How to Create a Brilliant Newsletter People Want to Read?

CREATE CATCHY SUBJECT LINES

Create catchy subject lines.

A subject line is an introduction that explains what the email is all about. The subject line is what the subscriber will see when the email first lands in their inbox. The subject line determines whether people will open your email or not.

People generally receive a lot of newsletters from different companies, some promotional, others for discount shopping offers or subscribed courses. You have to stand out and ensure they notice yours and open it.

A subject line is the first opportunity that a marketer has to address the recipient’s needs and desires. When you choose words that attract the attention of the recipient, you increase chances of them clicking on the message and acting on it whether they decide to follow links, make a purchase or fill a survey form.

If you desire to come up with catchy subject lines and you don’t know where to begin, here are a few guidelines that will gently propel you in the right direction.

Be direct

Be direct with other people the same way you would want them to be direct with you. The subject line should be rather short and act as an appetizer that entices people, not the full meal. Long subject lines are usually not opened as much as short ones.

The lead may also be reading the message on a mobile phone. An average mobile device can fit a maximum of five or six words across the screen. People may feel too tired or lazy to read a long paragraph. Subject lines that performed the best had a maximum of three words.

Use a familiar sender name

When sending an email, use a name that is as human as possible. When the email is coming from a company, try to use a human name so people do not feel like they are talking to a company or a robot instead of a person. E.g. Allen@Inc.com

Don’t ask questions

Email subject lines that were posed as questions did not perform well. The question mark made it look like a marketing email.

Urgency

Phrasing subject lines in a way that shows urgency can compel readers to open and act on the email. An example is “Buy now!”

However, such language should be used in a creative and strategic manner. Use it only when the situation is genuinely urgent and people need to act right away.

Offers and discounts

Many people love getting discounts and offer on the products they love. Including offers and discounts in your subject line can make a lot of people open the email. Most people don’t mind getting free stuff.

Personalize the subject line.

People are different. Your email subscribers like to feel special and personalizing your email will make them feel that way. Learn about each subscriber’s name, job, and preferences and tailor your subject line towards that particular person. Address their individual needs. Research has shown that emails which included the first name of the recipient had higher click-through rates than those without.

When you know which personalities your subscribers admire and have things in common with, you can include them in your email subject lines.

Names of famous people will capture the interest of your subscribers. However, make sure this aligns with your product and keep it relevant. Do not use the identity of a recognized person solely for the purpose of click-baiting subscribers.

Timeliness and relevance

Subject lines that are relevant and timely will arouse the curiosity of the reader. Using trendy topics will make the readers open your emails and act on them.

Don’t put words in ALL CAPS or use many exclamation points

Using all caps can make people feel as if you’re yelling at them, even if you’re not. Using too many exclamation points can make the email look like spam. If you want to stand out from the rest of the emails cluttering their inbox, try using colons and dashes to separate your thoughts. Alternatively, you can use compelling language.

Don’t use a question mark with an exclamation mark.

The Apache web server issued a directive called the PLING_QUERY rule that flags an email as spam if it contains an exclamation point and a question mark in the subject line.

Keep it very simple and focused

It should be focused on one action, which will be communicated in the subject line. Offer one takeaway and show how the reader will benefit from it and how you will deliver it to them.

Use keywords for search and filtering

Most professionals receive tons of emails every day and will not be able to read them all at a go. Create the subject line with keywords that will enable the person to search for it later from the tons of others in their inbox.

Do not use filler words

Do not waste the precious opportunity to communicate your topic with filler words such as “Thanks” or “Good morning”. These words can easily be placed in the content section of your email newsletter.

Your emails have to be opened for the content to be seen. Use the subject line to your advantage and ensure that all your creative content is being viewed by the world out there.

After learning ways on how to craft compelling and interesting subject lines, it’s crucial to see whether there is an increase in the number of people opening your emails. You can see how different subject lines in emails can affect the email open rates. This can be done through A/B testing.

A/B testing involves splitting a small, randomly selected group of your subscribers into two groups. Each of the two groups receives a nearly identical email, except for a small difference which you are testing. For example, you can send one group an email newsletter with a particular subject line, and send an identical email to the second group but with a different subject line. You will see which subject line was opened by more people. The email newsletter with the most open rates is then sent out to the rest of the subscribers who did not receive that particular email.

A/B testing tests different subject lines, calls-to-action, and content to see how they affect open rates and click-through rates. However, only one factor should be tested at a time. More open rates and click-through rates increase website visitors and sales

In this lecture, we will focus on A/B testing subject lines.

Testing subject lines are very important as you want a lot of people to read what you want to say to them.

Most of the email campaign software has A/B testing tools. Campaign Monitor and MailChimp have inbuilt tools designed for A/B testing.

