What are the benefits of having an email newsletter?
Newsletters have a wide range of benefits that most brands can take advantage of. They help build relationships, drive conversions, and keep your audience engaged over time.
Key benefits of an email newsletter include:
- Driving traffic by linking directly to your website, blog, or online shop to increase views and visits.
- Building customer loyalty by sharing valuable updates tailored to your audience’s interests. This can help to keep your brand relevant.
- Tracking and measuring performance by using reporting tools on email opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and conversion rates. These metrics can help you improve your overall email marketing strategy.
- Showcasing new launches, seasonal offers, or behind-the-scenes sneak peeks on products and services.
How to create an email newsletter in 7 steps with Adobe Express.
Whether you’re just starting out or refreshing your strategy, here’s how to make an engaging email newsletter that works for your brand.
1. Build out your email marketing strategy.
Your email marketing strategy should centre on your audience. Think about their age, location, behaviour, and interests, and use this information to define your newsletter’s purpose. Are you focused on brand awareness, sales, lead nurturing, or something else?
Another important factor for your email marketing strategy is the frequency of your newsletters. Weekly or monthly are the most popular options. But you might also prefer to send out ad-hoc updates around events or promotions.
Once you’ve formed your email strategy, you need to know how to measure success. KPIs like open rate, click-through rate, conversions, and unsubscribe rate are common ways to track the performance of an email campaign, and you can tweak your future newsletters based on these results.
2. Make the most of editable newsletter templates.
Save time by using professionally designed email newsletter templates from Adobe Express. With easy-to-use templates, you can quickly customise fonts, colours, and layouts to match your brand’s style.
Just be mindful not to switch up your templates too often. When your customers start to recognise your brand emails, consistency is key. A sudden change in design may cause confusion and potentially impact brand loyalty.
3. Apply your branding to the newsletter design.
Your branding should be consistent across all your marketing materials, and that includes your email newsletters. Set up a brand kit in Adobe Express to apply your own logo, colour palette, and fonts consistently across all your email templates. This will help reinforce recognition and build trust with each send. reinforce recognition and build trust with each send.
4. Customise the template with other design elements.
Keep your email layouts clean and mobile-optimised, as nearly 59% of Millennials check email via their smartphone – increasing to 67% for Gen Z. But that doesn’t mean there’s no room to customise your newsletter templates. You can add icons, product images, GIFs, or text effects to make it visually appealing.
Consider short video clips or testimonials for even more engagement. However, ensure your email is still easy to scan and uses readable fonts, consistent headers, and clear CTAs that encourage readers to click through to your website.
5. Come up with some initial newsletter ideas.
To kickstart your email newsletters, decide on a set of themes that will be engaging for your audience. You can draw inspiration from earlier high-performing emails, or from content on your social channels that drove solid engagement. You should also align your email content with your business goals, whether that’s to drive website visits, announce events, share tips, etc.
Popular ideas for email newsletters include staff picks and behind-the-scenes content that gives readers a glimpse into life at your company, expert or industry insights, user-generated content that shows your customers using your products, and seasonal offers to drive sales.
6. Save and share your newsletter template.
Once you’ve created your newsletter template, don’t forget to save it and share your designs with colleagues or collaborators to edit or get feedback. In most cases, your email marketing won’t be a solo project – so it’s important to collaborate with stakeholders to create the perfect newsletter for your brand before it’s sent to customers. Plus, by saving and sharing your template, it’s easier to repurpose it for future newsletters to save time.
7. Send your email newsletter.
Happy with your email marketing template? Download your final design from Adobe Express and send it to your desired platform.
Before hitting send, test your email by first sending it to yourself and a few team members. This ensures everything looks right and all the links work as they should. Once you’re confident it’s ready to go, focus on crafting an engaging subject line that grabs attention, and choose the best time to send your email newsletter for maximum impact.
Free email newsletter ideas for your small business from Adobe Express.
