With These Tips, Your Newsletter Will Be Successful
We reveal the best tips on how you can achieve more views with your newsletter.
- The correct structure of a newsletter is crucial
- Main part Part I
- We have already highlighted the essential parts of a newsletter in the structure. But we want to put some more emphasis on one or another important component. After all, it's not hard to create a newsletter, but a newsletter that is frequently opened and whose CTA button is frequently clicked is a tricky undertaking.
- rapidmail
- among our users, we use rapidmail as an example of what design possibilities and support such a tool can provide. We accompany the whole thing with screenshots. Besides rapidmail, you can find many other newsletter software like
- Fazit
Newsletters have been delighting and annoying us - we have to admit - for decades. Since the start of the internet age, they have been one of the oldest ways of doing brand marketing. Today we have social media, SEO, and content marketing, but one thing has still survived: the newsletter. More than ever, companies are relying on newsletters to win new customers and intensify relationships with existing customers. Newsletter campaigns are an integral part of many marketing strategies for good reason. However, many companies and even marketing executives often find it challenging to design successful newsletters. We understand this well. After all, it’s like everywhere else in advertising: you have to stand out!
Today we show you how to do this, so that your newsletters are opened and clicked more often. No matter what industry you are in, whether you call yourself a newsletter rookie or creativity is not part of your being. For this we will examine the structure and design of an appealing newsletter, we will tell you how to come up with a good newsletter design and we will provide additional tips for simple design options using a newsletter tool.
The correct structure of a newsletter is crucial
A high conversion rate depends everywhere on the first impression. If that's not right, the content can be as good as you like, but no one will click where you'd like them to. Therefore, conversion optimization starts with the structure of your newsletter. rapidmail – one of many newsletter tool providers on OMR Reviews – describes it as follows: "A well-designed newsletter succeeds in presenting the message and content in a pleasant way".
In order for you to achieve exactly this status for your newsletter, we will go through one such from top to bottom once. In this way, you will get the best view of potential optimization. Also, you should have a question in the back of your mind every second you are working on your newsletter: would you open, read and possibly follow a call-to-action (CTA) of your own newsletter"? Try to be biased in doing so.Header
The header is the first area you see when you open a newsletter. Therefore, it must be absolutely catchy. Many brands make the mistake of just installing their logo there. No matter how strong the reader's loyalty to the brand is, a logo in the header usually only suffices if the summer sale is announced in the newsletter.
Instead, work graphically with your corporate design, pictures and graphics that match the topic. Additionally, the header should have a snappy title that makes you curious to read the main part. In any case, stick to a uniform or at least similar look - not only in the header, but also in the rest of the design - to increase recognition value.
By the way: The headline can be found identically or slightly modified in the subject. If this sounds exciting, you can increase your open rate for the newsletter just by doing this.
Main part Part I
You continue the eye-catcher tactic in the middle part. In doing this, you need to make sure that the part of the content that you want to see most in the readers' heads is above the fold. This means that these contents are visible before the readers have to scroll for the first time. Of course, this varies from device to device. Someone with a 34-inch monitor scrolls later than someone who opens your newsletter on a smartphone. In this case, you should consider different presentations of your newsletter in addition to a responsive design. With many newsletter tools like
rapidmail you can check different views before sending to make adjustments depending on the format.Above the fold is also where the most important text part can be found. Greet your readers in your usual greeting style. Make the first few lines sound exciting, funny, or otherwise attention-grabbing. Stand out from the sound of average newsletters to captivate the recipients; similar to a good book or an exciting article. Add high-quality images - ideally not obvious stock photos. Under the first text part follows the important call-to-action button. The one around which the whole newsletter revolves. The one that takes your readers where you want them: in your shop, on your website or to a new software section on OMR Reviews.
Main part Part II
Only now "may" your readers scroll for the first time to take in more content. This one does not need to be more catchy or ultimately appealing. Anyone who still wants to read more after the first scroll, instead of clicking the button, will do so. This can be further information on the subject of the newsletter, information about your company, or secondary messages that have nothing to do with the main topic of the newsletter. These could be products from your online shop, for example.