When you begin testing, most of the email campaign tools will offer you two options;

- Send the two variations to the complete list or

- Send your variations to a percentage of that list, declare the winner then send the winning email to the remaining people who have not yet received any newsletter yet.

If you are using an email campaign software that has no inbuilt tools, you can conduct the test manually. Divide your current email subscribers list into two groups. Then send one version of your email to one group and the other to the other group. You will have to compare the results manually. Exporting your data to a spreadsheet can make the work easier.

So what exactly about your subject line can you test to increase your open rates?

1. The word order of the subject line

The way you arrange the words in your subject line can influence the number of open rates.

An example;

A. Use this voucher to get 50% off your Christmas shopping

B. Get 50% off your Christmas shopping using this voucher

In the second example, the benefit of opening the email is placed at the start of the subject line. The benefit of opening the email is emphasized and this could potentially increase the open rates.

2. The personal touch

Use a personal touch. Insert the name of the subscriber into the subject line field. This will make the campaign stand out in their inbox and entice them to open and see what information you have for them. If you are not sure whether using personalization will work for your brand, why not test first?

If you have the name of your subscribers stored in your email lists, use them on your next campaign and see whether it really works for you personally.

3. The length

The way the subject line is displayed varies from device to device. A long subject line can be cut off in some mobile devices and be fully displayed in some desktops.

The best way to see which length will prompt your subscribers to open the email is to set the next campaign as an A/B test.

4. The content

Your email may contain multiple contents. You can test different pieces of content as the subject line to see which content resonates most with your audience.

Examples;

A. 10 dinner recipes that your family will love

B. The most Nutritious meals for vegetarians

Best practices to follow when using A/B testing.

1. Send the campaigns simultaneously to reduce the chances of your results being hindered by time-based factors

2. Test the largest sample possible to get more accurate results.

3. Use the A/B testing tools available for accurate results

4. Test often and use the results achieved.

5. Test one variable at a time to get accurate results

All in all, when using A/B testing for more compelling subject lines, wait for a few days because some subscribers open their emails days after it was sent.

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The newsletter’s size and dimension

Design your email newsletter with a width of around 550 to 600 pixels. This size is the average “preview pane” in most desktop email clients. Email design templates of email service providers comply with this design specification. If your emails are too wide then the reader must scroll side to side which is distracting. Ensure all important information is within the top 300 to 500px.

Responsive design

More than half of your subscribers may be opening your emails on their mobile phones, so it’s important to ensure your emails can be opened on any device. Allow the user to view the content in the browser of their choice. Some clients may not download images by default. Always include a link to view your email newsletter in a browser.

Email services like MailerLite designs are always responsive and allow you to preview your newsletters on both mobile and desktop.

Create the header

The header features the brand name or logo, so the reader knows instantly who it’s from.

Choose the font, color, and graphic of the header.

Create the main part of the newsletter

Create a rectangle that is 600 pixels wide under the header. Gather the content that you’ll feature in the week’s newsletter. Create the heading using whichever font you want. Drag and drop the main image and copy in the article text.

Add social links

Include an area for social network and RSS icons. Create a rectangle 252 pixels wide and include a call to action button that encourages subscribers to follow you. Use the appropriate social media icons. Create another similar rectangle and include a “Share this with your friends” text so the subscriber can click there to share the newsletter with friends.

Add footer

Contains contact details.

Footers allow the reader to get in contact with you or to unsubscribe from the newsletter. Every newsletter needs to have a link or a button to allow the reader to unsubscribe if they want to.

Choosing colors

Colors communicate different sets of emotions which you can incorporate into your email. Colors are used to make things easy to find in your email content. Use blocks of colors around your text to make the content pop.

Choosing the right pictures

Pictures communicate an idea or story within seconds. Images hold a lot of influence. Select images that enhance your text.

Use images of high quality. Poorly cropped images will hurt the reputation of your company. However, images which are too large will slow down the loading time and this may annoy your subscriber.

Images in your newsletter should be up to 1MB.

The size of the image should have a maximum of 640 pixels.

Gifs

You can make your own animated gifs with tools such as GIFMaker and GIPHY or you can simply type in a keyword to find all related GIFs across the internet by using Giphy’s and MailerLite’s integration.

Gifs and backgrounds in landing pages should be up to 3MB

Video

Videos enable you to tell a more dynamic story. Sadly, most emails won’t accept video files. Think about the kind of audience you are targeting and the technology they use before embedding videos into newsletters.

Numbers are associated with prices and savings.

Newsletters can be made in two main formats, the plain text format or the HTML format. Plain text emails are emails with text only. The HTML email contains visually appealing emails that are easier for subscribers to scan through.

Both formats have their advantages and disadvantages and it’s up to you to evaluate them before deciding which one suits you best.

HTML email

An HTML email has a lot of visual elements. You get to work with the available templates, use various colors, design layout and use images or graphics if you want to.

