How much time do you spend putting together your company’s newsletters? How much is it costing your business to do that? How to get your newsletters opened is a challenge that many business owners and social media managers face.
Why do a newsletter if no one reads it? Is it the myth of “if you write it they will open it?” Unfortunately not. Before you hit send and cross your fingers and hope for a stellar open rate, you need to have a strategy for sending newsletters. You also need to ask yourself, “does my business even need a newsletter?” If you don’t have a compelling reason, then why are you sending one?
How To Get Your Newsletters Opened
Let them know who it’s from. You want to let your subscribers know who the newsletter is coming from. Don’t be clever. Don’t make them guess whether it’s from someone they know, or a newsletter they’ve sign up for or if it’s spam. Also, a “clever” newsletter “from” address could land your newsletter in a spam box before your subscriber even sees it.
Keep it mobile friendly. Chances are when you look at your newsletter stats you will see how many people read on a desktop, laptop or mobile. For many of our clients their newsletters are opened on a mobile device. Your newsletter needs to translate to mobile devices and needs to download quickly. Before you release your newsletter to your subscribers, send a test to yourself and open it on your mobile device and determine its mobile-friendliness.
Subject lines matter. Don’t use a click bait headline. You know the kind, “She opened the box of puppies and you won’t believe what was inside!” Then when you click the headline you find out there were five puppies instead of four or that there was a kitten in the box. Be unique and intriguing, but don’t lie or mislead your subscribers. Remember that many mobile devices will chop off many of the characters on a subject line so you should try to fit the most salient points into 32 characters or fewer.
Each newsletter should have a call to action. What do you want the client to do one they’ve read your newsletter? Email you? Call you? Use a coupon you’ve included? Your newsletter is valuable real estate and if it’s getting open, make the most of it!
Before you start a newsletter, make sure you have a reason for sending one. It’s not good enough to do a newsletter because “everyone else is.” If you need help with your strategy or your newsletter give us a call!