Another tip on the side: As with any content, your newsletter should appeal to your target group, which is why you should know them exactly. In the best case, you continue your storytelling, which you have created or had created for your brand.
In the example screenshot you can see our tips well followed. Duschbrocken sets the fun bar high, which is already noticeable in the subject. They continue their brand storytelling and bring the most important information briefly and to the point. They use high-quality photos and a striking header image that leaves hardly any face without a smile. The CTA button follows at the heel, even before the first scroll is needed. Further information on the topic, smaller CTA buttons as well as a picture of the founders complete the story.
Footer
It's time to finish. Thankfully not with the article, but with your newsletter. The footer in every newsletter is the smallest highlight. There you should immortalize what needs to be immortalized. According to the GDPR, this is mainly the imprint and an unsubscribe link. In addition, you can fill your footer with contact information, opening hours, links to your social media channels, and other basic information. You can create the footer in an
email marketing tool once, and then it can be inserted into every subsequent newsletter from the element templates.The most important components of a successful newsletter
We have already highlighted the essential parts of a newsletter in the structure. But we want to put some more emphasis on one or another important component. After all, it's not hard to create a newsletter, but a newsletter that is frequently opened and whose CTA button is frequently clicked is a tricky undertaking.
The sender’s address
- Here it already starts: Whether your newsletter is opened or lands directly in the trash is decided shortly after it arrives. If the email address of a sender appears to be untrustworthy, or if it is of the "no-reply" type, the chances are reduced several times over. It is best to use an address like lara@company.com or marketing@company.com. This not only looks more personal, but also implies the message that the reader can contact via the reply function. You also handle it with the sender's name. Whether the company name or Lara von Company XY is better received - you can find out through an A/B test.The subject
- A poorly chosen newsletter subject can mean that your newsletter lands directly in the spam folder. Therefore, make sure not to insert spam words or special characters. Better to spell out “%” and avoid keywords like “discount” or “free”. At the same time, the subject must catch the readers and should not contain standard phrases like “Newsletter February – Save now!”. Also, keep your newsletter subject short. Depending on the device, you don't have many characters available – usually not more than 35 on smartphones. A personal address to the readers also comes into play here. Most newsletter tools support this technically.The header image
- Always see a newsletter as a personal letter to a friend. Address each recipient by name. Do not go directly from the headline to a block of text. Whether you address the recipients by their first or last name depends only on your communication policy.The text
- The text block carries itself through tonality, emotions, and strong words. Since the attention span of most readers is minimized, you need to bring your message to the point in very few words and thus lead to the call-to-action. A structure with several short paragraphs is also not wrong to make the text readable.The images
- Images, photos, videos, or infographics lighten up the text. You can even use GIFs - at least if it fits your target group. For example, you can appeal to Gen Z very well with this. Just don't go overboard with images and Co. A recommended image-text ratio is 30:70.The call-to-action buttons
- Yes, plural. We have talked about a single CTA button so far in the article. However, that does not mean that your newsletter must contain only one button. There is a central CTA under the first, decisive text block. Most importantly, this one is arranged above the fold". The central CTA leads to a specific product in your online store, your website, or another goal where you want your readers. Under the main CTA, further secondary CTAs can be built in; for example, your storefront or a survey.Admittedly, although a newsletter usually has little content, attention is crucial to every detail. Maybe this is precisely why. Accordingly, our detailed newsletter design tips should be enough to make you ready for your newsletter success.4 Professional tips for designing your newsletters
Our newsletter article has been long up to this point; and yet there is still a little more to learn. Before we give you a glimpse of what a newsletter tool like
rapidmail
can do, and how you can build your newsletter with such software - without any specific knowledge or even being a design expert - here are four professional tips:Protect your newsletter from overload. What we mean is: "empty spaces," where neither image nor text is contained, give the eyes and thus the brains of the readers a small break. You probably know it: When you’re holding an advertising brochure in your hands, you often don't know where to look first. A newsletter is supposed to advertise too, but it's not a promotional brochure. Much more, a newsletter is a sensitive biotope, which is only inhabited by discreet, but expressive, thematic elements. It survives through detail work and good content.
