When it comes to your email newsletter, deciding what and how much to write is one of the biggest email marketing struggles small businesses and nonprofits face.
It’s not easy.
You want to give your readers as much information as possible about who you are and what you’re doing but, you’re battling the inbox. People receive an average of 147 emails per day and they’re not reading or acting on all of them.
If you want to make your email stand out from the rest, keep it short. This is especially important as more people use smartphones to read their email. In fact, 72 percent regularly access email with a mobile device and they don’t want to scroll through long messages.
But how do you balance your need to share information and your readers’ email habits? Here are 3 tips:
1. Share a little. Link to more.
If you want to promote a post on your blog, the details of an event, or news about a product or service, write a few sentences about the topic and then link to the full information on your website. The United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley gives readers a taste of their content accompanied by a link to learn more. Linking to your website from your email is a great way to drive people to a more robust offering of information without overwhelming them.
2. Make a list.
Jaye Myrick, Co-Owner of Take 5 Massage, uses lists and templates before she writes her newsletters. This allows her to cut down content and use only the important information that readers need to know.
3. Say it with multimedia.
Your email content doesn’t have to be all text. Use a picture, graphic or video to tell a story. TeeFury does this in their emails by featuring one shirt design a day. The image is linked to the page on their website where you can buy the shirt.
Start experimenting with links, lists, and multimedia in your next newsletter and see what works. The most important thing is to keep it short and sweet!
Need more help with mobile-friendly email marketing? Register for our upcoming “Making the Case for Mobile” webinar on July 23, 2013.
Read more: