Reaching clients in new ways is a never-ending goal for businesses. Some forms of communication are brief and easily shareable, such as social media content, while other forms can be directly sent to clients, such as email newsletters. In fact, email newsletters can be a good way to connect with clients in a format that offers a little more “room to stretch.”
Yet, with the high number of emails that most professionals receive every day, you need to make sure that your email newsletters are crafted in a way that will grab attention and keep the client reading. To help you craft your best email newsletter, we enlisted the help of 15 members of Forbes Agency Council, who offered their top tips for engaging customers with email.
1. Make Sure You Will Add Value
One area to improve your marketing content is to use the most compelling audience to gauge value before you spend the time and expense on generating it. We often forget that the audience who has purchased from your brand in the past may be the best source of “why” that can go unnoticed. So, before you spend countless hours generating content, be sure it will add value to prospects and leads. - Eric Vardon, Arcane
2. Use Images And Make It Relatable
Newsletters have been around for a long time. Almost every company has a newsletter, so with so many boats in the lock, you better do a couple things to make your newsletter stand out. Two items that our company has learned is to include visuals, be it images or videos—they’re easier to digest and often more entertaining to view. The second thing is to make the content relatable to the majority of your clients. - Timothy Nichols, ExactDrive, Inc.
3. Reflect Your Agency Culture
Our agency newsletter includes recent blogs to drive traffic to our website. And anything to show our agency’s culture is always a plus: pictures from social gatherings or “heard around the office” quotes. My favorite section is our “Influencer Spotlight,” where we do a Q&A with a thought leader, client, editor or industry analyst. These spotlights always have some of the highest engagement. - Catherine Seeds, Ketner Group Communications
4. Use Emojis In Your Subject Lines
Before you can even get into engaging your customers or leads within your email, you have to first grab their attention and convince them to open the email. A great way to do this is by adding relevant emojis in your subject line. Doing so will make your email more noticeable as a notification badge on mobile/desktop, help it stand out in a sea of default font-colored emails and earn that open. - Michael Kilcullen, Social Report
5. Spark Their Interest With Snappy Subject Lines
No matter how captivating the contents of your email might be, the chances of its being seen are slim without sparking your reader’s interest with a catchy subject line. Consumers are inundated with hundreds of emails per week, most of which will never be opened. Using creative subject lines that demonstrate value and exude personality will help your emails stand out in the most cluttered inboxes. - Adam Binder, Creative Click Media
6. Make It About Them
If possible, segment your clients by industry so that you can deliver relevant information that pertains to their space. Include current events, changes in legislation, conferences, tips they can do themselves and other relevant information. Make your newsletter something they take the time to scan through and find value in. - Danielle Sabrina, Tribe Builder Media
7. Start In Mid-Story
I like to craft my emails at the height of climax for a story. This will grab the readers’ attention and pull them in. From there, you can tell the whole story followed by whatever call to action you are trying to achieve. By piquing their curiosity, you can increase your open rates and response rates, resulting in more engagement and ultimately more profitable email campaigns. - Bryan Citrin, Chiropractic Advertising
8. Include Video
While you cannot play video within an email, you can certainly place an attractive video thumbnail with an irresistible play button. It’s been proven that email with video (even using “video” in the subject line) garners more engagement—both opens and clicks. Plus, since fewer companies will go the extra mile to create video, this method puts you one step ahead in the climb from the inbox! - A. Lee Judge, Content Monsta
9. Keep It Very Simple
Assuming you did your homework and you know “why” you send out newsletters and what value you deliver there, keep it ridiculously simple. There are hundreds of brands and activities that are competing for your client’s attention every second of an hour (from work email and meetings to Facebook notifications and gym time), so you have to deliver your message in a very simple and clear way. - Inna Semenyuk, InnavationLabs
10. Make Sure Your Personality Is Showing
Email newsletters are a great way for an agency to better connect with their clients. This is an opportunity to showcase staff accomplishments or other client campaigns that could be of interest and, most importantly, provide clients with a peek under the hood of your company. Showing your personality to a client can often be as important as the work, and newsletters can accomplish this quite well. - David Harrison, EVINS
11. Provide Exclusive Content
Brand newsletters that regurgitate recent blog posts or social posts do not get engagement. Reward your subscribers with exclusive content, like behind-the-scenes stories, bonus questions from interviews or photos and videos they can’t find elsewhere. I love newsletters that round up recommendations from the team behind the brand; not only am I getting valuable info, but I’m getting to know them. - Sarah Mannone, Trekk
12. Be Authentic
The newsletters that are truly authentic and bring value every single time are the only letters that can engage customers today. Recall your own inbox. You will easily tell which emails you read from start to end and which of them you mark as read. This is your answer. Being real and sharing value is all that matters. - Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
13. Use Your Existing Data Inputs
Start with the data inputs you already have to understand what content your audience could be interested in. Utilize quantifiable data from keyword research, consumer insights, product user groups, social listening tools, social engagement metrics and customer care insights. These data inputs can then be used as a crowdsourcing tool for your email content development. - Donna Robinson, Nina Hale - Digital Marketing Agency
14. Synthesize, Don’t Summarize
Clients are swimming in a sea of information. Don’t interrupt their day to provide yet more information. Provide value by helping them make sense of all the information that’s out there. Synthesize, don’t summarize. Instead of retelling what they already know, give them actionable insights and ideas that can empower them. And, before hitting send, ask yourself: Would you want to read it? - Andrew Au, Intercept Group
15. Understand What You Are Trying To Accomplish
Start by understanding why you are doing one at all. Clients are busy and have full email boxes. They may love you, but they don’t really care about your comings and goings. Have clear objectives, think through what’s compelling to your target audience and set clear key performance indicators. These are blocking and tackling for most communications efforts but are often forgotten when it comes to client newsletters. - Scott Elser, Digital Current
