Email marketing is a fantastic method for attracting and retaining customers for the long haul. Through email, you can even build a loyal community and create a strong relationship with those in your target audience. It sounds like a dream, but it can feel a little intimidating.
If you’re not familiar with email marketing, you might not know where to begin. Luckily, learning how to create an email newsletter is simple when you follow a few easy steps. Before you know it, you’ll be well on your way to sending incredible content to your subscribers.
In this post, you’ll learn how to create an email newsletter in a few easy steps. We’ll also discuss additional email marketing tips that will be helpful on your journey to creating a healthy, engaged list.
How to Create an Email Newsletter
In the list below, you’ll find tips to help you get started on creating an email newsletter to be proud of. Ready to build your very own email newsletter? By implementing our tips from start to finish, you’ll be able to craft email content in the most effortless, stress-free way possible.
1. Determine the Goal of Your Email Marketing Efforts
Before diving in, determine the purpose of email marketing as it fits into your overall content strategy. What are you hoping to achieve by starting a list, gaining subscribers, and sending out regular content? Are you simply wanting to generate website traffic? Do you want to have a list so you can promote your products and services? Are your goals multi-purpose?
No matter what your goal is, it’s important to keep it in mind as you build your list. Knowing your goal will fuel your content and show you which KPIs (key performance indicators) you need to track to see if your efforts are successful. Then, you’ll know when to tweak your strategy.
2. Choose an Email Newsletter Tool
Before you can put together your newsletter, determine the best email marketing tool for your business. There are tons of them available today, ensuring you’ll find one that suits your needs and your budget. To get started, you simply need to consider the features you want a tool to have before beginning your research.
For instance, you want something that’s going to be user-friendly, so you don’t have to spend hours trying to figure everything out. A tool that has a drag-and-drop editor might be a must for you, especially if coding isn’t in your wheelhouse. You’ll also want to look for features like sending automated sequences, which would allow you to develop a welcome sequence for new subscribers.
Some popular options are MailChimp, ConvertKit, Constant Contact, and Active Campaign. Many offer a free trial, so you can take advantage of that to give them a good test run.
3. Design a Functional Email Template
Once you’ve chosen your favorite email newsletter tool, you might as well dive into creating a template. This template will be the design you use in many of your emails. It should be consistent and reflect your branding so it’s immediately identifiable as yours without someone even having to look at your name.
You can use pre-made templates. These are perfect if you’re not a designer at heart. However, if you’re feeling crafty and confident, you can design something unique.
Additionally, test your templates for desktop and mobile since people will be reading your emails on both. You don’t want the formatting to look fine on a computer but break on mobile or a link to be missing. One way to test your template is to create a test email and send it to yourself to ensure everything looks and functions as expected. That way, you can correct any problems before the email goes live.
4. Decide What Kind of Content You’ll Send and the Frequency of Emails
Part of learning how to create an email newsletter is mapping out your content strategy. Ideally, this will relate to the goals you set earlier because you want your content to help you achieve those things. For example, if you want your newsletters to drive traffic to your blog, you’ll want to mention your latest posts and include links within the newsletter.
Keep your emails from being only promotional by making it more enticing for people to join your list by promising exclusive, high-quality content they can’t get anywhere else. This might include sending tips and tricks you haven’t otherwise shared before. It all depends on what you feel called to write in your newsletter and what would appeal to your target audience.
Next, it’s important to consider how often you’ll send emails so you can aim for consistency. Many marketers opt to send weekly newsletters, but you could also go for biweekly or monthly if you want to keep your content creation schedule light.
Once you’ve chosen how often to send your email newsletter, make sure you select the date and time for your email. Keeping this consistent is great because your audience will know when to expect your email in their inbox. From there, consider the best time to send email newsletters to avoid getting buried in the Monday email crush or Friday’s brain turn-off.
The most important thing? Whatever schedule you choose, stick to it.
5. Create a Free Offering to Attract Subscribers
If you want to get people to join your email list, you need to offer something in exchange for their information. Simply telling people you have a list and asking them to join isn’t enough to convince them to hand over their names and email. They want to know what’s in it for them.
To generate new subscribers, it helps to have an opt-in freebie that gets delivered to people upon joining your list. It’s a simple incentive, but it makes a huge difference when people see they’re getting something out of the deal. What you choose as your freebie will depend on your audience.
You could offer some sort of PDF download, a video or audio track, access to a free training, or even a discount to your online store. The options are endless, so if you’re torn on what to do, consider polling your audience to get their feedback.
6. Start Sending Your Email Newsletter
Now that you know all the basics of how to create an email newsletter and have people signing up for your list, it’s your job to keep in touch with them by regularly sending valuable content. Since you should have already mapped out the type of content you’ll be sending, all that’s left is to create and start scheduling those emails to send.
7. Analyze Results and Tweak Your Strategy as Needed
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your job is done after you send the email. You want to take some time to review how every email performs to see if you’re getting your desired results. Give it a day or two, then check out the analytics within your email newsletter tool.
Look at things like open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate. You’ll also want to measure how many replies your email received and if it generated any sales. If the email performed well, keep up the good work. If not, consider what can be changed next time.
To boost the open rate, get creative with your subject line. To encourage more engagement and clicks, make the body of your emails more enticing. You should be willing to test and improve your strategy.
How to Manage Your Email List
Now that you know how to create an email newsletter, you’ll also want to learn about managing your email list. Email management is a crucial aspect of the email marketing process because it ensures your list thrives for a long time.
Here are some tips you need to know:
- Never Add People to Your List Without Permission: The temptation to grow your email list is real. However, you can’t just add anyone to your list. You need to get their permission first, otherwise, you risk them reporting you as spam. It’s best to have a two-step opt-in process in which subscribers will submit their information and confirm they’ve requested to join your list.
- Make it Easy for People to Unsubscribe: There needs to be an obvious link at the bottom of every email where someone can unsubscribe from your list should they no longer want to receive your content. The process should also be seamless. A single click should be all they need to do.
- Reengage Inactive Subscribers: Sometimes, your email subscribers go cold, meaning they stop engaging with your emails. You can make an effort to reengage with those subscribers by reigniting their interest in your newsletter through captivating subject lines and content.
- Keep Your List Clean by Deleting People: If the inactive subscribers don’t take the bait, let them know you’ll remove them from your list if they don’t take action within a certain timeframe. Then, delete them. If your list is filled with only engaged subscribers, your open rate will increase, and your monthly costs could decrease if enough subscribers are removed.
Keeping this advice in mind will increase your chances of success with email marketing. Not only that, but it’ll ensure you have a healthy list of active subscribers who enjoy being part of your list.
Send Captivating Email Newsletters to Your Subscribers
You now know how to create an email newsletter, but what if you’re struggling with actually creating the content? Well, that’s when you reach out to the experts! Express Writers is the content writing agency with a talented team ready to craft captivating email copy your subscribers are sure to love.
Contact us to learn more about our content services.
