Newsletters are one of the most prominent ways of executing effective email marketing.

Imagine having an exhaustive list of potential (and existing) customers who have willingly signed up for getting updates about your business.

What could be a better way to keep them engaged, informed and, potentially convert into loyal customers?

An email newsletter helps efficiently in keeping your brand to stay on top of your customer’s minds while providing valuable information; such as latest blog posts, insider tips, alerts to sales, company news, and more. 

However, it faces the same challenge that any email marketing process has; getting the customers to open the email, go through it and, take the necessary action.

Usually, we discuss at length how we can customize the subject line to improve the open rate and the click-through rate for an email.

But, today, in this article we’ll take a different route and discuss the design of your email newsletter and, everything around it.

In this blog, we’ll share with you the details on what a newsletter is, what is its purpose and, the 5 elements that are a definite part of an ideal newsletter design.

So, let’s get started then!

So, what exactly is an email newsletter?

Well, as the name suggests, an email newsletter is an informational email that businesses send out to their subscribers; who could be existing customers also.

These are a series of regularly recurring emails that contain informational content, or a roundup of recent offers and content that’s been published during the week (or month), depending on how frequently you email your list.

Generally, the type of content you’re sharing in your email newsletter is dictated by your industry. Some industries, like eCommerce and other retail-based businesses, will feature a lot more product-oriented content while others will only use their email newsletter to alert readers about a new blog post that went live.

For example, a newsletter from a brand like Amazon would include information on the latest product launch, discount offers, and more. However, a newsletter from a brand like Huffington would mainly include new blog posts.

As long as you’re offering content that your customers or users find useful, you can leverage email newsletters to keep your brand fresh in their minds.

Now, that we have a fair understanding of what an email newsletter is all about, let’s take a look at 5 things that are a definite part of an ideal newsletter design.

A catchy headline

Your newsletter headline will be the very first thing that your customers would see and read when they open the email.

It could very well be the same as your subject line; since that worked in motivating the customers to open the email. However, it can be slightly more creative to give your newsletter a different, yet catchy headline.

This completely depends on the type of newsletter design you are creating.

For example, if you want to share a monthly round-up of the top-performing blogs, you should give your newsletter a different heading than the subject line.

Targeted information

This is arguably the most important part of your entire newsletter design; the content information.

Why?

Well, what exactly are you creating and sending out the email newsletters for in the first place?

To inform your customers/subscribers about the latest happenings in your business; right?!

So, if the overall content information is not to the point and crisp, no other design element of your newsletter would matter.

A very good practice here can be to write the copy for your email newsletter and build your design around it. This will influence your design and the different elements, images, and CTAs you have in place.

Remember, the more targeted content information you include in your newsletter design, the higher are the chances for the customers to take the required action.

An attractive image

What is a design without great visuals?!

Great visuals help get the attention of the reader to the newsletter while giving them an idea about what the information content will be about.

So, the image that you use in your newsletter design should be relevant to the topic.

A CTA

The main objective of creating and sending out newsletter emails is to encourage the customers to take specific action. It could be to download an e-book/guidebook, buy a product, read the latest piece of a blog or, simply register for a new account.

The CTA (Call-to-Action) is an avoidable part of your overall email design. And, therefore, you’d need to ensure your CTA button is compelling enough for the readers to see and click on it.

You can take the following steps to ensure an effective CTA for your newsletter design;

- Use actionable language (Click here, Sign Up, Read Now, etc.).

- Make the CTA stand out from the rest of your email (use bright colors, plenty of whitespace around the CTA button, make it responsive).

- The fewer CTAs the better

Make sure you give a lot of focus to your CTA in order to encourage and direct people to get involved with what you do.

 

Links to social media

It is a digital era that we all are living in. And, so, it is imperative that you have a solid presence on all relevant social media platforms.

However, simply having your presence won’t help your brand get the identity that you are looking to establish. And, that’s why it is important to let your customers know about all the platforms, where you are present on social media, whenever possible.

Using your social media pages’ links in your newsletter design is a great way to inform your customers on what other platforms they can find you.

To conclude…

While no newsletter is 100% ideal, these steps can definitely improve the performance of your email newsletters in terms of goal completion and provide you with a higher ROI.

If you are looking for professional help with your newsletter designs; we can help.

Simply get in touch with us with your requirements at support@graphicszoo.com