Email Newsletter Essentials: 5 Tips to Captivate Customers

5 Ways Newsletters Can Drive Engagement

For virtually every brand, newsletters play a key role in their communications strategies. This is for good reason—after all, while customers have opted in to triggers and promotions, newsletters are often what they initially subscribed to. It’s the content they’ve raised their hands for and expect in their inboxes, making it an invaluable place for customer-brand relationships to thrive.

That means strategic enhancements can go a long way. Don’t simply check off your newsletter deployment each week or month; use these 5 strategies to bolster its relevance and captivate customers’ attention.

Consider Specific Success Metrics

As the purpose of newsletters will differ drastically across industries, the success metrics will also vary. While a retail brand may aim to familiarize a customer with their loyalty program and incorporate promotions, a financial services brand may focus on educating its customers on how to make investments. With this being the case, it’s essential to set goals and measurable success metrics that are tailored to your brand.

When setting goals, you'll want to think beyond metrics used for promotional and trigger emails such as conversions or revenue. While acquiring new customers or driving sales is always valuable—and likely a major goal for your brand—newsletters offer a unique chance to connect with customers on a deeper level and stay top-of-mind. Include goals that reflect the strength of the relationship between your brand and your audience. Some examples would be measuring how much they engage with your content, where they navigated to on your site, or if they clicked on your latest blog post.

Be Clear and Concise From the Beginning

When inviting customers to sign up for your newsletter, being transparent about what they can expect is crucial. Whether it's educational content, industry insights, or exclusive offers, being clear about the newsletter's purpose increases the likelihood of opt-ins and lowers the risk of eventual unsubscribes. Customers value knowing what they're signing up for and understanding the benefits they'll receive.

You’ll want to maintain transparency throughout the email journey by reiterating the content and benefits of the newsletter while reinforcing the value proposition. When possible, include a single call-to-action (CTA) that clearly directs readers to take a specific action, such as downloading a resource, contacting a financial advisor, or exploring subscription options. By emphasizing the primary CTA, you can guide readers toward meaningful engagement with your brand.

Follow the Customer's Lead

When crafting newsletter topics, leverage existing data—such as website visitation patterns—to tailor content effectively and speak to customers’ pain points. Additionally, utilize live polls to gather zero-party data and further personalize content based on subscriber interests. By involving subscribers in shaping newsletter content, you ensure relevance and engagement.

Charlotte Tilbury used their newsletter as an opportunity to ask customers which Valentine’s Day look best matched their style. Click percentages were displayed to gamify the experience, and each poll option linked to a specific product landing page. By including this gamified play in their newsletter, Charlotte Tilbury collected valuable data for future retargeting.

Incorporate Valuable Updates

Newsletters aren’t just about keeping customers posted on the latest news, products, and educational content. It’s also the place where customers expect updates on their status with the brand, such as their flight status with an airline, upcoming payment deadlines for their credit card, or reminders to finish filing their taxes.

In their newsletter The Zone, the NBA includes an evergreen banner displaying each fan’s badge status. The banners automatically personalize based on how many actions the customer has completed—becoming an NBA ID member, choosing a favorite team, becoming a season ticket holder, and tuning into the NBA streaming service, League Pass—so that fans know where they stand with the brand in every newsletter.

Test, Iterate, and Test Again

Customers will always have varying preferences and needs, making a culture of testing, flexibility, and personalization a must for every brand. While some elements of a newsletter may apply for most customers, no message can be one-size-fits-all. 

However, one element that should be universal is a consistent newsletter schedule to maintain engagement and keep your brand top-of-mind for your customers. While it may take time to fully understand what resonates with your audience, a regular publishing schedule helps to eliminate uncertainties about engagement fluctuations due to seasonality or economic changes. By establishing reliability and consistency in your communication, you ensure that customers know when they can expect to hear from you, fostering trust and loyalty over time.

ESPN’s MLB newsletter perfectly marries personalization with a flexible, evergreen structure. In their weekly send, every fan received updates such as broadcast lists, news headlines, fantasy leagues, and social feeds. Highly active fans, however, would also receive personalized content such as profile information and “favorites” round-ups. The content that appeared and collapsed was completely automated, helping ESPN save production time and remain flexible.

Send Your Newsletter with Confidence

By implementing these 5 key strategies, your newsletters will increase in relevance to captivate subscribers. To explore more personalization tactics, check out the related resources below.