7 Ideas For Creating More Effective And Creative Email Newsletters

Sick of your run-of-the-mill, standard newsletter templates? Even if your client's offerings aren't of the "WOW" variety, your designs can still offer a little something extra that makes it more enjoyable to read. Think "magazine" as opposed to "newspaper". Adding some fun into your email newsletter designs will help increase your recurring click-open rate. If your client's recipients like it, they're likely to be eagerly anticipating the next release.

Note that the ideas below are not limited to the designer laying out the email newsletter, but to the entire email marketing team.

Setting a casual, even friendly tone

It doesn't have to be all business with each issue. Set a comfortable tone in your copy which is engaging yet personal to your recipients. Even large corporations don't simply throw out hard facts and figures in a factory-like fashion. Refer to the writing styles of many large innovative companies like Google and Apple. Youn might even go so far as to blur the line by writing like many professional bloggers.

Feature someone

Don't just rattle on about products and services. Give a human face to the organisation. It could be anything from a personal reflection from the CEO, a recent event (perhaps linked to a related online video clip) with insights that the organisation would like to share, testimonials from other customers or even the "Employee of the Month". Just like your general tone, these short sharp blurbs should be fun, vibrant and candid.

Add a novelty element

Adding a small novelty element in every issue of your email newsletter is a great anticipation generator. Cartoons, comic strips, caricatures,  a simple quiz or "Did you know?" quotes are great elements to pep up an otherwise dull, factual driven email newsletter. I personally love Dilbert and head to the strip whenever I get my morning paper.

Provide extra value through a quick quiz

We're all suckers for fuss-free sweepstakes and freebies. The organisation can provide something attractive each month which is within their range of products and services. This is a great technique for generating awareness and some "interactivity". Make the prize inexpensive, clever and/or fun. Do just enough so that recipients will give it a go. You can follow up by publishing the winner(s) in the following edition.

Offer some freebies

This could be anything ranging from whitepapers, industry tips, videos, or anything else that you think your recipient might be interested in. Its a great form of viral marketing, as well as the ability to generate concise click-through data for further analysis on your recipient's interests.

Let your recipients tell you what they like

If your email newsletter contains excerpt from the entire online article, include a rating function or a "more like this" button on the actual online article. Let your recipients tell you what they like and don't like. You can even leverage on popular social mediums like del.icio.us and Digg.

Offer multiple mediums

The email doesn't have to live and die by the email. Offer your recipients other formats which they may like to digest the information in. RSS, Podcasts, or a downloadable PDF version for reading on the go are other great channels to distribute and digest information.

Comments

[Ryan]

Very cool ideas. I like the idea of letting the users rate the content.