Tips to Create Email Newsletters Quickly and Easily
Every business should have some form of newsletter but truth be told they are a constant pain to put together for many business owners. There are however a number of ways to create email newsletters quickly so that they do not become a huge burden on your time every week or month.
Create an Editorial Calendar
Decide when you are going to send out your newsletter. Once a week or once a month? Or twice monthly?
Choose a Design
You could opt for the completely plain text email and use capital letters and punctuation and symbols to make the content look interesting. This will appear very plain, but it does give you the greatest chance of your emails being delivered as compared with HTML emails.
HTML emails, that is Hypertext Markup Language emails, will allow you to “mark up” your text with bold, italics and so on. Many email marketing platforms also offer free templates in various designs and color schemes to help your newsletters look as attractive as possible.
But there can be a price to pay for beauty. An HTML-based email will have less chance of being delivered because it is more likely to trip one or more email client spam filters.
Create two versions of the same email, text and HTML, to try to minimize this risk, or mail separately and track your open rates. You don’t need to be a design expert to create a wonderful-looking email. But you will need to put great content in it.
You Decide What the News Is
It’s up to you to determine what is newsworthy in your business each month. Write about product launches, company milestones and more, but always answer the reader’s question, “What’s in it for me?” In other words, why should THEY care about YOUR news?
A special sale or promotion for your new product, or in relation to a particular day, like the 12 days of Christmas sale, can be an ideal time to boost sales even as you stay in contact via your regular newsletter.
Keep a File for Notes
Keep a file to add all of the little tidbits that you think will be perfect for the newsletter. They all you’ll have to do is copy and paste.
Cross Promote
If you launch a new video on YouTube, give your readers the URL. If you put up a new PowerPoint deck at SlideShare, let your readers know.
Tap into Trends and News Events
Try to tie in your products with the latest trends. Pokemon Go created a frenzy. If you have a product related to it that helps people get the most out of the game, announce it in your newsletter.
Get Guests
You don’t have to go it alone. Invite guests to include information for your newsletter, such as your affiliates or other marketing partners. Consider conducting an interview with a top name in your niche so you can use the content for your newsletter and maybe even sales material.
Announce Live Events
Live events can be one of the most effective ways to “create buzz” in a business. Host a webinar online. Announce that you will be attending a particular conference and will bring them the latest news for it. Or, if you are a guest speaker, give them some sneak previews.
Report Past Live Events
Once the event has taken place, report what happened. Talk about your successes, include photos, and generally create the impression that anyone who was not there missed out.
Publish Excerpts of Reviews and Testimonials
This is a great way to drive interest in your products and services.
Ask for Staff Contributions
Don’t try to do it all yourself. Ask members of staff to contribute content.
Automate It
The newsletter associated with this website, is fully automated. The content is drawn from the preceeding days blog posts, these are automatically added to a chosen template and sent out at predetermined times, so that all I need to do is keep adding in content. The work of generating the newsletter and managing subscribers and delivery systems is fully automated.
Use these easy ways to put together a newsletter and you should soon have a steady stream of loyal readers, who in turn will turn into customers and then referral agents as they spread the word.