DO’S AND DON’TS OF HTML CODING

1. Write pre-header text as an HTML comment.

2. Use tables for your template layout to ensure the design renders well across all email clients.

3. Use a single column layout to make the content be easily scanned.

4. Use absolute addresses to ensure images are displayed in recipients’ inboxes. Write the full domain, address, directory, filename, and extension.

5. Use character encoder to ensure special characters don’t appear as squares or diamond symbols with question marks.

6. Don’t use image maps - One image that leads to different URLs won’t get recognized by many email clients.

7. Don’t use fancy fonts. They won’t display properly across many email clients. Write the full CSS every time.

8. Don’t do shorthand CSS because most of the email clients don’t interpret shorthand declaration.

9. Don’t use complex CSS/HTML. The advanced code doesn’t go along with email coding yet. Leave JavaScript. The size of the email template should not exceed 102kb because Gmail will clip it out.

ADVANTAGES OF USING HTML

1. HTML allows for better storytelling - Visuals strengthen the content and enable the recipients to better understand the message.

2. High click-through rates - It enables the call to action buttons to be designed in a conspicuous and enticing way.

3. Improves branding - The colors will enable the user to incorporate brand colors into the emails.

4. Tracks the open rate - you are able to track how many emails were opened by the recipients.

DISADVANTAGES OF HTML

1. Poor delivery rate - HTML emails are considered to be spam by some of the spam filtering software in email service tools and can be filtered out.

PLAIN TEXT email

As the name suggests, plain text is just plain text sent to the recipient. It does not contain any images, template design, links or coding.

ADVANTAGES OF USING PLAIN TEXT

1. They are direct - There are no distractions. One can read the text without having to look at colorful images or shiny buttons in the email

2. Easy to compose an email - You won’t waste any time thinking about the images or templates to use.

3. They have fewer technical issues - You don’t have to worry about coding and broken images. There’s also no risk that your email will not be supported by the device the recipient uses.

4. More personal - The lack of images and links enables plain text approach to be more personal and facilitate a one-on-one message for your users.

DISADVANTAGES

1. The absence of personal visual design that will differentiate one brand from another.

2. Inability to track open rates - You cannot track the email open rates in plain text emails.

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TIPS FOR WRITING CAPTIVATING CONTENT

Discuss relevant content

People usually unsubscribe from irrelevant content. It’s important to stay within the topic range at all times. Your content should relate to the reader’s industry, interests and the topics they care about. Your subscribers want more of what attracted them to your brand in the first place. Your content should answer their questions or solve their problems.

Unique content

People like unique and original content. You’ll attract more subscribers if you create new and original content instead of copying others.

Make it simple to read

People nowadays spend little time going through their inbox. They need to understand the point of your newsletter as soon as they open it.

Make it easy for your readers by adding subheadings, using bullet points and highlighting and using short sentences and paragraphs. Keep it simple and straightforward.

Add user generated content

You can incorporate content from your users and subscribers. Include comments, examples of different product use and answer the frequently asked questions. Listen to the questions and expectations of your subscribers and address them in the next email newsletter. Readers know what they want and they will be happy if their needs are addressed.

Use few adverts

People like to read emails without being bombarded by too many adverts. It’s better to keep adverts to a minimum and allow a small part for them. Readers should be able to skip the adverts if they want.

Should be interesting

Your content should educate, delight or entertain the reader. It should be captivating and keep the reader engaged until the end.

When creating content for your newsletter,

Choose your focus

You can try to conduct a survey and see what your subscribers want to see in your newsletters. When you choose the focus of your newsletter, e.g. product update, stick to it so readers will know what to expect from you every time.

Incorporate third-party content

This is a great way to align your brand with experts. Try including tweets, quotes or links from favorite brands or business partners

Include trending topics or events

Try connecting your content to trending topics or events. People like to be informed about all the hot topics. Providing your own commentary is a great way to include your brand or product on the topic.

SOURCES FOR GREAT NEWSLETTER CONTENT

Look at user reviews

People will talk about features they think a product is lacking and the improvements that can be made. They also answer questions

Try searching on google

You can never lack content with Google. One good search leads to another and you end up with ideas and inspirations.

Other people’s newsletters

Look at other people’s newsletters to see what you don’t know and get different perspectives. Follow big industry blogs and you will get idea after idea for your newsletter.

Twitter

Typing the keyword of interest will result in a lot of information and ideas.

CONTENT IDEAS FOR YOUR NEWSLETTER

1. Product updates - changes to your product or service

2. Business celebrating a birthday/anniversary

3. How-to videos for your product and include as a feature in your newsletter

4. Send them deals and discounts

5. Send them quotes through your newsletter

6. Thank you newsletters

A call to action is a button or link that prompts a reader to click. Call to action buttons shows you exactly where to click to access more information or to take action.

