You don’t get a second chance to make your email newsletter worth reading.
The average office worker gets 121 emails a day, 34% get opened. You are competing with purchase orders, company memos, retail ads, notifications, and letters from Mom.
Most of your subscribers will decide in the first 5 seconds whether they’ll ever open another.
Make it readable
The secret isn’t how it looks, it’s how it reads.
- Use readable, sans serif fonts: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, and Tahoma. (Comic Sans is not appropriate for a professional newsletter.)
- Font-size should be 14 – 16px.
- Colors should be dark text on a light background with enough contrast to be readable.
- The layout should be responsive to monitor/device sizes. If you don’t know what that means, you should be using an email design tool that does.
Assume your subscriber will scan, not read, the email. Use headings and bullet points. No more than 50% of your email should be images. Make sure that it looks good on a smartphone! Make the links to your website easy to see and easy to fat-finger click on.
Test!
Content matters
Did your content match your subject line? Don’t promise naked firefighters but write about garden hoses. You’ll never get the visitor to open another email from you.
Proofread your text for spelling, grammar, and readability. www.grammarly.com and www.Online-Utility.org are excellent free tools.
Reward their time and attention
Just by opening your newsletter, the subscriber has earned some kind of recompense. They have given you a huge gift of their time and attention. What are you giving them in return?
Your reward depends on your business. Common bonuses include:
- Discount coupons
- Special hours or visitor only rates
- Actionable tips
- Subscriber-only information
- A special photo or meme?
- Always a big thank you!
The next open is much harder than the first. There was a reason they signed up for your newsletter. Make sure you live up to their expectations.
~JoMarie
