Building Email Newsletters with SNAP Retail

I know that email newsletters are a great way to build trust and relationships and if they include promotional content, they’ll also grow revenue. So an excellent marketing tool! The key is to make sure your subscribers actually read them. Here are 5 tips for making sure your email newsletters get opened, read, and acted upon.

Create Relevant Subject Lines

Most people go through their inbox at least once a day to remove irrelevant email. There's just too much email and too little time so it's critical for your emails have a subject line that makes people want to read more. People are looking for an excuse to delete your newsletter - don't give them one! Don't use a subject line like "Our February Newsletter." Instead, use something that grabs attention like an interesting topic.

The following 13 subject lines ought to inspire:

1. Our Valentine to You: Take $5 Off an Upcoming Event!

2. Clogged Pipes Aren’t Romantic. Take $50 off Rotor Rooter Services

3. Join Us for 7 Days of Love in February

4. Your Soundtrack for Valentine’s Day

5. 50 Sexy Books to Get You in the Mood (for Valentine’s Day)

6. ♥ Happy Valentine’s Day ♥ Just for you…

7. Got a Coffee Crush? Your 20% Offer is Waiting

8. A Unique Valentine’s Day Gift She Won’t Expect

9. Your Anti-Valentine’s Day Agenda

10. Hassle-free Romance

11. A perfect meal for your sweetheart

12. Score points with your Valentine!

13. 6 Ways to Make This Valentine’s Day One to Remember

If you'd like to encourage people to forward your emails, try this: I always recommend adds "Pls. Forward" to the end of their newsletter subject lines. Don’t make your subject lines too long, and don’t use acronyms in an effort to make them shorter, this is a sure-fire way to get your email deleted!

Length and Frequency of your newsletter

The more frequent your newsletter, the shorter it should be. People will happily open a short "Joke of the Day"; but almost no one wants to get something longer every single day! So, keep dailies to a page or less and weeklies to 5-7 pages or less. Biweeklies (every two weeks) and monthlies can be longer – but only if you have truly fascinating information to share.

Make it Easy on the Eyes

Here are two easy tricks to make your email newsletters more visually appealing and more likely to be read:

• See how it will look as you create the content: When you are writing a newsletter, set your word processing program so you are writing in the same format that will appear on recipient's screen.

• Always add a hyperlinked table of contents at the top. On-screen readers don't want to work hard to find pieces of valuable information in your newsletter. Tell them up-front what will be in it so they can click or scroll quickly to the section of their choice. In fact usability studies show most people won't look beyond the first screen of information if there's not something immediately interesting to them. Give them a reason to scroll down!

Tone and Attitude

Every brand has its own tone and manner, which is adapted to various contexts - formal for official documents with legal implications, more casual and direct for promotional materials. While print newsletters tend toward the formal, email newsletters do not. The best email marketers in the world, no matter what industry they are in - say the same thing: make your newsletter's tone personal and casual. People want to see a little humanity behind the corporate mask and respond better to newsletters written by one particular person at a company who they can get to know over time through little personal comments in the emails. It is sometimes hard to get used to writing in a casual tone for an official communication. It can feel risky, even scary. But chances are it will work far better than old fashioned "corporate-speak."

A Good Idea

Your best resource is your own email inbox. Take an hour in the next day or so to go on the Web and sign up for some newsletters. Start with your top competitors', but also choose a few on your favorite hobby or topics you’re interested in. Look for good ideas you can use; note what makes you open an email (or delete without reading); form an opinion on what formats are easiest on your eyes; consider the tone. You'll be surprised at all the ideas you'll end up with, often from the most unlikely sources. Let me know how you're doing. Love to hear from you! BestBarbara