything away in your subject line, instead give your reader a little sneak peek into what’s inside.

Other than that, you can create a sense of urgency by using words like “ending in 24 hours” or “$20 off for today”. Using this strategy causes the fear of missing out in your reader. And this will make them open your newsletter.

3. Your Opening Line…

Putting a header is not so common in the modern email newsletters. That’s because a newsletter is already too small to break it down.

But we can still talk about the opening line of your writing because it plays a similar role to that of a header in a blog post. That is, giving an idea to the reader what the post is about.

So what should be the opening line of your newsletter?

Here are some ideas:

• If you’re confused between two subject lines, you can use your second choice in your opening line.
• Use a relatable stat from a reliable source.
• Or simply ask a question that’s relating the reader to your post.

You can use any one of these to spark interest into the reader and make them eager to read your post.

4. How To Write A Compelling Body

The majority of the newsletters contain two or three paragraphs. That’s because when people are checking their emails, they have a very small attention span, and they don’t want to read anything lengthy. So, you have to convince the reader to take your desired action in that little space available.

So how do you make the most out of your newsletter body?

You need to take care of three things.

First, you need to be clear and concise in your writing. Don’t beat around the bush because if your reader notices a slight amount of fluff, they might just close your email without even reading the main part.

Second, use easy language in your post. Because the goal is to get across your message in as little time as possible. So try to write like you’re talking to a sixth grader.

Third, try to make your writing more conversational. Write like you’re talking to them face to face. Because the last thing you want to do is make your newsletter sound boring. Your customer shouldn’t feel like they’re talking to a robot.

To avoid that, you need to ask questions, throw some puns and use humor. Pretty much how you make a conversation more interesting, right?

5. Plant An Irresistible CTA

A call to action is the climax of your email newsletter. This is where you prompt your reader to take any action. Some newsletters contain more than one CTA but I believe there should only be one clear call to action to make it easy for your customers to take the next step. I believe that, because more than one CTA can confuse your prospect.

But this one CTA has to be irresistible. And to make it like that, it should be visible, unique and urgent.

Primarily, you have to make sure that the reader can see your CTA. Some companies do that by creating a separate button for their CTA like ‘Click Here’. You can either do that or write it in bold writing style.

And then it has to stand out from hundreds of other calls to action that your customer has already seen during the day. Try using the fear of missing out by giving them a limited time offer. For example, “$10 off for 24 hours” or “Get a free e-book if you join today”. These sentences talk to the people’s fear of missing out on a good opportunity and motivate them to act as soon as possible.

Similarly, try to mention what they’ll get if they take that action. Sprinkle some benefits which they will be enjoying if they get that product.

And lastly, use strong verbs which tell them clearly what you want them to do. Verbs like ‘Buy’, ‘order’, ‘subscribe’ and ‘click’.

Final Words

Email newsletters are an effective way to keep in touch with your prospects as you can send these posts regularly. But you need to make sure that you are providing value in your content.

The key to writing an engaging email newsletter is getting these five basics right: setting right goals, subject line, opening line, body and call to action. I’ve explained in this article how to do that.

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