Marketing 101: What makes People Click on an Email Newsletter?

Why do email newsletters continue to be a viable business model? No matter how much we are into social media, emails continue to play a huge part in our lives. Yes, we surely don’t log in to our email accounts as much as the social ones. But when we do, we are attentive… and it is this attention email marketers need to cash on.

With just a couple of years of experience, I’m definitely not a pro in marketing (hell! not even close). But I didn’t fail to notice that email newsletters walk on similar lines as web design. The basic principles are the same, and the ultimate goal is to make viewers like what they are seeing… and subsequently, convert them into customers.

But with so many people accessing the Web on the go, a newsletter needs something extremely catchy to hook them instantly, and lay out the information as fast as possible. So what should an email newsletter ideally comprise in order to entice the targeted audience and increase the chances of being clicked?

Catchiest Subject Line – The Game is Half Won

If not in the Spam section, I make sure to check out every newsletter. But this is just a habit I have grown; and not everyone is so good at heart. People usually just delete newsletters from their inboxes. So how can you make them stop at yours? Simple! Come up with the catchiest Subject Line (with the focus on the first 5 words).

Only if they like what they read as the subject, they will click with the intent of spending more than 10 seconds to figure out whether they have something worthwhile to use from your newsletter or not.

Be an advisor, not a Salesman

The primary purpose of email newsletters is to generate sales. But the glitch is – ‘everyone knows it already and they expect to see a salesman in a newsletter’. Do not try to convince them with your messages… chances are high they are not going to buy it. Give them what they least expect to find in a newsletter – solutions from a friend and an advisor.

Only when you have knocked them off with a different approach can you expect to have their undivided attention.

Minimalism will Impress every time

Whenever we hear the term ‘less is more’ in marketing, we instantly attach it with the minimalist design technique. Contrary to popular belief, minimalism is a lot more than design; and it can be easily associated with word count… or even the length of the newsletter as a whole.

Keeping the design of the newsletter clean with proper whitespace is necessary. Word count should not be over 150 – no fluff and hitting only at the important points. Moreover, it’s better to give out the information by keeping the length of the newsletter as short as possible. People do not like to spend too much time on email newsletters… therefore, you need to relay your message in the shortest and simplest way.

Less Words, More Pictures

Personally, the newsletters I pay the most attention to are ones I receive from Flipkart. And not just because I trust Flipkart the most when it comes to my online shopping sprees. Rather, it is because their newsletters are enticing every time… and even old customers like me are never bored with them.

What Flipkart mostly does is keep the newsletter short and divide it into several squared sections – each with a picture of a relevant category (acting as a clickable CTA button) and the discount percentage available on each. And frankly, this is actually all an enthusiastic buyer needs to know! No words needed.

Make the Newsletter shareable

How will you know, ‘who needs what, and at what time?’ It’s quite natural for you, as the creator and sender of the email, to send it to the wrong person who does not need your services and products right now. So what will he do? Delete it, of course! Do you need this to happen? Obviously NO!

In most cases, we happen to know what our friends and family members want to buy. So just in case you send it out to the wrong people, make sure to add a ‘Forward to a Friend’ link and the social media sharing buttons into the email body. This, in fact,may double up your chances of getting new customers.

What are your thoughts about email newsletters? Love them or hate them? Any suggestions to make them more clickable? Let me know by leaving a comment below.