Email newsletters are a great way to keep in touch with current and past customers of your business, while also being a great way to gently ‘coax’ potential customers into your sales funnel. This is purely about the writing and visuals, for info on creating a list, check out the following video from master marketer Frank Kern:
If your business has a website or social presence online, just think of the potential that’s out there in cyberspace for businesses that actually keep in touch with the people who have a want or need for a particular product or service.
This post is in the context of a selling email, as opposed to a purely information-style.
I’m going to make this post into a three-part series:
- This one and Part Deux will go into some of the most important details pertaining to the “aesthetics” of your page – How it looks from a visual standpoint to the recipient. Visuals are very important when dealing with food, supplements, clothing, entertainment, and many others. This includes font, branding, HTML/plain text choices, column size, highlighting (bold, italics, underlining), and supporting media (i.e., photos, videos, graphics).
- Numero Trois will concentrate on the wording and “button-pushing”, which are both more, if not equally important to the effectiveness of your newsletter. The style used will vary from one niche market to another, as you have to guide the reader to where you want them to go (i.e., buy your product, call your business for a consult, schedule a free demonstration at their home, etc.) Other prospects are going to be more skeptical, and perhaps fact-based in their decision of whether to buy, call, or sign up for your offer. Technology, money-making, pets, cars, etc – all depend on more fact-based and “emotional” written content to sway the buyer, even though how the text is arranged and what supporting media is included are still very important.
If you see something missing, leave a comment after one of the posts so everyone who reads them can benefit from your knowledge.
Part 1
I’m going to make this part quite brief and down-to-the-basics. There’s a lot to be aware of with the visuals of a newsletter, and you should always be scoping out what other successful businesses in your field are doing, particularly the big guys with huge marketing budgets. They’ve done the hard (and expensive) work, so don’t let their efforts go to waste!
- Font Size & Type: Use 12-14pt size for the body text, and 16-20pt for the headings. Times New is always a good choice because of how easy it is to read. Arial, Verdana, or Liberation – in a serif-style are excellent choices too. Using the “bigger is better” analogy is smart for a shorter letter, but you have to be careful with using large text in longer letters, as you don’t want it to look too lengthy and intimidating, thus scaring your potential reader away before the first paragraph.
- Branding the Newsletter: Your logo should be presented in the header of your letter. A good logo will have 2-4 colors. Part of the branding process is to match the color of your text to those used in your logo. Ask someone what kind of soda they think of when you give them the colors red and white (Coke). Experiment with what works at first, but once you find something people like, stick with it for the foreseeable future. Read here for more about the psychology of color in marketing: Color and Trademarks.
- HTML/Plain Text: Offer both. Some people don’t use HTML viewers to read emails. There are a number of reasons for this, and you don’t really have any say in it do you? So it’s something you just do without over-analyzing.
- Length/Width: The length will depend on who you’re marketing to and how many objections need to be quenched before a customer will be game to your offer. For non-mobile customers, stick with 600 pixels and make your columns half or slightly larger than that. It’s recommended to stay under 550 pixels for mobile versions, so if you’re not planning to optimize two versions for each, then stick with 550 or less, and don’t forget to test view everything from a number of devices and different aspect ratios to see how they look!
Part II will follow later in the week. Cheerio for now!
Part II has been published – click here to continue reading!
Photo credit: migs212