- Stay true to a certain style. You should always use your corporate design again and don't just use graphics and photos in the newsletter that resemble each other in style. For example, you can always use black and white pictures or a certain drawing style for graphics. The same goes for color elements in the "empty spaces." You definitely have recognition value in the bag!
- Optimize your newsletter for dark mode. Whether Word, Google, numerous websites - dark mode is spreading more and more. Thus, the probability is now very high that many recipients will read your newsletter in dark mode. Always use png or gif files. These are transparent and don't leave any unsightly white frames. This could otherwise ruin the overall image of your newsletter.
- Responsive design is a must. Just like with websites and online shops, you should make sure that your newsletter adapts to the screen width of different devices. You can test whether the content is displayed the same everywhere with most
- email marketing tools"," just before you send.The design possibilities of a newsletter tool using the example of rapidmail"rapidmail" is one of many newsletter tools that you can find rated by other users on OMR Reviews. Since rapidmail is currently the most popular newsletter tool
among our users, we use rapidmail as an example of what design possibilities and support such a tool can provide. We accompany the whole thing with screenshots. Besides rapidmail, you can find many other newsletter software like
Sendinblue, Mailchimp or Klaviyo on OMR Reviews. No matter what tool you decide on: Soon you can toast your newsletter success with Strawberry Camparis!This is what the interface of the newsletter tool rapidmail looks like.And so we are right in the middle of the topic: What should a good newsletter tool be able to do? If we answer this question thoroughly, the answer definitely starts with a drag-and-drop editor". All because not everyone studied graphic design, and you don't always want to hire a graphic designer. Basic knowledge is enough to use rapidmail"," for example. The drag-and-drop editor is decisive here!A wide selection of elements awaits you.
The content of the newsletter editor includes layout elements such as text boxes, separators, buttons, and icons. You can simply place these elements where you want them. Then you fill or combine the elements with texts, images, and links. Thanks to an
integrated image editor"," you can even crop your images and label them individually in rapidmail.The integrated image editor enables you to customize images and captions.As we've mentioned several times in the article, recognition is very important for successful newsletters. In order to achieve this, it is mainly up to you in the beginning to create a suitable design, which you can then use all the time. You can choose from over 40 different fonts and more than 880,000 free, license-free images" in rapidmail". Not to mention that you can fall back on graphic elements that give your newsletter the finishing touch.
To ensure that your work is visible on all devices of the recipients, you can test the
responsive design" before sending. This means: How does your created design look on a smartphone, a laptop, or a tablet? If there are serious differences – especially with regard to elements above the fold –, you can still make changes. You can click through different common devices. Rapidmail, however, ensures in most cases that your newsletter appears automatically optimized for mobile.Rapidmail recently released a new feature: With the rapidmail 1-click design"," all senders, even without design or IT knowledge, can create newsletter templates in their own corporate design with just one click. All you have to do is enter the website URL. The 1-click design then automatically creates newsletter templates that already contain the corporate colors, fonts, logos, and social links. If desired, you can make different design settings afterwards (e.g. rounding the CTA button, varying the colors, and adding social icons). Additionally, numerous different newsletter templates (including some occasion-related templates, e.g. for Black Friday) are available in the corporate design and can be used for all future mailings. The 1-click design offers you a great time saving and enables you to create aesthetic newsletters that fit into your corporate identity of the newsletter sender – even without advertising agencies, design team, or coding pros.
And if you don't have a creative streak in you, there are numerous rapidmail templates to help you. Over
250 free design templates" are waiting to be used or even adapted by you. For almost every big occasion, there is the right design template".If you don't want to do a lot of crafting, choose from over 250 newsletter templates.Of course, you can save your self-created templates and also draw on them at any time. This way you can save your Newsletters in the corporate design" for later uses. You can also save individual elements or combinations. If it is, for example, a header with picture, text, and background, which should be used again and again, you can pull this as an element from your templates at any time.
You can save your templates and draw on them at any time.In order for really nothing to go wrong, there is the possibility in rapidmail"," to thoroughly test your newsletter before sending. You check whether the display in dark mode fits and whether all mail clients and devices are correctly addressed. The intuitive interface of rapidmail allows you to implement all these steps simply and thus send newsletters that are opened more often - and ideally more clicks on your call-to-action!