Call to action buttons entice readers to click by using bright colors and thoughtful placement. They also use actionable words to attract the attention of the reader. Examples of Call to action are;

1. Follow the recipe

2. Register today

Call to action buttons received a higher click-through rate than a call to action links.

There are three types of Call to action buttons;

1. A button that tells you what will happen if you click the link, e.g.Download the books.

2. A button that sends the reader to another page where they will get more information, e.g.Learn more

3. The button which is part of a lead form and helps bring the process to its logical conclusion, e.g.send or subscribe.

TIPS FOR WRITING AND DESIGNING YOUR CALL TO ACTION BUTTONS;

Use action-oriented words to draw readers in. Use compelling verbs like getting, read and try.

Make your CTA button text large and legible. It should be big enough to draw attention but not too big to be obnoxious.

Keep text short. Two or three words is best, don’t use more than five words.

Use the first person E.g. Start my free trial instead of Start your free trial

Create Urgency in your CTA buttons by using words like “Get it now” and “Today only; 50% off”

Use bright colors to attract the attention of the reader. Your button colors will depend on the colors of your brand.

Add white space around your call to action buttons to create a visual break and draw the attention of the reader right where you want it. It makes the CTA stand out.

Watch the outline and hierarchy. If you have other links or images that are not your main CTA buttons, make sure they are not distracting. This ensures your number one CTA button gets the clicks you desire.

Make the CTA button the next obvious step. The reader should move mentally through the process and the button should be the final climax of the process. They should know how they are supposed to click on the link.

A/B test the call to action button. Test every single tip above using the A/B test to determine which elements bring more click-through rates.

If your product is already familiar to the readers, it’s okay to place Call to action buttons above the fold line asking for a simple and targeted action that does not take much time to decide on.

If you have a new product and the reader needs to read the full information before deciding on the next course of action, then place the call to action button after all the information about the product. This ensures the advantages of the product have already been presented and the trust of the reader has been won.

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A unique selling proposition is a concept that outlines how your business, product or service is different than that of the competitors. It identifies the qualities that make people choose you over the competition.

A business can have one or more unique selling propositions. In Email marketing, a USP can include product characteristics, experience, services, features, and current customer focus and pricing.

A USP is not often unique. It’s a marketing focal point the email service provider uses to differentiate itself from competitors. Finding and maintaining USPs are becoming increasingly difficult because the once unique features are now widespread.

If a business lacks a strong USP, it will be very difficult to scale in a competitive market.

An example of a company that has a unique selling proposition is Mars Incorporated. The slogan for M&M is “The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” Their selling point is the fact that M&M’s don’t melt when you hold them. The slogan worked very well for them.

When looking for a Unique Selling Point, the following steps help.

It’s important to build a character, a persona that repeats itself in every contact with the customer. A brand that uses its email program to highlight its brand voice and personality makes subscribers feel like they are a friend. Use humor if your brand represents fun and bubbly product or service. Creating that persona that shines through in your content will make subscribers open your email whether they want to purchase or not.

Your unique persona could be your unique selling proposition.

It’s important to build a frame story that makes it easy for people to connect to it. Your content must emotionally appeal to the users. The best way to build an emotional connection between customer and brand is to master the art of storytelling. This is through telling stories that the audience wants to hear and stories that engage the audience with the brand. Choose a brief, personal and shareable frame story that people can relate to. It will connect them to your brand.

You can AB test nearly everything in email marketing. You can test the subject line to determine which one gets more open rates. A lot of variables can be tested in the subject line. For example; test two different topics as the subject line to see what content elicits more interest in subscribers.

The sender name can be AB tested. You can test using your company name, the product name your campaigns are about or your personal name if it’s easily recognizable to subscribers.

The email content can also be tested using the AB test. AB testing will help the brand come up with a unique selling proposition by looking at preferences of customers and what they are more interested in buying or reading.

The frequency of email newsletters per week. A typical preference center includes frequency options. The options give the subscribers the opportunity to choose or reduce the frequency in which you send emails to them, e.g. daily, weekly or monthly. If you have multiple newsletters they can choose which one they prefer to hear from. Sending the number of emails that clients are okay with is a unique selling proposition because you have known what they prefer and you are giving them what they want how they want it.

In the next lecture, we will look at how your email service provider can automatically send newsletters to your subscribers in direct response to their specific actions on your website. You won’t have to lift a finger every time you want to send emails, stick around for more!

Automated Email is a message which is automatically sent from your email service provider in direct response to an individual subscriber’s specific actions made on your website. Email automation enables marketers to send extremely user-specific messages in a responsive way. Automation helps target a customer with the right message.

An example of a company that automates its emails is Mumsnet. The pregnancy newsletter is fully automated and uses the mother’s due date as the trigger to send email messages. They record the due date through a custom email sign up form and use it to schedule emails that the expectant subscriber will receive throughout their pregnancy to help them learn about the different stages based on how far along they are.

