Email marketing is one of the most important disciplines in online marketing. But not every newsletter is well received by customers. With these tips you can bring your newsletter marketing forward.

Marketing via email is an obsolete model in times of social media? Not correct. The distribution of newsletters is and remains an important component in your marketing. With well thought-out e-mail marketing, companies have the opportunity to retain their customers in the long term and to strengthen customer relationships, for example through promotions or extended service offers. Many newsletter tools are free, but preparing a mailing takes time and a plan. You shouldn’t blindly approach your email marketing and thereby waste time and financial resources. With our tips you can make your newsletter marketing successful.

1. Successful newsletter marketing starts with the right strategy

Before you start writing your first emails, you should first answer the most important strategic questions. What do you want to achieve with your campaign: Should a certain product be sold? Should previous customers be reactivated? Do you want to strengthen customer loyalty with small gifts? Or do you want to get feedback in order to improve your own service?

Also ask yourself who exactly your target group is. Not every campaign is equally suitable for every customer group. Think about what defines the target group of an email campaign and how they can best be reached.

2. The right first impression: the subject line

As is so often the case with email marketing, first impressions count. It starts with the subject line. If it does not ignite, your e-mails may not even be opened. Since the length of the subject line is limited to an average of 40 characters, you shouldn’t waste any space. The subject should get to the heart of the matter of your mailing. If an email is about local offers, mentioning the recipient’s place of residence can also increase the opening rate.

But not only the subject is important. Many e-mail programs also show a preview of the first sentence in the inbox in the so-called pre-header. Insert a short sentence here that supplements the subject and gives a first impression of the content of the mail.

3. Email marketing gets personal

No matter what goal you pursue with a mailing campaign: address your customers personally in e-mails. This will prevent your newsletters from sounding like a large, faceless company talking to its little customers. But that’s not all. So that emails are relevant to your customers and ultimately convert, they have to be as personalized as possible. Use all available data for this and also let the recipients enter their preferences themselves. Personalized content can also be developed based on previous shop orders.

To do this, subdivide your recipient lists into meaningful segments based on more in-depth data than just age and gender. Based on this, works with dynamic content.

4. The sound makes the music – also in newsletter marketing

With the flood of advertising messages presented to them on every website, Internet users are often dulled from marketing clichés. It is therefore important to rely on natural communication in customer contact. Say goodbye to worn-out phrases and instead develop your own tonality that is not only reflected in your e-mails, but also runs through all communication channels. Your social media postings, website texts and mailings should read like one piece. In this way you generate authentic communication and at the same time create recognition value for your brand.

5. Keep it short: Concise and useful newsletters

Your newsletter is not a novel, a catalog or an ultimate guide. It is the entrance door to further content, your table of contents to currently exciting topics and campaigns. Stay short and clear, keep linking to your main offer, resist the urge to become more and more detailed or to overwhelm the reader with information. Newsletter marketing that suffocates on its opulent length of text dies a sad death.

6. Thoughtful design and layout

Your mailings should not only visually reflect your corporate identity, but also serve a few other points in terms of design:

You should place the most important content above-the-fold. Information and offers that you want to advertise should be visible directly and without scrolling. The same applies to an initial call-to-action. The CTA should also visually stand out from the rest of the email, for example in the form of a button. It should be clearly labeled so that the mail recipients know what to expect when they click on it. At best, the associated landing page takes up the newsletter design and creates a consistent user experience.

With the right design you will also help readers to be able to skim through the newsletter better. Avoids long text passages, works with meaningful subheadings and loosens up the e-mail with images and graphics. This of course also includes optimizing e-mails for mobile devices.

7. Read correction. Thoroughly.

Nothing shakes a competent impression as quickly as spelling mistakes. This may still be forgivable with online texts, they still have the impression of being fleeting. But newsletters are compared with letters and official cover letters. So: don’t let any mailings go out unchecked. Good proofreading saves your content.

8. Find the right shipping time

When is the right time to send your newsletters, it depends a lot on your target group. While B2B customers can be better reached on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., things might look better for B2C customers in the evenings and on weekends. Mondays are often unfavorable because there is a lot to do and at the same time a mountain of emails from the weekend has accumulated. Fridays are bad because many employees are early on the weekend. Of course, this cannot be generalized. Therefore, you should experiment with different shipping days and times to find out when the opening and click rates are highest.

9. Don’t fly blind e-mail marketing : test and analyze

In theory, all of these tips sound really good. However, you can only uncover real successes and optimization potential if you regularly test, analyze and evaluate. Tests different delivery times, subject formulations and design elements. Analyzes opening and click rates and derives possible improvements from them. If your customers are already very willing to interact, you can also ask for direct feedback and suggestions for improvement.