Despite all the other emerging online platforms that allow you to communicate with your customers or your target audience, the value of email in the marketing world has not wavered. Emails are still a valuable resource that businesses and professionals use widely and continue to prove effective in sending important messages, updates, and news. However, those new to the business can understandably get lost and confused about the power of email marketing. With today’s eCommerce conversations about marketing usually centered around social media, those just starting out might not appreciate or even be aware of what email newsletters can do for their business. Whether you are one of those people or not, we’re happy to help you understand what an effective newsletter can do for your business and/or career and how you can create your own email newsletter.
Email Newsletter that Converts
Before we start talking about what makes an effective email newsletter, let’s first touch on the core definition of an email newsletter. An email newsletter is a kind of email marketing content you send out to subscribers, i.e., those who gave their go signal to receive your business’ updates and news. They can play different roles depending on your business model and/or your marketing strategy, they can play different roles. It can increase traffic on your website, send updates on your blogs and/or your main content, invite people to an event, etc. Now, an email newsletter that converts is something that meets the goals that you have given its role to achieve. An effective email newsletter is one where your audience and recipients respond as you intended. There are all sorts of ways how you can measure the success of email newsletters. Don’t be discouraged when you don’t immediately get the desired results. Be patient, and trust the process and magic of an email newsletter.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
How to Create an Email Newsletter?
Now that you know what makes an effective email newsletter, it is now time for you to start creating your own ones. And while the task to prepare email newsletter can vary depending on the kind of business or career you are involved in, some steps should generally be done by everyone who wants to make an effective email newsletter:
1. Build Your Email List
Before even conceptualizing what your email newsletter will contain, you must have contacts to whom you can send them. Growing your email list is its own whole process, but it very well is an important part of sending out an email newsletter. You can create contact forms that your site visitors can fill out, asking for subscriptions for premium content or blogs, using social media, etc. Building your email list is an important step because only then can you actually start to have a use for your email newsletter.
2. Group Your Contacts
Grouping your contact list is more of a smart move than a necessary one. See, if you have built your email list extremely, it is more effective for you to do customer segmentation i.e, grouping your contacts according to a specific category or characteristics. This would make your email newsletter more effective because it is more aligned with the personas and preferences of that specific group. In making an email newsletter that converts, you must understand and know your audience, so you know when is the right time to send to all your contacts and when to choose a specific group.
3. Set Your Goals and Objectives
Benjamin Franklin once said that “Failing to plan is a plan to fail.” With that said, in every business endeavor, it is very important that you set the goals and objectives you want to achieve. After all, that is how you will know how much of an effective email newsletter you have. When setting your goals for creating an email newsletter, you have to consider three primary things: your target audience, your email newsletter purpose, and its topic. Basically, you have to think about who you will be sending them to so you know the right tone and settings to use and its purpose and topic so you’ll know the kind of content you want to pursue.
4. Design Your Template
The design template of an effective email newsletter depends on the kind of business you have and the kind of target audience you are aiming at. A design template will be attached to your brand and business. (Strikingly is an amazing website builder with a pretty good email newsletter template for you.) This means that creating a design template for your email newsletter is a pretty big deal. In this, you must greatly consider your brand identity and then think about the kind of content you’d be sending out so that you can align them properly and the most effective email newsletter template for your business.
5. Write Up Your Content
Now, the penultimate step in sending out an email newsletter, no matter its purpose, is coming up with its content. In the content, you must write creative words to fill it. You also have to make sure that the other elements such as the images, the link button, and the font stylings, fit the kind of content that makes up the most effective email newsletter. Another important element for the content writing of your email newsletter is your subject line. Remember that the subject line is the first thing your customers will see when they see your email, so make sure it will make them click.
Prepare Your Email Newsletter with Strikingly
Strikingly is an amazing and easy-to-use website builder. It gives you the tools to create your own blog, display a boatload of your pictures or even videos, start an eCommerce store, and add all sorts of forms, contacts, and other communication tools. You are given hundreds of choices of templates to start with that you can edit and modify to make your own. All of which you can do just by signing up with a free account. However, more features are unlocked once you subscribe to the Strikingly VIP Plan, which includes the opportunity to prepare email newsletter and send out the email newsletter that converts.
If you want to create an email newsletter and send it out, Strikingly makes it very easy for you. All you have to do is for you to sign up or log in to your Strikingly account. On your dashboard, you will see five menu options: My Sites, Domains, Emails, Audiences, and Newsletters. You can create an email newsletter, send it out, and monitor your sent email newsletters by clicking on the “Newsletter” menu.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
If this is the first time you are sending out an email newsletter, then the photo above is what you will see on your screen. But if you have sent a newsletter before, it will look something like this:
Image taken from Strikingly Product
So by clicking on the “Start one now!” or the “Send a newsletter”, a pop-up window will appear where you can create the best email newsletter that converts. Under this, you will see the status of the email newsletters you have sent. This includes the name of the email newsletter, how many recipients you sent it to, when you sent it, its stats and status, and other actions you can do.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
This is what you will see on your pop-up window. Here, you can edit the name of your email newsletter and add the best subject for your effective email newsletter. This is where you can also write and create an email newsletter that converts. You can write your own message and add your own images and buttons. You can even include a specific recipient’s name if you only send it to one person. In addition, this is also where you can select the email address you will use and choose the recipients you want to send it to.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
When selecting your recipients for your email newsletter, you will see this. The two menus: Site and Source. Manual selection of contacts, i.e. selecting the individual email addresses you’ve collected, is not possible at the moment. Instead, you can choose the set of contacts from certain websites you have and what forms in those websites you want to get it from. After doing so, you can save your email newsletter as a draft, send it immediately, or schedule it for sending later.
The most effective email newsletter perfectly aligns with what your business represents and what your audience prefers. This is something that can be very personal between your customers and you. However, remember that this is still for business, and you need to do well and ensure that it is an effective email newsletter. Strikingly has got your back for this! So sign up now and get a reliable partner for all your email marketing needs.