Setting up your automated program

Marketers have to integrate their site management tools with their email marketing platform to enable the two databases to connect. This enables a marketer to look at what a customer has browsed and sent email newsletters with similar content. For example, if a customer has read a feature on skin care, the marketer can promote his/her story on the ways to remove spots and blemish on the skin.

Creating a welcome series of messages

When a customer has signed up to receive your emails, you can follow this action up by creating an automated welcome series. These emails will enable you to introduce your brand and ask customers the kind of messages they would like to receive.

Creating automated triggers

Establishing triggered messages allow a marketer to interact with your customer based on how they interact with your brand. An example is when you know it’s your subscriber’s anniversary, you can send a message with sweet quotes about anniversaries.

By connecting a website data with the email system, customers can automatically receive an email reminder if they added a product to a cart but did not complete the purchase.

Examples of Automated email messages

1. Welcome emails to help customers start using your products or services

2. Happy birthday, emails to help increase your customers’ loyalty. On a subscriber’s birthday, you could use automated emails to send promotion codes. Birthday emails generate more revenue than other promotional codes.

3. Abandoned shopping cart emails

With so many distractions, it’s common in the e-commerce industry. These emails remind the customer of the purchase they were about to make. Abandoned cart emails can be made more enticing to first-time shoppers by throwing in a discount or other incentive to make them more comfortable to buy.

4. Order confirmation email messages

These emails notify customers that the store has received their order and shows them how soon they can start tracking the shipping progress.

Advantages of Automation

1. When using automation, you don’t have to worry about segmenting and scheduling each email to a specific audience. This enables you to spend more time crafting a compelling message and keeping your brand consistent with all of your customers.

If you want to send out highly targeted emails, then it will be extremely easy.

It’s important to set multiple email automation campaigns so you can send out highly targeted emails. You can segment your leads by;

Location- to send information about local events and promotions

Interests- To send out automation campaigns that are relevant to customer likes

Age - to use age-appropriate lingo or give information that they can better relate to

Gender - To promote different gender-related products

2. Your brand stays on their minds

Sending out triggered, targeted and personalized email automation campaigns keep you connected with your customers. It also helps keep in touch with new leads.

3. Saves you money

Automated emails will save your business time and money. You won’t have to follow the old ways of nurturing leads because the automation sends emails based on the specific action the users are doing. You will not have to send out manual emails either.

4. Set and forget

Once you set your automation, you’ll automatically contact your new leads. It’s a super simple method.

Don’t miss out on your campaigns because you failed to optimize your emails. In the next lecture, we will look at ways to get the most out of your email campaigns.

Please share the answers with us. Then you can move on with the next section. Thank you.

Here are ways of optimizing your email campaigns include;

Use content that benefits and motivates the recipient to take action

Does your product or service make your subscriber’s life better? Does it solve a problem or will it make him/her happier?

Your product must benefit recipient in one way or another for them to take action. Focus on the benefits, not the features of the product or service.

Use one call to action button for each email. Emails with one call to action outperform emails with multiple calls to action. Companies try to fit multiple calls to action buttons into one email such as; buy a product, subscribe, download a coupon etc. Users who are confronted with many options in one email may end up not clicking anything at all.

Make clicking and converting easy by ensuring the call to action button or link is prominent, stand out on the page and is placed above the fold. Whenever you design a call to action button, think action-packed and urgent. E.g. “Download the free coupon now!” The email’s format should lead the subscriber’s attention to the call to action button without any distractions.

Reduce the customer’s anxiety about making the purchase. Buyers are usually faced with questions such as; is this purchase process safe? Is this product right for me?

To prevent the buyers from being anxious, include credible testimonials from happy customers and include their names and photographs if possible.

Add the number of customers that are using your products or services and the Privacy policy reminder.

In-depth personalization of your email campaigns. Customize email content based on behavioral data and demographic data such as products they’ve viewed at your company’s website. This is one of the best ways of keeping your subscribers engaged.

Segment your emails based on time. Look at email campaign metrics from the last couple of months to see if any response patterns are associated with the time sent. Using this information you can then segment your emails based on recipients’ response behavior than the time the emails according to different intervals.

Segment emails by asking your subscribers what their interests are and what kind of content they’d like to receive moving forward. Segment based on previous purchases.

The message in the email and the landing page should be similar.

it's important to have a good landing page. The main message, design, and call to action in the email should be the same in the landing page. When the subscribers click through, the main offer in the email newsletter should be highly visible on the landing page so they know they have arrived at the right place.

This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised by how many companies promote a specific product, but when the call to action is clicked, it takes the user to a log-in page.

Consider mobile users in your email design. If users open your email on a mobile device and get multiple small links on each other, they will get frustrated and may abandon the email without converting.

