How Email Newsletters Can Fix Marketers' Content and Trust Problems: Three Sets of Best-Practices

Many companies and brands make useful, informative content, but it often goes unnoticed. Marketers need to use email newsletters to get more out of their content and drive engagement. Newsletters have an average open rate of 22%, compared with a fraction of that percentage for Facebook audience/ad interactions. Greentech Media's newsletter visitors spend 80% more time on site than visitors from other channels. New York Times visitors are 2X more likely to become paid subscribers if they subscribe to a Times newsletter first.

Newsletters are the cornerstone of a successful email strategy because they build trust among your subscribers. Brands can't simply throw content links in an email and hope subscribers get the hint. They must make the newsletter enjoyable and engaging, using a more conversational tone with subscribers. To optimize newsletters, marketers should identify their primary goal and craft content to hit it, set expectations up front, keep their send time consistent and offer relevant information, content, and messaging.

To ensure a more enjoyable reading experience, newsletters need a sense of content hierarchy and delineated sections, different types of imagery, an overall size under 102KB, and if applicable, bold colors. B2B brands can also be creative with newsletters. Ultimately, marketers should use the power of email and newsletters to increase content awareness while driving traffic and engagement.