15 Tips to Make Your Next Newsletter Better
Newsletter Writing Tips You Can Use Right Now
As more and more companies send out newsletters to their customers and potential customers, it becomes increasingly more difficult to stand out from the clutter. Newsletters arrive by email, where they run the risk of:
- Being taken for SPAM
- Being deleted right away
- Never being opened or read
- Being unsubscribed
You need to put care and effort into every newsletter you send out to prevent those negative responses. A sloppy, “Here’s this week’s sale” announcement won’t cut it. Subscribers catch on quickly when month after month, you try to pass off a sale as news. Newsletter writing tips help you engage your audience and hold their attention. Newsletters provide a direct way to connect with your audience — but only if they read them.
The Newsletter Writing Tips You Need
Follow these newsletter writing tips, and you’ll get positive feedback instead of unsubscribe messages. Check these tips against every issue of your newsletter:
- Know your audience. This information is at the core of every successful piece of writing, from a Stephen King novel to your newsletter. You know who your customers are so you can sell your products or services to them; use that same demographic information to write to them.
- Discover what they want. Do your research. Find out who’s subscribed to your newsletter and what they’d like to learn about. Find out what questions they have about your business or industry. Ask them. Poll them. Send surveys. Look at your competitors. Get creative.
- Give your readers something valuable. In other words, don’t try to sell your wares from the get-go. If you’re not providing value to your readers, your readers aren’t going to buy anything, including your free newsletter. Give them something they want, and they’ll pay attention.
- Use intriguing titles. Say what you want to convey, but say it in a way that elicits an emotional reaction. Instead of “Newsletter Writing Tips,” use “15 Newsletter Writing Tips to Make Your Next Newsletter Better!” Make it personal. Make it immediate. Make it relatable.
- Deliver on your promises. Don’t become clickbait; if you promise newsletter writing tips, deliver them. Add value to your readers’ lives, and they’ll become loyal readers who look forward to your next newsletter. Drone on and on about an unrelated topic, and they’ll drop you faster than last week’s gossip column.
- Write like a journalist. This doesn’t mean writing in a dry tone with just the facts. It means use the inverted pyramid style of writing, in which you put the important points of information at the very top of the article. Not everyone will read to the bottom.
- Write with personality. People buy from people and companies they like. Present your likeable self in your newsletters. Yes, be informative, but do it with style. Use the language of your audience, but write it in your own voice.
- Stay on topic. Each newsletter should have a single theme or focus. Write about that and cover it completely. At the same time, keep your newsletters short — as short as 350 words, or the size of a short article. Never exceed 750 words. It’s not a newspaper; it’s a newsletter.
- Always include images. Newsletter writing tips aren’t just about writing. No matter how engaging your writing is, it looks lifeless without images. Photos, graphics, charts and tables can brighten up your newsletter, making it easier on the eye and even more informative, as pictures convey non-verbal meaning.
- Use images that stand out. Be careful of using stock images that everyone’s seen 100 times. Look for images that are different. Maybe develop a standard (such as a tint, crop or shading) that identifies your brand.
- Employ statistics and quotes as needed. Did you know that 60 percent of marketers use newsletters to reach out to their clients? Statistics and quotes lend authority to your subject. Sprinkle them in to strengthen your own points.
- Include links back to your website. Newsletters help you keep in touch with your customers and potential customers, but your website is the online hub of your business. Direct your readers to your website and blog, where they can learn more about your company, your products and your services.
- Don’t link to other websites. Your newsletter is not the place to corroborate your statistics or source your quotes. You don’t want to send your readers to someone else’s website. Keep readers engaged in your newsletter and just link to your own website.
- Include one, and only one, call to action. Like your website, your newsletter shouldn’t be all about you and your company. It should be about your audience — your customers and potential customers. Provide content readers look for and trust, and they’ll turn to you when they’re ready to buy.
- Be sure to spell check. Actually, using spell check isn’t enough. Reread your newsletter, both before and after you’ve formatted it. Double-check everything. Have someone else read it too. Put it aside overnight, and then read it again in the morning. You can’t afford mistakes.
A newsletter only works if you send it out. So, do your best and let it go. Keep refining your formula with every issue — whether that means better targeting, better headlines, better images or better content. The team at Ray Access hopes these newsletter writing tips help you improve your reach and satisfy your customers. If you need help with your newsletter, contact the writing pros at Ray Access.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.