Email newsletters can be game-changers, whether you’re looking to nurture leads through your sales funnel, sell products, or build an engaged audience and online community. But staying consistent with high open rates and click-throughs requires strategy and dedication. Sit tight as we show you the ropes on creating engaging newsletters with great examples and best practices.
What is an Email Newsletter?
An email newsletter is a curated email containing engaging content such as updates, announcements, and offers that is regularly sent to those who’ve subscribed to your email list.
Through newsletters, you can keep your customers and prospects in the know and build a good relationship with them that fosters sales and long-term loyalty.
How to Create Engaging Newsletters
An email newsletter needs to be relevant to audiences, contain valuable or actionable content, and have a personable tone for it to be engaging and effective. Read on to learn what you need to do to create engaging newsletters.
1. Assess Your Need for a Newsletter and Its Feasibility
You do not want to be in the middle of your newsletter campaign, only to realise it isn’t working or that it doesn’t suit your marketing campaign. Rather, you need to do your research and ascertain whether you actually need to create a newsletter. Research your audience’s content preferences and how successful newsletters are in your niche. Confirm you have enough valuable content or updates to share regularly.
Likewise, you should check if available resources can sustain efforts to create engaging newsletters, or your efforts would yield better ROI if channeled towards other email drip campaigns or blog content marketing.
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2. Plan the Newsletter Themes and Content
Define a consistent theme or focus. It’s certainly more effective to have a common thread and theme for your email newsletters rather than lumping content such as product news, brand stories, press mentions and random content together —subscribers may lose interest. Instead:
- Center each issue around a specific topic or theme.
- Strike a balance: mix valuable educational pieces with occasional promotional content.
- Craft messages that align with your brand voice and resonate with audience pain points
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3. Write a Transparent “Subscribe” Landing Page
One of your major goals for your newsletters should be to reduce unsubscribe and spam rates. This is why you should set clear expectations on the subscribe landing page. Build trust from the outset by clarifying:
- What subscribers should expect: frequency, format, or focus
- How often you’ll email them—weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly
- Privacy assurances: mention minimal data collection, or link to your data policy
This reduces spam complaints or unsubscribes since subscribers know precisely what they’re signing up for.
4. Write Creative and Engaging Email Subject Lines
Subject lines can make or break your open rates. You want subscribers to open your emails when they see them in their inboxes. So, give them an incentive to immediately click on the email by writing creative and engaging subject lines for each newsletter. After all, up to 47% of people who receive emails use the subject line as the sole reason for opening such emails. Catchy, concise lines entice people to click:
- You can keep them short as in this example from MasterClass—40 characters or fewer often works best.
- You can use this subject line library if you need inspiration on finding an appropriate subject line for your newsletter.
- Reflect the email’s main topic but with a playful twist or an intriguing question
- Avoid misleading phrases—authenticity fosters long-term trust
While on the issue of subject lines, do pay attention to your preheader texts. You should optimise them so that they provide an enticing sneak peek into your emails. Remember, preview texts should not repeat your subject line but should rather provide more context to it.
5. Craft Reader-Centric Content
As always with online content, it’s not about what your brand wants to communicate but about what your target audience wants to hear. Your newsletter content must therefore cater to their interests, needs, and pain points.
Remember to encourage audiences to engage the newsletter by including videos, polls, random giveaways, or trivia.
Meanwhile, you have many options regarding what content to include in your newsletter:
- Blog posts
- Discount offers and promos
- Incentives and giveaways
- User-Generated Content
- How-to guides
- Testimonials
- Industry news and updates
- Brand updates and announcements
- Events
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6. Test, and Optimise Processes
Nailing down the sweet spot of what your audiences want and what works best for your brand may not always be easy. This is why you need to follow the steps above and the best practices below to help you out.
After drafting your subject lines and content, use Email A/B testing processes to test copies of email elements on email client segments. This will give you an idea of what audiences prefer and what works best.
Make use of free email marketing tools to optimize testing and delivery processes as well as analyze metrics. The results of such analysis can inform your processes for refining your newsletter creation processes.
Best Practices for Creating Engaging Newsletters
Use the following best practices to create an engaging newsletter:
Keep Abreast of Changing Audience Needs
It should be a regular thing for you to take steps to track your audience behaviours. You may do this through the use of research methods such as polls, surveys, and interviews.
For example, your email analytics can also give you an idea of click patterns, open rates and unsubscribes. You can thus get a good idea of what your audience finds valuable and adjust reasonably.
Feature a Primary Call-To-Action
With multiple CTAs, your main message risks being lost. It’s not essentially a bad idea to feature multiple calls-to-action (CTAs) in your newsletter. However, they should not all be equally prominent, but there should be a primary CTA that enjoins your audience to do one main thing.
Perhaps, you want them to get early access to your newly launched product or you want to promote an exclusive discount offer. For example, “Redeem 10% off” or “Secure Your Spot”
Your primary CTA should be obvious to increase the chances of your email audience clicking on it. Also develop the habit of having a strong colour contrast for your main button or link.
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Maintain a Minimal Design and Copy
Today’s audiences are often pressed for time and their attention is getting increasingly shorter. This emphasises the need for your newsletters to look uncluttered. Leave adequate white space, easy-to-skim layout and use links to send them to your website or blog for more extensive content.
You can check out Schwab’s newsletter on investing to see an example of a clean and minimal design.
In the same vein, your email design should have a good visual hierarchy such that the design guides the eyes of audiences through the content.
The newsletter shouldn’t contain too much text or imagery, and ensure that all images have alt texts so that they appear when images do not load in the email. Ensure each design element guides readers toward your CTA.
If you’re looking for email design templates to start with, you can consider using Hubspot’s email templates.
Keep Your Newsletters Mobile-Friendly
Studies show about 60% of emails are opened on phones. Best mobile practices. Readers tend to become less interested in emails if they do not open well on their mobile devices.
You can explore using responsive drag and drop email templates from HubSpot to better understand mobile-friendly design. Use large text and bigger tap-friendly buttons as these reduce user frustration. Also use minimal images for faster loading, especially for slower connections
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Test Emails Before Sending Them
Don’t let broken links or messy designs tarnish your reputation. It can be counter-productive if your audiences receive newsletter links that do not work or mobile designs that look quirky. You should therefore send test emails either to yourself or a small group for quick reviews before sending the newsletters. Check on multiple devices (mobile, tablet, desktop) to ensure consistent formatting and correct any layout or link issues pre-launch.
Make The “Unsubscribe/Change Email Settings” Process Easy
You will end up having an active and engaged subscriber list if you make it easy for readers to change email settings or unsubscribe. Offer a frictionless unsubscribe method. Display a clear link in the footer, avoid forcing subscribers through endless steps and prompt unsubscribers for optional feedback to improve future campaigns.
Build Strong Connections Through Engaging Newsletters
Engaging newsletters help you build trust, boost brand awareness, and inspire repeat interactions. By integrating clarity, authenticity, and a well-curated mix of content, your emails become must-open reads rather than background noise. Remember to test, adapt to evolving audience preferences, and keep refining your approach.
Want to deepen your knowledge of email marketing and take your skills to new heights? Check out Exclusive Blueprint, your go-to blog that is filled with practical insights, emerging trends, and essential tools designed to help you master email marketing tactics, refine your campaigns, and build an engaged audience.
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