OPTIMIZE YOUR EMAIL CAMPAIGNS: A TUTORIAL

Digital MarketingDirect Sales
Written By Danielle Longueville

Our current global situation breeds for perfect opportunities to catch up and redirect your marketing focus to help amplify your brand awareness and engagement, starting with the traditional medium of email campaigns. Let’s dive into a few basic practices on how to get started and how to stay on top of your game in ways that are efficient, effective, and engaging. 

Getting Started 

Before we dive into creating your first newsletter, let’s go over some of the recommended essentials to creating an effective message. 

What You’ll Need

  • A Service to deliver “the goods”

    • We want our newsletter to be something that’s engaging and creative, at least something that is a step or two above a press release or regular newspaper edition. In order to create something that’s creative as well as interactive, one must invest in a newsletter service. It’s possible that –  if you’re like us and your website is hosted on a platform like Squarespace – there is a built-in newsletter program that you can use to directly send from your website. If not, there are several third party programs, such as MailChimp and SendGrid, that work as well. These programs are robust with templates, countless options for customization, and are able to support large mailing lists that deliver information successfully without ending up in the spam inbox. 

Most newsletter services offer an opportunity for you to personalize your messaging. This can be as simple as including the first name of the user in the opening line, or a birthday message that mails out each year with your newsletter. 

Most newsletter services offer an opportunity for you to personalize your messaging. This can be as simple as including the first name of the user in the opening line, or a birthday message that mails out each year with your newsletter. 

  • A Catchy Subject Line 

    • Your subject line usually will make or break the reader’s decision to open an email or toss it completely. Keep your taglines funny, engaging, quick, and informative. 

  • An Effective Preview Text 

    • Your preview text consists of 35-90 characters, or 140 if you’re in the land of Apple mail. This preview text acts as your secondary title and should be used to keep your users moving closer and closer to opening that email. If your newsletter is specific to one event or one theme, make sure that the preview text includes your 5 W’s: the Who, What, When, Where, and Why. 

      • For example, if you’re planning a virtual instruction on how to paint a self-portrait, we’d recommend something like this:

        • “ Looking to paint and pass the time? Join us on Wednesday, April 1st for a Facebook Live Stream Self Portrait Class! RSVP today!” 

      • If you’re working on a monthly or quarterly issue, we recommend something like this:

        • “Spring 2020 is already here and we’ve been working hard to bring you some incredible products. Tune in for more info!”  

  • Personalized Messaging (when possible)

    • Most newsletter services offer an opportunity for you to personalize your messaging. This can be as simple as including the first name of the user in the opening line, or a birthday message that mails out each year with your newsletter. 

  • Graphics (mostly) > Text 

    • Users tire quickly and easily when it comes to reading through not only newsletters but essentially any written literature that’s not required or wholly piques their interest. To circumnavigate that, try investing more time in graphics that include smaller amounts of text that still effectively communicate the overall message you’re trying to convey. Short, sweet and to the point is always the name of the game. 

      • Note: with great power comes great responsibility. IF you choose to incorporate more graphics, make sure they are not of super high resolution to avoid any dampening on your download speeds. Make sure that your email is not *just* composed of graphics. Some browsers will automatically block the graphics and so users cannot even see them. A mix of graphics and text is always welcomed, especially when ensuring that important updates are properly communicated to the user. 

  • Provide social sharing when and where possible 

    • If you’re looking to increase overall online engagement with a particular event, discount or special promotion, make sure to include your social media widgets within your newsletter. Additionally, making your promotional material easy to capture from your newsletter is also crucial. This way, users can automatically share *your* previously generated content that not only raises awareness of your promotion but is done so with your particular copy in mind. This helps secure a more cohesive and consistent messaging in the long run. 

  • Optimize Your Timing 

    • Timing is truly of the essence when it comes to scheduling out your mailing lists. You want to send it at the “right” time to ensure that users will actually open your mail. Too early or too late, and it gets buried underneath other content. Try framing it around the expected schedule of your demographic. For instance, a client of ours operates within the small business industry. Their readers are most likely to open mail around the early morning hours, or right after the lunch rush, or right around happy hour when there’s a free moment. Having this tidbit of knowledge helps their team better plan and release messaging that will actually reach their users. 

  • Test, test, and test again. 

    • We always recommend testing any and all mailings before sending them to the masses. We even recommend creating a specific sub list dedicated to just testing, which should include individuals who are *not* just yourself. A second, third or even fourth pair of eyes to help click the buttons, review the copy, and download the images will help truly polish your content. 

What-Ifs and How Do I’s:

Before we release you into the wild world of newsletters, we wanted to answer a few questions that exceed the basics. Let’s go over some frequently asked questions we’ve heard in the past that might help answer your own inquiries. 

  • What if I’ve lost user engagement or seen a decline in email openings? 

    • If you’ve lost user engagement, or seem to be experiencing fewer and fewer openings of your newsletters, try sending out a separate messaging campaign that centers around that “haven’t heard from you in a while” vibe or intention. Creating space to engage with your users on a personal level that comes across as concerned and interested in the user helps build a better customer-business relationship, as well as brand loyalty. 

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  • How do I get users to get involved with my newsletter? 

    • Provide users multiple opt-in opportunities via social and your website 

      • A great way to help supplement your newsletter lists with quality users who will actually engage with your content is by providing opt-in opportunities when and where possible. This can be anything from pop-ups, dedicated ads, incentivized promos like 20% off at check-out when you sign up, whatever seems most enticing.

  • How often should I send newsletters? 

    • The frequency of your newsletter releases depends on the nature of your business. Some businesses, especially solopreneurs, like to offer daily newsletters. Some offer one email per quarter. Overall, we recommend sending as frequently as once every two weeks, or as infrequently as once a month or every quarter. The primary point is to not send emails too often, as this is a sure-fire way to lose users to the “unsubscribe” button, if not the outright delete button. Protip: join the newsletter of a similar or competitive brand to your own business and study their patterns, and see how they might or might not work for you. 

  • I have different content for different parts of my audience, how do I manage that? 

    • If you’re looking to share content that crosses over different parts of your audience or focused interests within your brand that may not be for *everyone* in your audience base, try creating different sub-lists for these user groups. Then, you are able to easily modify and dedicate newsletters or mailouts to specific groups with specific interests. This is a great aspect that ties in with personalization, as the user will feel that the brand is curating content that is more dedicated to their wants and needs. 

Conclusion: 

These resources are provided as mere guidelines for your path to success, not end-all, be-all definitive rules. Take this information and use it to create your own mold that works best for you, your brand, and your customers. After consistent implementation, frequent testing, and molding to your customers’ needs, these email campaigns can and hopefully will become another gold mine for your business. If you have any questions, or need help getting started, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Danielle Longueville

A Dentonite since 2010, Danielle has an eclectic professional background of networking, marketing, event planning, and digital marketing and production, all within the DFW area.

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