6 Tips To Keep Readers Engaged with Your Newsletter

by | Aug 20, 2020 | Content | Social Media | Email, Blog

Today’s guest post from Shane Barker, gives you 6 great tips to keep your readers engaged in your newsletter.

Do your newsletters get as much recognition as you expect them to? These simple strategies can help you create newsletters your audience will enjoy reading. Are you tired of the numerous unsubscribe requests from your newsletters? Are you looking to get your newsletters whitelisted? Well, it’s a possible feat.

Email newsletters are essential tools in the marketing industry. In fact, most marketers rate them as the highest-performing content type for securing and nurturing leads. It is, therefore, crucial to make sure you get them right.

However, it can get frustrating if none or only a few of your newsletters get opened. Don’t worry, though.

In this post, I’ll disclose my tried-and-tested strategies that can help you unlock your audience’s inboxes for your newsletters and keep them wanting more.

Read on to find out more.

1. Create Impressive and Polished Designs

Newsletters are a good chance for you to showcase your brand. Make them look good. 

You can use design tools like Crello to bring your creative ideas to life. Incorporate eye-catching and interactive images that can make your readers look forward to your emails.

However, don’t overdo it. You still want your audience to read your content, so use fonts and colors that are easy to read. 

What’s more?

Optimize your images for mobile and maintain consistency in your brand colors, font styles, and logo. This will help enable your audience to associate the newsletters and images with your brand.

2. Use Gamification to Keep Readers Engaged

Have you tried offering your customers a discount if they subscribe to your newsletters? It’s a good strategy but it only gets users to sign up for that particular offer. If you want to attract subscribers and ensure they continue engaging with your content even after they sign up, try gamification.

Gamification can pique the reader’s interest. It is also fun, depending on what kind of game you use and whether it triggers the fear of missing out in your readers. 

What’s more?

You can add calls-to-action (CTAs) and reward recipients who take the desired actions. This can help you keep the readers engaged with your brand and look forward to opening your emails again and again.

Examples of gamification content that you can use include:

  • Quizzes
  • Surveys
  • Games
  • Scratch-its
  • Trivia
  • Click to reveal (prizes, discount, offers, etc.)
  • Tests

You can insert the game into your email or include a link that directs readers to a landing page.

Pro tip: Consider your customer’s psychology when making the game. Use interactive content that keeps them engaged and offer rewards that appeal to your audience.

3. Share Authoritative Third-Party Content

As important as it is to share original content, it is also a good idea to start sharing third-party articles. By third-party, I mean insightful articles from authoritative sites and credible sources in your niche.

Publishing self-created, original content can help you market your expertise via thought leadership. But, you are not the only one in your industry with something interesting to say.

What’s more?

Your customers would like to understand what is happening in the industry. Being able to provide them with all relevant information in one place along with sharing your opinion on how a particular industry change can affect them can set you apart.

Focus on helping your audience keep up with the latest industry news from time to time. Become their trusted source for making sense of all the changes that can directly affect them.

And the best part?

If you manage to collaborate with thought leaders in your industry, you can promote each other’s content and align your brand with experts. This can help grow your email newsletter list as industry experts are likely to have similar target audiences as you.

4. Invite Customer Contributions

Once in a while, veer from your usual newsletter style and let your customers help you build email newsletters. You should refer to your readers’ feedback to decide on the content type, layout, and the appropriate timing to send your newsletters.

You can also request that your existing customers and newsletter readers contribute to your newsletter. They can share reviews of the products they’ve used, give tips on how to make the most of your product, or submit photos.

What’s more?

Including content from them can make your readers want to open your newsletters. They are likely to be excited to see if you featured their content. If you did, then you can increase the chances of them sharing your newsletter with their circles.

5. Use Double Opt-In

Do you actively manage your email list? How many of your subscribers don’t open your newsletters? A double opt-in allows you to send messages to people who are interested in your content. You can build a more active and engaged list of subscribers by asking readers to confirm their interests.

The subscribers who are genuinely interested in your brand and content are more likely to open your emails, click on the links inside them, and take the desired actions. But using a double opt-in option is not enough to get readers to subscribe, let alone stay engaged. For this, you will need to understand your target consumers better.

What are their needs and what kind of content will pique their interests and keep readers engaged? Go beyond offering great customer experiences and make the time they spend reading your newsletters worthwhile. You should create a customer engagement strategy that can keep them hooked from the moment they sign up for your newsletter.

How can you do this?

  • Define their buying journey.
  • Segment and send them messages according to behavior.
  • Offer customized content.
  • Use their feedback to understand expectations.
  • Start offering them value right when they first opt-in.

6. Create Targeted Edition Newsletters

Let’s face it: Not every subscriber will open and read each email you send them. However, you can keep them in the loop by writing newsletters that focus on specific topics.

How can you do this? Segment your email list depending on users’ browsing behaviors and the actions they take on your site. Offer them the option to opt-in to newsletters created on the topics they like, then send them newsletters specific to what interests them.

How can this help? It can help increase your open and click-through rates as users have already shown interest in that specific topic.

Are You Ready to Keep Readers Engaged and Boost Your Email Newsletter Engagement Rates?

Today, consumers receive a large number of emails every day and it’s becoming even harder for brands to stand out in their inboxes. That’s why you need to ensure that your newsletters can grab your readers’ attention and keep them glued to your content.

The tips mentioned above can help you do that, especially if you use a combination of them. Using these tips can ensure that there’s always something exciting for your subscribers to look forward to. It can also boost audience engagement and help your company grow.

Guest Author - Shane Barker

Today’s guest author, Shane Barker, is an accomplished digital marketing consultant. From working with celebrities on digital reputation management to obtaining a #1 national ranking with PROskore as a social media consultant, Shane has built an impressive list of accomplishments in digital marketing.

As a regular contributor to publications like Salesforce, Yahoo Small Business, Marketing Profs, and others, he continues to grow and share his knowledge.

Shane is an active member of the Sacramento startup culture, donating time and resources to help young companies build and optimize their business from napkin sketch to revenue. He is a regular at hackathons and startup events, mentoring and guiding other entrepreneurs.

Keep Readers Engaged - Shane Barker

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