Share social links

Include all social media links in every email you send. Include links for Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and Facebook. Doing this will enable the subscribers to share your offers with their networks. You will expand your audience and broaden your opportunity to generate new leads. If the subscribers share your content with people who are not in your email list and they convert, you gain new leads.

Include an unsubscribe button

Make it visible so people who want to unsubscribe can do so. If they don’t see the unsubscribe button they may label your email spam and this may ruin your sender reputation

Want to know how your email marketing campaigns are performing? If yes then stick around because in the next lecture we will look at the important email marketing metrics to know if your optimization actions are bearing any fruits.

You want to check and see how your email marketing campaign is performing but you don’t know where to start. If all you want to do is increase conversion rates and earn revenues by selling amazing products, follow these simple ways of tracking your progress by monitoring the email marketing metrics below.

Delivery rate

This is the first metric to look at while measuring the strength of your email list. A high delivery rate shows that you are indeed reaching your audience. A low delivery rate shows you need to work on building a strong email list.

Open rate

After the email has reached the recipients’ inbox, the next challenge is to get the email read by the recipient. The subject line has a big role to play in enticing the reader to click on your email and read. Stand out from the competition by using a person’s name to send the email instead of using your company name.

Click-through rate

This is the percentage of the number of recipients who clicked on one or more of the links in your email newsletter. This is calculated by dividing the number of total clicks by the number of delivered emails and multiplying the result by one hundred. To achieve high click-through rates, segment your lists by topics of interest.

Conversion rate

This is the percentage of the recipients who clicked on a link in an email and completed the desired action such as filling out a form or purchasing a product. It is calculated by dividing the number of people who completed the desired action by the number of total emails delivered and multiplying the result by one hundred.

The conversion rate is one of the most important metrics for determining the success of email campaigns.

The bounce rate

This is the percentage of your total emails sent that could not be delivered to the recipient’s inbox. There are two types of bounces, hard bounces, and soft bounces.

Soft bounces are the result of temporary issues with a valid email address. These issues could be a full inbox or a problem with the recipient’s server. The recipient may receive emails once the issues have been resolved. You can re-send your messages.

Hard bounces are the result of a non-existent or invalid email address and the emails will never be delivered. You should remove all hard bounce addresses from your mailing list because Internet Service Providers use bounce rates to determine the reputation of a company. Many hard bounces may make your company look like a spammer.

The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the total number of bounced emails by the number of emails sent and multiplying the result by one hundred.

The List Growth Rate

This is the rate at which your email list is growing. You should aim at increasing your list in order to extend your reach and expand your audience.

Track spam complaints

Look at whether you are providing valuable information to your recipients or just annoying them with irrelevant information. This metric looks at the number of people who marked your emails as spam.

It is calculated by dividing the Total spam complaints by the Total number of emails delivered and multiplying it by one hundred.

Unsubscribe rate

High unsubscribe rates could be as a result of not having a strong welcome series, the “from” name not being recognizable and not emailing frequently or emailing too much.

Complaint rate

Complains could be because; you have not included an unsubscribe link, you’re sharing irrelevant content, you have a stale email address and you’re emailing too frequently.

In the next lecture, we will look at ways to ensure your emails actually land in the recipients’ inbox and not in their spam folder. Don’t miss the most important lecture, how to avoid being labeled as a spammer.

Please share the answers with us. Then you can move on with the next section. Thank you.

This is how you ensure your emails avoid spam filters and end up in the recipients’ inbox

Start by building your own email list. Avoid renting and purchasing an email from a third party, sharing a list with a partner or scraping emails. You may send important information to people, but if it’s going to the wrong or unengaged audience then you risk being labeled as a spammer.

Slowly building your email list may take a long time, but it will benefit your email program in the long run. Encourage your subscribers to white-list you - Add you as a contact.

Use Double opt-in method. When you are building your email list, provide a way for the recipients to confirm whether they want to receive emails from your brand. When they have subscribed, send them another email where you ask them to confirm whether they want to receive emails from you. This helps keep your list neat and your domain reputation clean.

Regularly clean up your email list. People who no longer want to receive emails from you will just ignore you instead of unsubscribing. This will damage the reputation of your company’s domain and affect the email deliverability. The lower the number of people reading and engaging in your emails, the less favorably you will be viewed by the ISPs. Unsubscribe the inactive members.

Enable recipients to choose email send frequency. Doing this will enable your recipients to choose when they will receive your emails and how frequently they will get them. This reduces the risk of your emails being labeled as spam by putting the recipients in charge of the content they receive and when.

Choose a recognizable email sender name so the recipients can know it’s you.

Choose reliable Email service providers that send out valuable content and have high scores on their IP addresses. ESPs which are disreputable get blocked by reputable ESPs such as Gmail or Hotmail.

