6 Easy Email Newsletter Dos and Don’ts

Chelsea Oliver | May 12, 2015

An email newsletter can be a great marketing move for your small business. One of the most common types of emails, they typically include information pertaining to various parts of your company as well as surveys, promotions and reminders. Designed to serve a multitude of purposes, it can be difficult to generate and keep the interest of subscribers and even harder to encourage them to complete a call to action. If you’re looking to do it right, read on for 6 easy dos and don’ts.

DO: Decide If You Really Need It

Is an email newsletter really the right decision? To start off, look into your industry. Are other companies sending them and are they successful? Look at your business goals. Good goals that this strategy can potentially assist include increasing leads and generating better quality, more targeted leads. Assessing your resources is also crucial. Can you pull it off on your budget and time constraints? Will you have assistance? Answering these questions can help you decide if an email newsletter is right for you.

DON’T: Take On Too Much

Avoid jumping into an email newsletter without a set plan in place. This includes content, frequency and a landing page to encourage subscription. You also need to schedule time into your busy workdays to create, edit and send test copies out prior to the final deployment.

DO: Balance Your Content

A good rule of thumb for email newsletters is to stick mainly to educational content with a few promotions thrown in. While your products and services are important, useful and relevant information is much better received than constant self promotion. In this case, less is more when it comes to talking about yourself.

DON’T: Use Vague or Misleading Subject Lines

When it comes to the headlines, get creative. A great way to encourage readers to click, opt for engaging, humourous and attention-grabbing over more vague and repetitive options. Choose something different for each email. Keep it short and sweet and let the recipient know what’s in it for them if they click.

DO: Mobile Optimize

Mobile is getting bigger by the day and Google’s recent changes can attest to that. Many individuals use their smartphones to check their email, whether it’s during a meeting, while commuting or during downtime watching television. Optimizing your email newsletter for mobile is a great way to increase your readership. Click here for more tips.

DON’T: Send Without Doing a Test Run

Sending an email newsletter out to a subscriber base without first sending out a test email within your business is a disaster waiting to happen. A test deployment lets you in on any little issues that need to be fixed, from typos to broken images and links, defunct formatting, colour and design discrepancies and more. When in doubt, test and test again!

When it comes to email newsletters, these 6 dos and don’ts will help get, and keep, your company on the right track! To learn more, check out HubSpot’s round-up of 15 fantastic examples. Do you subscribe to any email newsletters? What are your likes and dislikes?

Category: Copywriting, Digital Culture, Marketing Budget