Improving User Experience for Your Newsletter
A regular newsletter from your business can be a powerful marketing tool, but only if your newsletter provides the best kind of user experience. If you’re reading that sentence and thinking, “Huh? What?” then it sounds as if we have some explaining to do—both in terms of what user experience is and how you can improve it.
Here’s the thing to keep in mind: Your newsletter is an extension of your business. When your subscriber (whether they’re a customer or just a potential customer at this point) reads your newsletter, it’s another way of interacting with your brand. If they have a bad experience reading your newsletter, then that reflects poorly on you.
But the flip side of that is also true: If a user has a great experience every time one of your email blasts ends up in their inbox, then you are cultivating a much stronger relationship with that customer.
Why User Experience Matters
User experience when it comes to your newsletter isn’t just about the associations that your subscribers have about your brand. Sure, you want them to think fondly of you. But a positive user experience is about much more than that.
A good user experience for people subscribed to your newsletter will…
Improve your retention rate
If people enjoy receiving your newsletter, you will be more likely to retain them as subscribers. You aren’t going to have a bunch of people hitting that unsubscribe button.
Improve your open rate
It’s not just about keeping people subscribed—if people see your newsletter as actually providing value to them and they have a great experience every time they read it, they’ll be more likely to actually open up your email and read it.
Improve your conversion rate
Finally, when you manage to keep people subscribed and keep them opening up your emails every time one of them goes out, you’ll be increasing your chances of engaging these subscribers and converting them into paying customers by giving them a reason to patronize your business.
How to Improve User Experience
Now that you understand why user experience is so important, let’s look at some of the ways you can create an email newsletter that provides the best user experience possible. Here are 10 ways you can do that.
1. Let it come from a real human being (you)
A good user experience starts with whom the email is coming from. Make sure the email comes with your name attached to it and is written in your voice. People don’t want to read something that comes from a business—they want real personal interaction.
2. Give people the option of replying (hint, hint: Don’t have a “Do Not Reply” email address)
What if people have a question about something that’s in your email address? Or do they have feedback? When your newsletter comes with a big “Do Not Reply” message at the end, you send the message that you don’t care about your customer. You don’t want this to be a one-way conversation.
3. Be straightforward with your subject line
Newsletters aren’t the time for cutesy or enigmatic subject lines. Tell your subscribers exactly what you’ll be talking about—and then follow through with that. Transparency means a lot for people who have a lot of emails to sort through. They deserve to know whether your newsletter is worth their time.
4. Don’t waste words
Being wordy doesn’t make you look like more of an expert. People want it short and sweet. If there’s more subject matter on the topic that could be covered, provide people with a link for where they can go to get it, such as your blog.
5. Be conversational and engaging
People don’t want stuffy, overly formal messages—it just makes your email feel boring and impersonal. Give people a message that humanizes your brand.
6. Make your text skimmable
Most people are reading their emails on their phones these days—they don’t have time for huge blocks of text. Break everything up with bulleted lists and subheads so it’s easy to skim.
7. Make sure each email provides real value (Spoiler alert: It’s not just about selling)
If your newsletter gets a reputation for bombarding your subscribers with “buy this!” and “buy that!,” then they will catch on quickly. Your newsletter needs to be something that provides information, entertainment, and insight with no expectation of spending money.
8. Break up the text with images, GIFs, and other media
Remember how we said skimmable, conversational text is best? Pictures, GIFs, and even short video snippets are great ways to break up large blocks of text and entertainingly convey information.
9. Include calls to action
Nobody wants to finish reading a newsletter and think, “What was the point of that?” Give your subscribers a follow-through that they should do to make the most of the info they gained from your newsletter. Should they click through to your site, follow you on social media, or share the info with a friend?
10. Be consistent but not spammy
Consistency is important because infrequent newsletters are newsletters that subscribers stop caring about. On the other hand, newsletters that come too frequently feel spammy and overbearing. Your ideal number will mostly depend on how much you have to say, but once a week is an appropriate number for most businesses.