A regular newsletter is the best way to let your clients and contacts what is new in your company, whether it be new products and services, or changes to the way your company works.

As the majority of your clients will not proactively check your website daily for updates, you sometimes need to reach out to them to get the information across.

A good newsletter can not only inform, but also convert readership into sales – you should use a combination of striking graphics, pertinent information, and (depending on your brand) humour.

(NOTE: This post was updated in September 2019)

There are many things you should include in your newsletter to make it stand out from the crowd – here are 5 of the most important:

A good title or subject line

This is one of the first things your readers will see and is likely to be in the subject line of your email so make it fun and intriguing! Just naming your newsletter ‘Newsletter’ isn’t going to interest anyone or persuade people to read on or even open it – be inventive.

An eye catching picture

Visuals are always the first thing people see before they start to read your newsletter. A good image/s and good graphics will catch someone’s eye and should convey what your newsletter is about.

Remember, always make sure your images are relevant to what you’re talking about – and be sure to use legally obtained images!

Example: In our summer sum up newsletter we had a photo of me talking to the camera about how we work the TLD Loyalty Club, which linked to this Instagram video post:

Example: In our Summer Loving newsletter there was another similar one, where I explained the TLD Loyalty Club.

Relevant and interesting information

Don’t just talk about absolutely anything. It’s important that your newsletter is all about your business, subjects related to your business, and the people in your business. We usually find our newsletters inspire some blog articles!

Your newsletter can be personal, light hearted and you should always bring it back to what you do.

After all, people signed up for your newsletter because they are interested in hearing about what your company is up to! Or because you offered them a free “lead magnet”. In any case, you want to fulfil the promise you made and give them useful news, entertaining stories, and education about topics that you’re an expert in.

Example: When Google made it more important for sites to be responsive, we built a mini campaign. This involved creating 3 blog separate posts. The newsletter we sent linked to those. We wanted to help people overcome their confusion and fears about their sites disappearing from the internet!

Our goal in this campaign was to get more clients to come back and get us to redo their websites to be responsive!

Example: Back when the rule of GDPR was coming in, we did 2 GDPR related newsletters. Their subject lines were:
“Run – Hide – All the lights are switching off tomorrow”
The incredible shrinking mailing list

Both were to help people understand the things they needed to change on their website to comply with GDPR regulations. They addressed the real fears people had about this change!

Example: We sent out a newsletter advising people when it’s right and not right to outsource their social media: Should we do your social media for you?

A call to action

As well as sharing interesting information your newsletter is also the perfect platform to encourage people to do something, be it signing up for an event with a discount or simply directing them to view the latest work on your website. Always encourage and direct people to get involved with what you do.

Example: Our Mount Snowdon trek update where we asked for sponsorship for our client Starlight Barking.

Links to social media profiles

What are social media profiles for? Networking and communicating of course! If you’re involved with social media make sure you let people know, always include links to your social media profiles in your newsletter, you’ll be surprised at the amount of people which will regularly click on these and follow what you’re up to.

Want to see all the Top Left Design newsletters: Just visit this page!