Most newsletters get deleted from the preview pane. Not because the writing is bad, but because the reader cannot tell in two seconds what is in it for them.
We write and send newsletters for clients every month. The ones people actually open have the same eight things in common.
- Know who you are writing to. Before you write a word, picture one real reader. What do they already know? What are they trying to decide? That answer sets your topics and your tone, and it is the difference between a newsletter and a company announcement.
- Keep it short. Nobody is waiting for your email. Say the thing, then stop. Headings and bullets are not decoration, they are what makes a busy person able to scan it in ten seconds and still get the point.
- Give the eye somewhere to land. An image or two breaks up the text and makes the whole thing feel lighter. Watch the file size, though. A newsletter that takes five seconds to render on a phone has already lost.
- Sound like a person. A note from whoever wrote it, in their own words, does more than a page of polished copy. People subscribe to people.
- Ask for one thing. One link that matters, not eight. If the reader has to choose between five calls to action, they choose none of them.
- Make unsubscribing easy. A visible unsubscribe link at the bottom, one click. It is the law, and it also keeps your list made of people who want to be on it, which is the only kind of list worth having.
- Check it on a phone first. Most of your readers will open it there. If it only looks right on a desktop, it only looks right for a minority.
- Send it to five people before you send it to five thousand. A test group catches the broken link, the image that did not load and the subject line that reads differently than you meant.
None of this is complicated. It is just easier to skip when you are busy, which is why most newsletters skip it.
If writing one every month is the part you keep putting off, that is the part we take over. Tell us what you sell and we will tell you what we would send.
Noah WinkelmanSelva Digital
Builds websites and the systems behind them for small businesses in Spain and the Netherlands. Writes down the things clients ask twice.
