Today’s consumers are inundated with digital marketing at every turn. Increasing customer engagement and breaking through the noise can be a difficult feat for companies to achieve. Luckily, email marketing is still an effective strategy. According to McKinsey, email is the most cost-efficient digital marketing channel and is 40 times more effective for gaining new customers than social media. In a HubSpot survey of 300 marketers, 95% reported their email marketing strategy was effective in 2021. Additionally, people with smartphones prefer to receive brand communications via email.

With these facts on the table, it’s best to keep email-marketing strategies in the toolkit. Email newsletters have evolved over the years and can help businesses stay top of mind with their customers and prospects. Newsletters are an effective customer engagement tool because they are a consistent medium for information sharing. Depending on the content companies include in newsletters and their mailing lists, newsletters are also tools companies can use to grow their brands.

Below are considerations for launching a customer newsletter, best practices and important metrics to track to ensure the best ROI.

Elements to Consider Before Kicking Off a Newsletter

• Confirm the objectives. Before a company launches a newsletter, it’s critical to identify a few important elements. First, what is the objective? Newsletters are helpful tools but are not a one-size-fits-all solution. A shared agreement about the overall business and communication objectives before investing in developing an ongoing newsletter is a must. Newsletters can provide value to readers through sharing company updates, providing helpful information about the organization, and offering solutions to common industry pain points. If increasing customer engagement or promoting services are objectives, a newsletter could be a great fit. 
• Know the audience. Hand in hand with confirming the objective of the newsletter is knowing the company’s audience and understanding their preferred communication methods. If a company knows its customers aren’t digitally savvy or have historically low open rates with email campaigns, they’ll want to be mindful of launching a digital email newsletter. Alternatively, if customers are active online, it will be essential for the business to ensure they optimize the newsletter for mobile (more on that below).

• Determine the Frequency. Customers don’t want to be overloaded with content but establishing consistency and being a regular source of information can be valuable to audiences. There is not a perfect formula for determining the email frequency; it will depend on the business, audience and content available. Some companies opt for weekly newsletters; others find that monthly or quarterly cadence works better for their customers. After determining the frequency and rhythm of the newsletter, marketing teams should also play around with distribution timing. According to the HubSpot survey referenced above, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday get the most engagement from email campaigns. Further, emails sent between 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. on Tuesdays receive the most response and engagement. Weekends receive the lowest response.

Newsletter Best Practices

After companies have determined the elements above, they’ll want to make sure the way they approach newsletter development will yield the best results. Below are several best practices to guide the process and content for customer newsletters.

• Compelling and short subject lines. Having catchy yet informative subject lines and descriptions will help catch attention and encourage readers to open and read the content. This guidance also goes for the email’s subject line and the headlines for each section of the newsletter. A reader might be intrigued by the email’s subject line and abandon the content when they open it.

• Mobile-friendly and flexible template. It’s essential to ensure the newsletter is easily accessible on multiple platforms, so the formatting stays as planned when readers view the content on desktop and mobile settings. If a company has not optimized the content for mobile viewing, for example, the display and format of the newsletter would be complex for the reader to navigate and read when they receive the email newsletter on their smartphone.

• Clear and consistent branding. Branding could include the logo and company name and embedding the links to the company’s social media pages. These elements will let readers make it clear who the content is from and feel connected to the brand. It’s also wise to have clear and consistent fonts, so the content is easy for audiences to read and navigate.

• Diversify content. Some companies follow the 60/40 rule for newsletter content. In newsletter settings, this often means having 60% company and product-related content and the remaining newsletter content focused on industry or customer-generated items. In addition to this guide, companies should include a mix of types of content such as company blogs, external articles – company and industry-focused – eBooks, whitepapers and videos or infographics. And even though the type of content will vary, it’s recommended that the newsletter focus on two to three topics with one main call to action.

• Keep it concise. If the company is sharing a plethora of content, consider staggering it to make sure the newsletters aren’t so excessively long that they lose the reader’s attention. The word count of each section will vary based on the call to action. Constant Contact has a helpful post that details how word count and the call to action are connected. This post outlines that newsletters with 200 words, or 20 lines of text, have the highest email click-through rate.

• Include links. The desired call to action will inform the links a company includes in its newsletter. However, providing links to the company’s original content can help readers learn more about a topic. It can also help the company drive traffic to the website, blog or desired location.

• Share the newsletter on other channels. In addition to adding links and buttons to the company’s social media, companies can increase engagement and performance of the newsletter by publishing it on their website and sharing it on corporate social media channels. Having the newsletter on these platforms will be another touchpoint for potential customers to learn more about the company and engage with the brand.

Metrics to Track

With all marketing campaigns, tracking metrics and adjusting content and process is essential to ensure the newsletter is a valuable resource. The specific metrics and KPIs to measure the newsletter’s success might vary depending on the company’s objectives and resources available for the newsletter; however, core metrics to track, according to HubSpot, include delivery rate, open rate, click-through rate and forward rate. There are also many great marketing platforms to develop and distribute newsletters (e.g., HubSpot, Constant Contact, Drip, etc.). The right fit will depend on the company’s objectives. When possible, it’s best to leverage a platform that can interact with the company’s CRM.

At Communiqué PR, we support a variety of clients with the development and distribution of their newsletters. We’ve found this resource to be a valuable tool to amplify content to engage with employees and customers and increase overall brand awareness.

Does your company have a newsletter? What practices have worked for you? For more information or help kicking off an employee or customer newsletter, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@communiquepr.com.