Check if you have been blacklisted. The reputation of your IP address is important and if you have been blacklisted there’s a high chance your emails will land in the spam folder. This affects your email deliverability.

Tools such as MxToolbox allow you to check if you have been blacklisted

Test your emails before sending them using tools such as Mail Tester. It checks the quality of your emails

Provide the unsubscribe button. If people want to unsubscribe, respect their wishes. Make it an easy process by making a conspicuous unsubscribe button and never email them again.

Avoid sounding like a spammer

The more spam-like your texts sound, the more likely they are to end up in the spam folder. There are some basic rules to avoid sounding like a spammer.

Do not use the word free too many times

1) Don’t use too many colored fonts

2) Do not use ALL CAPS

3) Try to use only one exclamation point at a time

4) Steer clear of words you see from spam emails such as Viagra, drugs, winning lotteries and porn. Certain words can be caught in a spam filter

5) Including too many large images

6) Using a wide variety of fonts, especially those bigger than 12 point

7) If messages include a link to a website that has been blacklisted, the messages could be caught by email spam filters.

Don’t wait too long before contacting your subscribers because even if you used the double opt-in method, your email list can go stale if not used regularly. Lists with a lot of stale email addresses can result in high bounce rates, spam complaints and unsubscribes.

Sending many emails can increase the conversion rate, but how many emails is too much? In the next lecture, we will look at how to find the optimum frequency of sending emails so you don’t end up sending too many emails and getting unsubscribes.

Here we are going to discuss how to determine your email send frequency sweet spot to optimize your return on investment.

Under mailing;

-Increases your chances of missing out on the sales you could have made from willing buyers.

-Results in a few emails that create weak impressions and you will not be on the subscriber’s priority list.

-Poses a risk to sender’s reputation as inconsistent mailing can ring alarm bells with ESPs

-Will make subscribers forget you. Most people sign up with the intention of buying and if you don’t email enough this will be forgotten.

On the other hand, over mailing;

-Can make subscribers ignore your emails

-Makes subscribers unsubscribe from you or mark your email as spam. -Over-emailing not only hurts your brand’s reputation, it negatively impacts your email deliverability.

The number of emails to send without causing an increase in unsubscribe and spam complaint rates depends on some variables including the type of business and the target audience’s expectations.

Ways to ensure you’re sending the optimum number of emails include;

1. Setting up an email preference center. An email preference center starts with collecting information during the email registration process. It’s a place where your subscribers can add or update information about their email preferences.

A typical preference center includes frequency options. The options give the subscribers the opportunity to choose or reduce the frequency in which you send emails to them, e.g. daily, weekly or monthly. If you have multiple newsletters they can choose which one they prefer to hear from.

This enables your subscribers to choose how many emails they get from your company from the start.

You can also offer an opt-down option for subscribers at the point of unsubscribing by reducing the frequency of sending an email or let them select only the type of mailings that interest them.

This is because it can be difficult to ask a subscriber to choose frequency during the registration process before they see what you are offering via email. They may not be able to determine how relevant it is to them if they don’t have the full scope of what you are offering.

2. Continuously measuring and tracking metrics such as the open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates and unsubscribe rates. High unsubscribe rate will show if you are sending way too many emails

3. Creating different segments based on subscriber activity. This involves using the degree of engagement of each subscriber to test for the email send frequency.

This can be done in the following ways;

i. Sending more email newsletters to people who frequently open and convert

ii. Sending fewer newsletters to people who are less engaged

iii. Sending more newsletters to people who are less engaged to re-engage them and re-capture their interest.

4. Setting optimization tests to determine your send frequency sweet spot is the best way to find that number.

5. Another method is to split your email list into two groups. Let the first group receive the same frequency of email that you send currently. Experiment with the second group by sending emails twice as often compared to the first group and see the results.

For more accurate results you may need to wait for a month or two. Monitor the engagement of the two groups separately and compare the open and click rate.

Email send frequency can vary with seasons and holidays. This is because during holidays people like to receive emails containing discounts, gift ideas, and offers. Receiving many offers during holidays are not only expected by subscribers, but they also look forward to it. So during holidays, it’s safe to say the email send frequency should be a bit higher than normal days of the week.

In the final section, we will touch on the common mistakes everyone makes in email newsletters and what to do to avoid making such mistakes.

Please share the answers with us. Then you can move on with the next section. Thank you.

Common email mistakes people make include;

Not using an email service provider

Different email providers will display your emails differently in different devices. Reliable email service providers have solved this problem for you

You will not be able to track the metric results of your email marketing campaign.

Poor email design

Keep your HTML design simple and let it correspond to your brand identity.

Avoid using too much text. Do not write a big block of content because you have many products to sell. Do not put a lot of content thinking your subscribers will select the ones they are interested in.

Make it simple to skim by using bold colors, headings and bullet points.

