11 steps to complete before hitting send on your newsletter
You’ve drafted exciting updates and news to share with your mailing list. You’re ready to hit send. But, first! In order to make sure your marketing email gets delivered, that it gets opened, and that it gets read, make sure to complete these steps before you hit that send button.
While every marketing email platform is different, they each have similar settings, so these should all apply no matter what email marketing platform you use.
Cut the text
Take a look at your newsletter. Is it heavy on the text? Readers are going to skim or skip over chunks of words. Just like on your website, utilize headlines, lists, and paragraphs to make it more digestible.
Long emails will get cut off in some inboxes, which is another reason to keep it short. Read through your email and cut out words or sentences that are unnecessary.
Link all your photos and logos
You can read more about this in my previous blog post, but linking your images and logos is so important! In an email, readers are looking for a way to take action or, at a bare minimum, visit your website. If they click on your logo, for example, and it takes them nowhere, you’re missing out on a website visitor and possible conversion.
Assume every logo, image, icon, and even banner might be clicked on, so assign a link to it. When in doubt, link to your call to action or your website.
Set your alt text
Usually you will have the option to add alt text to an image, along with a link. These are the words that will show up if the image doesn’t load for some reason. Of course, a clear explanation of the image will look much nicer than an auto-generated file name! When in doubt, use your organization or business name.
Make your call to action very clear
If there’s an action you want your readers to take, make it very very clear! Don’t hide a hyperlink in a paragraph of text. If you’re going to hyperlink a call to action in text, think about separating it from the rest of the paragraph, bolding it, italicizing it, enlarging it, or some combination of these.
Better yet, use buttons. Buttons stand out as a clear call to action, making it really obvious to your readers what you want them to do. Buttons are also a chance to incorporate some of your brand by using your brand colors for the button background and/or text.
Even if there’s not a specific call to action you want your readers to take, make it very easy to get to your website, such as with a hyperlinked logo or banner at the top of your email.
Use (but be mindful of!) colors
Colors are a great way to make an email more exciting and on brand. But, it’s also easy to go overboard and end up with a contrasting or overwhelming design.
When selecting colors, stick to your brand guidelines to stay consistent with all your other marketing materials, and watch out for clashing design or too many colors that distract from the content of your email.
Write a clear subject line
Part of writing your email includes writing your subject line. Make it clear what’s inside your email, make it enticing enough for your email to be opened, and keep it short.
Avoid words such as free, stop, click, and so many more that could put your email right in spam! Hubspot has put together a very exhaustive list of words to avoid in subject lines - read it here.
Write preview text
Another piece of content you should pay attention to is your preview text. This is the preview that readers will see in their inbox next to the subject line. Without writing your own preview text, readers might instead see standard email header text such as “click here to view in browser,” alt text from your header image or logo, the first headline, or the beginning of your body text - none of these are that appealing.
Preview text can be a little more specific than your subject line, because you have more room to play around with, and you’ve already set the tone with your subject line. Some examples of what to include in your preview text are the topics in your newsletter; the call to action that’s inside; a teaser of big news inside; or more details of an event you’re promoting, such as date and time.
Another thing to keep in mind is to include the name of your company or organization in the preview text if it’s not already in the “from” line. This way, anyone unfamiliar with the name they see in their inbox will have a chance to recognize where the email is coming from before opening it. (See next item on the list for more on this!)
Set your from name and from email
You can usually set both your from name and your from email address in your email settings. The name is what will show up in people’s inboxes as who the email is from, and the email address is both what people can reply to and who appears to have sent the email out. This is really handy if you don’t want it to be “sent” from the person whose name you want to show up in people’s inbox.
One example of this is if you want an email to appear as if it’s coming from your CEO by using her name, but you don’t want to send it using her email address, because then people will reply directly to her and, let’s be honest, she probably doesn’t have time to manage the responses! One solution is to use a generic email such as hello@organizationname.org (just make sure someone is reading emails sent to this address!). Another option is to create an alias email address that looks like it could be the CEO’s email address. The benefit of this is that readers feel a little extra special because, to them, it seems “real.” For example, if your staff email addresses are typically firstnamelastname@company.com, create one that is firstname.lastname@company.com just for this purpose. Again, make sure someone at the company is checking this inbox!
Another example when this comes in handy is if you do want to use your company’s general email address, such as hello@ or info@, in which case you can just use your company or organization name as who the email is from, i.e. how it will show up in people’s inboxes.
Include a footer
A footer in your email is best practice in general, but there are actually some legal requirements surrounding footer content. By law, you must include your company address and an unsubscribe or manage your subscription link. Most marketing email platforms will help you generate and manage that unsubscribe link, and most will auto-fill your footer with the address you set as your company’s, so that you don’t have to rewrite it every time.
I think it’s also a good idea to include the following in your footer:
Social media icons (linked!)
Website link
Contact info, whether an email address or phone number
Your tagline or mission, as a reminder to less engaged readers or in order to inform readers who may have been forwarded your email by someone else.
Send yourself a test email’
One of the best ways to proofread your email is by reading it in your inbox, just as your recipients will be doing.
Receiving a test email is also the best way to make sure the from name and preview text look good to you.
While you’re reviewing your test email, double check ALL of your links! Make sure every image or logo links to something and that none of the links are broken.
Share a test email or preview link with others
It’s always a good idea to get fresh eyes on your email before you send it out! When you’re working so closely on something, it’s easy to overlook mistakes or missed settings.
This may seem like a lot of steps for one email, but once you’ve done it a few times, these will become second nature, and will result in more opened and read emails.
