Around the world, millions of e-mails are being sent every minute. It’s still a significant part of online communications and marketers still recognise that it provides a valuable return on investment.

But the e-mail landscape has evolved with the rapid up-take of mobile devices as a way to read e-newsletters. Is it time to give your e-newsletters a tweak? Here are some best practices for your next newsletter.

Aesthetics are a must

How does your e-newsletter look? Is it visually appealing? Does it function on mobile devices as well as it does on a computer? A well designed e-newsletter allows people to view the important information quickly and is also visually appealing.

Different e-mail programs and services may display e-newsletters differently, so it’s worth testing your design on a desktop application, i.e. Microsoft Outlook; a web-based application, i.e. Gmail or Outlook; and mobile apps on both phones and tablets.

Get the right balance

How often should you send e-newsletters? Great question, but largely it will depend on the expectations of your supporters – do they want to hear about your organisation more than once a week? Your capacity to produce e-newsletters and whether you have other e-mails scheduled for the same
time will also be a factor in how often they are sent.

Using a communications planner is a great way to manage the volume of e-mails an individual receives from you. This tool can help to ensure that recipients aren’t suffering from inbox overload.

If you find you’re getting a lot of unsubscribes or a drop in opens, it may mean you’re e-mailing people too frequently and that you need to review your strategy.

Segment your audience

Sometimes the easy option is to hit the ‘add all’ button to send your e-newsletter to as many people as possible – this approach isn’t always appropriate and will not always get the desired results. To have impact with the different segments take the time to tailor communications – be targeted and specific – and speak to the audience in language and context that will resonate with them.

Test your e-mail

If you’re looking to get the most out of your e-mails, it’s worth testing different types of subject lines, times, dates and even who the e-mail is sent from. This way, you’ll have a better understanding of what it is people are looking for from you.

Popular campaign service MailChimp offers A / B testing that allows you to test between two subject lines, from names and even days and times. It will send both to a test segment of your database and then send the winning option to the remainder of your database.

Avoid spam filters

Spam filters are the e-mail marketer’s worst enemy. It’s important to ensure you take every possible precaution to avoid your e-mails being trapped in spam filters, as this will increase the chances of them making it into the inboxes of your subscribers.

Things to avoid:

• EXCESSIVE USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS
• Using too many explanation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Poor HTML, especially when copying and pasting from Microsoft Word
• Excessive use of images
• Coloured fonts, particularly red or green
• Words considered as spammy in subject lines – free, click here, test.

Also make sure the name in the ‘from’ field is recognisable and that your subject line is relevant to your audience so they don’t manually hit the ‘this is spam’ button.

Measure

When it comes to measuring how successful your e-newsletters are, there are a few different metrics you need to know:

• Open rate – what percentage of the list opened the e-mail?
• Click through rate – what percentage of people clicked on links in the e-mail?
• Bounces – how many e-mail addresses aren’t active anymore?
• Abuse / complaints – how many people complained or marked the e-mail as spam?

The golden rule

Finally, it’s important that you always respect your supporter’s e-mail inbox. Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back to think about how you would feel if you received a similar e-newsletter from another organisation. Would you delete it or read it?

Happy e-marketing!