Poor timing and frequency

Consistent communication with your subscribers will build a strong connection between you guys. Regular newsletters will make your recipients feel like they are getting to know you better and better. You should send a minimum of two newsletters per month.

Poorly crafted subject lines

Bad subject lines will ruin the whole marketing before it begins because the open rates will be low from the beginning. Use eye-catching subject lines instead.

More important things added at the end

People have a short attention span. Share information like an inverted pyramid. Begin with the most important information first and less important information as you go down. Show your offers, discounts, and sales at the top while the recipients are still interested.

Having no call to action button

Your newsletter is beautifully crafted and all the relevant information is included. But do you have a call to action button? Add CTA buttons that are short, simple and bright.

Misspellings

People notice the little errors and they may affect how they perceive the company. Take your time to read the text and edit before sending it out to the masses.

Missing the social media buttons

Some companies do not include their social media links that people can use to interact with them through social media or email. Don’t miss out on this opportunity. Include your social media buttons and links.

Not tracking the email campaign results

When looking for a good email campaign provider, look at the metrics you will be able to get in the reports. It’s important to look at the number of people opening your mails and clicking at the links in your email newsletters. A more important metric is to check the conversion rates.

The From Name is “no reply”

You should not use a generic email. People do not want to interact with mailboxes, they want interaction with real people or a company that will listen to their problems and solves them.

E.g. using “info@mail.com. People don’t like faceless organizations.

Focusing on the product instead of the customer

Emails should serve the customer and not the product. Growth comes from amazing service that is so good it’s shareable. Meet clients in their email clients and give them more than they were expecting or more than they are paying for.

Email that lacks personality

People signed up because of your unique perspectives and point of view. Don’t miss out on the chance to personalize your email newsletters while selling them something. Incorporate your unique personality into your email newsletters.

Too many calls to action buttons

Giving people too many calls to action is confusing to the recipient and dilutes the effectiveness of the email campaign. Give people one call to action button that is compelling.

Only images in email

The entire content will not appear if the person’s settings are “images off”

Emails that only contain images may be considered spam by filters.

Not segmenting your email list

Customers have different preferences.

Those are some of the mistakes people make. Now that you know, you are in a better position to make better-informed decisions.

In the last lecture, we will look at the summation of crafting the best email newsletter you could possibly make so you could stop reading and start crafting! Stay tuned.

CONCLUSION

After learning about all the ways in which we can create, optimize and measure our email newsletters, here are some of the tips and main points which should be on your fingertips every time you want to create the most compelling newsletter out there;

Make your email messages relevant and beneficial to the user. Your emails should be easy to scan and the recipient should know what it’s about at a glance. If they don’t understand why you sent them that message they will delete and may delete subsequent emails without opening them

Time your emails

Ask your recipients how frequently they want to receive your email messages. Also, test the email cadence to know the time of day most emails are opened.

Use catchy subject lines

Subject lines should hook the attention of the reader. They should be compelling. Make sure the recipients see who the message is from at a glance.

Conspicuous call to action buttons

Design a conspicuous call to action buttons so the recipients know what to do next and how to do it. Ensure the links and instructions are highly visible. The links should lead the recipients to a dedicated landing page on your website. Remember to add a “forward to a friend” option.

Personal touch

The more specific you make offers to your audience, the more they will be willing to buy. Use their names and acknowledge their previous purchases and anything else that can make the email more personal.

Adhere to CAN-SPAM laws by placing a visible unsubscribe button at the bottom of the newsletter.

Include offers and discount coupons that are exclusive for your newsletter subscribers only.

Use high-quality pictures

Pictures communicate an idea or story within seconds. Images hold a lot of influence. Select images that enhance your text.

Use images of high quality. Poorly cropped images will hurt the reputation of your company.

Automated Email is a message which is automatically sent from your email service provider in direct response to an individual subscriber’s specific actions made on your website. Email automation enables marketers to send extremely user-specific messages in a responsive way. Automation helps target a customer with the right message.

Be consistent

Your goal should be to send messages consistently that your recipients actually look forward to a certain day/ time to receive your messages.

Test, track and refine your email newsletter

Keep going back to check your goals. Measure everything and see what is working and what needs improvement. It nothing is going the way you want it to, continue tweaking and testing until it does.

Find the right tool

Look for the tool that will distribute your newsletters easily, make templating a breeze and handle all the technicalities of sending lots of emails without getting blacklisted for spamming.

Test before sending emails

Before you send that newsletter, test it out by sending it to yourself first, view it in different browsers and on different mobile devices. This way you’ll ensure the message can be opened in different devices and email service providers.

After all this wealth of information, we hope you can now begin your successful journey of creating extremely compelling email newsletters. You’ve learned all the key points on crafting newsletters. Now go out there and begin your successful email marketing campaigns!

Please share the answers with us. Then you can move on with the next section. Thank you.

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