Considering the number of emails the average person receives daily, you’ve got to wonder how many actually make it past the ‘is this worth reading?’ filter. I know I’m pretty ruthless about what I read and what I delete. On a busy day, I’ll pretty much delete every newsletter I get in, regardless of whether I’ve specifically requested them or now. And even if I do open them, I’ll spend perhaps 10 seconds scanning them and if nothing catches my eye – ‘click’ – it’s gone.
We’ve been sending a monthly email newsletter out from Freelancentral religiously for four years now. It’s only since we recently switched to MailChimp that we’ve been able to get some great data on opens, clicks, etc. Our open rate is around 15%, which according to MailChimp is average for our industry.
But to me that seems low for a list where people have asked for the newsletter – we’ve not just added them at random. Every month we wonder whether it’s worth sending out the newsletter (it takes about a day to pull it together) and we’re constantly trying new ways of boosting the read rate, with groovy subject lines, great content and special offers.
Do we see any positive results? Yes, a newsletter does seem to be useful for building our brand reputation and as a gentle reminder to our audience that we’re still around. And we do get a good response to our special offers. But with today’s information overload, a newsletter really has to stand out in order to be read.
Here are the main things we’ve learnt from four years of our own newsletters, and from doing them for clients too:
- Keep it short and sweet.People don’t have time to read reams of copy. Provide links to more detailed info on your site for people who are interested. And keep the number of articles down to three – max.
- Use engaging subject lines and headlines. You want the subject line to encourage them to open it. Combine ‘does what it says on the tin’ so they know what’s inside with a little intrigue to pique their curiosity.
- Break up the copy with imagery (but keep the images relatively small to keep the email size down). Make sure the font is legible and easy to read.
- Don’t spend too much time on putting it together. Rather spend time on putting great content on your site (where a wider audience, including search engines, will see it.
- Find a newsletter distribution system that is easy to use and offers easy-to-understand, useful analytics and reporting. And then actually READ the reports, learn from them, and improve your next issue.
What results have you seen from your newsletter? Do you do one, and is it worth it? We’d love to hear your experiences in the comments section below.
