Keep your Audience Engaged
Now that you’ve built an audience, your work isn’t done. It takes regular communication and proactive engagement to keep your tribe.
We get it - life is busy, and it’s easy to become out of touch with your audience unless you take steps to keep yourself in front of them regularly. So, an email newsletter that engages and provides value to your followers can be a healthy addition to your email marketing strategy.
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Here's how to create an effective email newsletter to serve as a simple and cost-effective way to keep your audience interested and engaged with you.
1. Do Some Research
First, you must know your audience. Where do they go for information? What is a typical “persona” for your average reader? How often do they want to hear from you?
By finding the answers to these questions before you hit “send” on your first email newsletter, you’ll greatly increase the odds that it will be read and forwarded. This step is quintessential for any form of marketing or business for that matter.
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2. Avoid the Fluff
After you understand to whom you are writing, the second rule for an effective email newsletter is to provide content that is of real value to your readers. If you throw together haphazard articles just to fulfill a word count goal, your audience will see through it immediately and unsubscribe.
Just as an engaged audience can be very loyal and become raving fans, readers who feel that you’ve wasted their time can become instant detractors. Make your content count.
3. Make it Short & Sweet
Equally important to creating worthwhile content, is creating just the right amount. Digital attention spans are short; keep your content brief, to the point, and given in small doses.
Consider a two-part series on an interesting topic, for example. This will not only increase the likelihood that your readers will consume the entire article, but it will also make them want to read the next installment.
4. Don’t Use Click-bait
Click-bait is the sneaky tactic of writing a headline to draw your reader in when, in reality, the article has little or nothing to do with the title. Readers hate click-bait.
Make sure you are being honest about the content of your newsletter and not wasting your audience’s time with misleading headlines. Make friends, not enemies.
5. Paint a Picture
There is nothing worse than an email or marketing newsletter with miles of plain text and zero imagery. Attract the eye of your reader with applicable images and infographics.
Vary the font size of your headlines. Use callout quotes. Take advantage of opportunities to break up the text blocks and add visual appeal.
6. Be Mobile
Many readers consume digital content on their mobile device while they are sitting in a meeting, on their commute, or waiting in line at the grocery store.
If you want to keep and increase readership, make it as easy as possible to click on your newsletter and view it in its original format on a mobile device. The minute you make your reader struggle with scroll bars to see your content, you’ve already lost them.
7. Make it Click
Once you’ve provided engaging content in your email newsletter to hook your readers, don’t be afraid to ask them to click to see more.
\You don’t have to give it all away inside your email; an effective email advertising campaign can easily be nestled inside newsletter content and linked to a landing page, a piece of collateral, or a call to action.
Over to you
After you’ve launched your newsletter, track your progress over a few editions to see how your audience is responding.
Switch up one approach at a time (visuals one week, subject matter the next, for example) to see how it impacts your readership. With a little art and a little science, you’ll keep your current tribe engaged and start attracting new members.