Table of Contents

What is a newsletter?

A newsletter is a bulletin that a society, business, or organization publishes periodically to send out information. It’s also a valuable tool used by companies to provide information to their ecosystem of customers, prospective customers, and subscribers.

Newsletters enable you to secure access to your audience via their inbox and allow you to share content, deliver promotions, and drive traffic to your site.

Another way to think about a newsletter is this; it’s an email that is full of information with the intent to engage with your audience.

Typically, you’ll send a newsletter on a repeating, regular basis.

What is the purpose of a newsletter?

Usually, your newsletter is used to provide information to your audience. You can also tailor the newsletter to promote your products and services. It’s also a way for you to connect with your customers individually.

You can have any number of objectives with a newsletter. Here are some typical purposes of a newsletter:

Create conversions
Gain new subscribers
Improve your open rate and click-through rate

Benefits

Your newsletters can teach your readers about your business. This can include information on discounts, new products, your employees, and successes. A newsletter is a particular type of content because it can also act as an avenue of advertising and provide valuable data about its effectiveness.

For instance, you could offer coupons or specials specific to your newsletter. Your subscribers who read the newsletter and see the coupons may use them. That will give you a data point on how many readers you have.

Newsletter Possibilities

There is a litany of different newsletter ideas. These newsletters have the potential to provide value to your subscribers and enable you to promote your content.

Some newsletter examples include:

Blog Posts
Coupons
Gift Guides
How-To Guides
Product Announcements

5 Elements of an Effective Newsletter

A newsletter is worthless if it doesn’t get read. It would be best if you made it effective to increase the likelihood of your subscribers reading your newsletter.

Here are 5 elements of an effective newsletter:

Briefness: Make sure your newsletter is brief, concise and gets right to the point. People will appreciate direct communication with straightforward, relevant content.
Call to Action: Offer your subscribers a single clear call to action.
Design: Your newsletter should be visually appealing and effectively use headings and white space.
Reader Focus: Keep your reader in mind with how you organize and write the content.
Tell a story: The best newsletters have characters and a beginning, middle, and end.

How Do You Create a Newsletter?

Your customers may experience several marketing avenues, including content marketing, social media marketing, and broad marketing. Email newsletters are among the most personal ways to market to your customers.

Newsletters are personal because you can customize them for your subscribers and deliver them directly to their inboxes.

With that in mind, you may want to create a newsletter. Here are some fundamental concepts when considering how to create a newsletter.

Have a goal in mind

Newsletters are versatile tools that you can use. The first step of creating a newsletter is identifying a goal or goals. You can use a newsletter to do the following:

Build an audience with information and details about your business.
Gather feedback and research.
Provide educational content about the products and services you provide.
Sell products and services.

Decide on your newsletter strategy

Deciding on a newsletter strategy sounds like a challenging task, but all you’re doing is deciding on the details of your newsletter before you start sending it.

Elements to guide your decision should include:

Audience you want to reach
Content and topics you’ll cover
Frequency of newsletters

Choose a newsletter platform

Several newsletter platforms are available, each with unique benefits, features, and price points. When you consider a specific platform, consider what benefits and features you need and whether you might scale in the future.

Design your newsletter

You’ve decided on content and a platform. Now you need to design your newsletter to be specific to your brand. Customize the theme, including color, layout, and font, to make your brand sing to your customers.

Be consistent with your design to build a personal connection with your audience.

There are many online services that allow you to use a template and customise it to your liking, one of the best ones being Canva.com.

Schedule delivery

Decide on the best times to send your newsletter. Think about the most convenient days and times you can commit to sending your newsletter and regularly delivering it. The best schedule is one that you’ll keep consistently.