Successful newsletters: what you should know in email marketing

Every e-mail holds enormous potential for a positive impulse for your company - especially the newsletter. However, it is important that this is actually opened and read. For this, it is necessary to work on and implement a successful newsletter strategy.

Here are the 10 most important points you should consider for successful newsletter marketing.

Point 1: Only personalized newsletters do not end up in the spam folder

Sending and receiving an email is an extremely short process. Unfortunately, this is also the reason why most people's inboxes are so overcrowded. A multitude of private, business and annoying spam emails reach us every day. Does it even make sense to send a newsletter anymore? And how! Even if it doesn't look like it at first glance, e-mail marketing is much more successful than it appears. According to the current guidelines of the Bundesverband Digitale Wirtschaft (German Digital Industry Association), e-mail marketing even has a fairly high ROI (Return of Investment) - currently this is around 44 euros per invested euro.

However, in order for the newsletter to reach its target audience, a lot of preparatory work is necessary. Starting with the appropriate subject line, through the appropriate salutation, to the actual design of the newsletter and a corresponding signature. A skillful combination of all these elements will determine whether your newsletter ends up in the spam folder or in the inbox of your target person.

Point 2: Use professional marketing tools and email programs - saves time and money

To make it easier and faster to create a newsletter, there are a variety of different email programs and email marketing tools available. Whether you are just a beginner in sending newsletters or already regularly delight your customers with attractive newsletter content, use these tools and save yourself time and money.

Among other things, these allow you to send securely as well as various options for automating and personalizing your newsletter. In particular, you can use automation measures to significantly increase the effectiveness of your email campaign with existing customers whose buying behavior and interests are already known. Send them relevant and personalized content. Help yourself with so-called CRM tools (customer relationship management tools) for this as well, which contain a lot of customer-specific data and other useful functions for lead generation and customer retention. Demographic specifications are also not to be neglected for new customers.

Point 3: Collect, evaluate, compare key figures and act accordingly

Successful email marketing rests on a variety of metrics. First and foremost, open and click rates are crucial. Open rates show you how often your emails are opened. Click rates measure how often links included in the newsletter are also opened. In addition to these two metrics, the bounce rate is crucial, as well as the number of conversions your newsletter has achieved, or the responses from your customers. The bounce rate tells you how many emails were undeliverable.

If you take all these metrics into account and evaluate them, you can plan your marketing budget accordingly and use it effectively for a successful email campaign.

Point 4: Send newsletters at the right time - when are most emails read?

A very big unknown, which is still only based on estimates, is the question of the right time to send a newsletter. Because this is also a decisive factor in whether the customer sees your e-mail, skims it, opens it or, in the worst case, pushes it unread into the trash.

Depending on whether you are dealing with B2B or B2C customers, be guided by the following recommendation. If it is B2B email marketing, send newsletters during normal business hours and by no means on weekends. This will minimize the risk of your email getting lost in the recipient's inbox outside of their usual working hours. It's different when it comes to B2C email marketing. As a rule, you should write to private individuals during their free time; in the case of online stores, a successful newsletter not infrequently ensures late-night shopping campaigns.

However, you should also regularly check the effectiveness of your mailing tactics here. Continue to pay attention to open rates, click rates and, above all, possible unsubscribe rates. Thanks to professional newsletter tools, you will always have these key figures clearly structured at your fingertips.

Point 5: Successful newsletters are mobile responsive

To ensure that your carefully crafted newsletter is displayed the way you want it to be, adapt your newsletter campaign to mobile devices. While the number of desktop users remains stable, more and more users are reading emails on their smartphone or tablet. For this reason, it's important to adapt your newsletter accordingly. Starting with the font size and typeface, to the complete design and the associated images and media. Especially images can extremely prolong the loading time of an email. Nothing is more annoying than opening a partially visible newsletter that is barely readable on a cell phone.

You can avoid this mistake if you consider from the outset that your e-mail marketing campaign will be read from different end devices and you act accordingly and adapt this directly.

Point 6: Boost branch business thanks to email marketing as well

It is a wrong assumption that branch stores cannot benefit from email marketing. This is simply a matter of adapting the campaign to offline offers and bringing customers into the store. A proven method to improve customer retention is usually loyalty cards. You can offer customized loyalty cards with discounts, percentages, loyalty points, special promotions and much more. Newsletter content is perfect, indicating exactly that exclusive loyalty cards are available for pickup at your stores.

Loyalty cards should also record purchase transactions. In retrospect, this means you are well informed about your customers' purchasing behavior and can send personalized and successful newsletters accordingly.

Point 7: Choose the right stimulus so that your newsletter is subscribed to

You are certainly familiar with discount offers for first-time newsletter subscribers, but that should not be the only thing. For customers to actually sign up, the reasons must be more compelling. A good newsletter contains a mixture of different components. On the one hand, high-quality content is offered on the other hand, special offers, special offers, additional products that are specifically intended for newsletter subscribers are advertised.

Another metric that is useful for your email marketing is the so-called Net Promoter Score or customer satisfaction metric. It's not uncommon for successful newsletters to be successful because they are ostensibly targeted at customers with high NPS scores. These customers tend to recommend products to others, which automatically leads to new customers and increased sales.

Point 8: Successful newsletters offer more than just information - they add value.

So far, you have learned that every single newsletter campaign needs to be thoroughly prepared and planned. You as a company, online store, self-employed person have a lot of potential to boost your business with every newsletter you send out. A well-chosen newsletter content contributes decisively to this. When selecting topics, focus on the problems and needs of your recipients. Put yourself in your customer's shoes. What made him/her sign up for your newsletter? In addition to good products, excellent service and service offers, customers expect added value so that they continue to read your newsletter.

You can achieve this again with a well-chosen mix of appealing newsletter content. For example, in addition to your products or services, offer informative links, in-depth blog articles, guides, maybe even a video tutorial and the like. All content that is specifically adapted to your target group and which increases both the open and click-through rates.

Point 9: Data protection rules are also a clear must in email marketing - inform your customers about them.

Your customers need to know what you will use their data for. Communicate your intentions clearly. Get permission to send emails and build trust with your target audience. Finally, sending promotional emails is regulated by numerous laws. These include the German Telemedia Act (TMG), the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) and the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO).

To avoid acting in violation of the law, deal with the relevant legal framework before sending your email newsletter. As a rule, the recipients of your newsletter must have demonstrably and expressly consented to the inclusion of your distribution list beforehand. Only the double opt-in procedure offers this basic requirement. Here, the recipient must click on the permission to send newsletters. At the same time, he must also enter his e-mail address, and only after successful confirmation of a link sent to the e-mail address he has left behind is his consent legally effective.

Point 10: Successful newsletters use the power of a clear call-to-action button

Successful newsletters stand out on top of the points already listed above because of another commonality. They include a clear call-to-action button. If possible, this call-to-action should not be placed at the end of the newsletter, but rather in the upper third.

Ideally, a newsletter should not only provide information, but also entice the recipient to take action, for example, to continue shopping in an online store.

In conclusion, e-mail marketing is an art in itself, but it has a lot of potential. However, very few companies have the capacity and capabilities for successful marketing campaigns. After all, the core business is in the foreground and online marketing, social media presence and digital customer engagement come only in the back seat. For this reason, we have specialized in successful email marketing. We provide our customers with the necessary added value so that their newsletters continue to be successful. We would be happy to provide you with a non-binding offer.

TYPO3 offers excellent conditions for e-mail marketing. There are various tools for the creation of personalized e-mail newsletters within TYPO3, as well as various interface connections to external e-mail marketing services such as Mailchimp, Cleverreach and many more.