ConclusionThe pillars of successful newsletters are formed by the first impression, brand attachment through effective content and good design, recognition value, and conversion optimization. Meeting all the requirements of newsletter recipients is easier said than done. However, email marketing tools" significantly help you create newsletters as they should be according to our tips. Without design skills or creative talents!
You have the most time-consuming process at the beginning. A design must be created that matches your corporate design. But design templates can also make your life easier here. In the end, it's all about the content. The first lines and appealing images are crucial.In general, a newsletter is not a 5-minute to-do, as often erroneously thought. But with the right tool and a little time, it is quickly and in acceptable time to accomplish. And once the conversion rate starts to rise, the time invested is quickly forgotten compared to the result. warten darauf, von Euch verwendet oder sogar noch angepasst zu werden. Zu fast jedem großen Anlass gibt es die richtige Design-Vorlage.
Wer nicht selbst viel basteln möchte, wählt aus über 250 Newsletter-Templates aus.
Eure selbst erstellten Vorlagen könnt Ihr natürlich abspeichern und ebenfalls jederzeit darauf zurückgreifen. Auf diese Weise könnt Ihr Eure Newsletter im Corporate Design für spätere Verwendungen abspeichern. Darüber hinaus könnt Ihr Euch einzelne Elemente oder Kombinationen sichern. Ist es beispielsweise ein Header mit Bild, Text und Hintergrund, der immer wieder Verwendung finden soll, könnt Ihr diesen als Element aus Euren Vorlagen jederzeit ziehen.
Eure Vorlagen könnt Ihr abspeichern und jederzeit darauf zurückgreifen.
Damit auch wirklich nichts schieflaufen kann, besteht in rapidmail die Möglichkeit Euren Newsletter vor Versand genau durchzutesten. Dabei überprüft Ihr, ob die Anzeige im Dark Mode passt und alle Mail-Clients sowie Endgeräte passend angesprochen werden. Die intuitive Oberfläche von rapidmail ermöglicht es Euch, diese ganzen Schritte simpel umzusetzen und auf diese Weise Newsletter zu verschicken, die häufiger geöffnet werden – und im besten Fall mehr Klicks auf Euren Call-to-Action erhalten!
Fazit
Die tragenden Säulen erfolgreicher Newsletter bilden sich aus dem ersten Eindruck, der Markenbindung durch wirkenden Content und gutes Design, dem Wiedererkennungswert sowie der Conversion-Optimierung. Das alles den Anforderungen der Newsletter-Empfänger:innen:innen gerecht umzusetzen, ist leichter gesagt als getan. Allerdings helfen Euch E-Mail-Marketing-Tool gravierend dabei Newsletter zu erstellen, wie sie unseren Tipps entsprechend sein sollten. Ganz ohne Design-Kenntnisse oder kreativen Talenten!
Den größten Zeitaufwand habt Ihr dabei am Anfang. Es muss ein Design erstellt werden, dass zu Eurem Corporate Design passt. Doch Design-Templates können Euch auch hier das Leben erleichtern. Am Ende kommt es noch auf den Content an. Die ersten Zeilen und ansprechende Bilder sind dabei entscheidend.
Grundsätzlich ist ein Newsletter also kein 5-Minuten-Todo, wie es oft irrtümlich gedacht wird. Doch mit dem richtigen Tool und etwas Zeit ist es schnell und in akzeptabler Zeit zu schaffen. Und wenn die Conversion-Rate erst einmal steigt, ist die investierte Zeit gegenüber dem Ergebnis schnell vergessen.
Nils ist Gründer der Personal Branding Rebels und seit Jahren fester Bestandteil des LinkedIn-Games. Mit seinem Team hilft er Menschen und Unternehmen, auf LinkedIn und anderen Plattformen als Personal Brands sichtbar zu werden. Die Rebels unterstützen dabei, Corporate Influencer auszubilden, Personal Brands aufzubauen und bieten Workshops an. Immer mit einem rebellischen Ansatz: Out-of-the-Box-Denken und authentische Sichtbarkeit stehen im Fokus, fernab von starren Algorithmen und Blaupausen.
