Newsletter (or mailing list) is a simple publication sent via e-mail. Newsletters contain some useful content like information, some educational text or different promotions and sales. They are very effective marketing tool which is largely used by an organization with a goal to maintain their communication with existing customers and to attract some new clients. But, it’s not all about content, something is in a good design of newsletter too. If you regularly send newsletters you can improve your sales and strengthen your market name. With each newsletter you send, your relationship with clients will be better and the chance that clients will buy your product will become larger. If you make it visually appealing, your brand will be more recognizable. Some other advantages of newsletters are:
- increases brand awareness
- triggers an immediate response
- number of people in the newsletter is often greater than planned (because people can pass it to another person)
- financially cheap
- allows immediate analysis of results
- more effective than others marketing channels.
Now that you understand what the newsletter really is you probably have some idea how your newsletter would look. But, where to start? You can hire someone to make it for you, or you can download template. But, fortunately, you can do it yourself. And we will help you with that. Below you can find instructions on how to create a good design of newsletter.
First, you have to pick a tool for creating a newsletter. There are professional tools like Photoshop or other but if you didn’t use it before you should probably keep it simple. Now we have a good news for you. There are web tools that are simple and free and will help you to create the great newsletter, like Mailchimp or Campaign Monitor. They offer finished templates and a whole system to track and organize your newsletter campaign. So, now you can make your own newsletter in just a few clicks.
Your second task is to decide your audience. This is very important part and you can’t move on before you solve this. For example, if you are selling something, you want to highlight products that you sell and that should be interesting to your clients. On the other hand, if you are helping people with some tips and advices then you should have a completely other focus in your newsletter. For example, you will not highlight products, you will highlight the little review of the problem and put a link to the whole article.
Now that you know your audience, you must decide the format of your newsletter. You must decide which e-mail clients you will support? Will clients be able to look through newsletter in their browser (and which browser)? And what mobile devices and applications will you support? To help you with that here is a link to some of the best newsletters ever designed. Maybe you find something inspirational there.
When you decided your format you must design header and footer. When you send your first newsletter it will be about one thing. The second one will have some other text, third one something different and so on. But, your header and footer will stay the same. The header is the first thing your clients will see. If you have poorly designed header then some of the clients will probably stop reading the whole newsletter. The header must say who you are, what you do and why you are interesting. It should make a positive impression. On the other hand, the footer is a simple part of the newsletter where you should include your contact information and an option to cancel the subscription to your newsletter.
The final step is to test your newsletter. Check if it loads well on every mail client, popular web browsers and smartphone devices.
Can newsletter be better than other popular internet marketing channels?
The answer is YES! And why? Well, since you have Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media networks most of the people find newsletters pretty old-fashioned. But, they don’t understand all the benefits that newsletter brings to the business and marketing. Well written and attractive newsletter can go deeper than any other online marketing channel.
140 characters on Twitter or a few sentences on Facebook can’t even be compared to complex e-mail that offers detailed presentation of any content that is more likely to persuade client to buy your product or at least get more informed.
But how does it work?
Newsletter is an important part of every business and it offers the possibility to build the connection with clients. How? Well, e-mail marketing opens the possibility of monitoring your client behavior, habits, interests and desires and with that allows you to plan your next marketing move much better. Mailing lists system contains three parts:
- Newsletter form that allows clients to enter their name and e-mail.
- Database with all e-mail addresses.
- E-mail client that sends a newsletter to clients.
If you have a professional e-mail client you can automatically insert photos into a newsletter and do some other premium stuff as well. For example, you can send emails in the exact time, you can automatically delete users from the list when they want that or you can get detailed statistics about clients behavior when they receive your newsletter (how many links they clicked, how many time they spent on your newsletter, how many of clients didn’t even open newsletter and similar).
And now to get back to the title of this article: why is a good design of newsletter so important?
Well, if you read this article, We think you realized that. Every part of your newsletter is important because if your client sees something that he doesn’t like he will immediately remove himself from your mailing list or your products you offer won’t attract his interest. Pick a good template, or build one yourself in Photoshop or some other program, then inform yourself about how to build good newsletter and start with answering the most important questions and solve steps on how to build perfect newsletter (you can find them above ;)) that will attract clients and make them want to buy your product, read your article or order your service.
Take your time with creating a good newsletter design because you will see the results later and it will reflect heavily on your business. If you have no idea how to design it or have no time for it, we bring you some awesome newsletter templates:
Gina – Responsive Email w/Builder Access
Magma Email Template + EmailBuilder
Modern and clean template, bright and memorable. You easily using Builder can create a unique email. Features: Full Responsive Email Template. Compatible with Most Modern Browsers. Clean Design. 30+ Modules. Email builder. Quality Layered PSD. MailChimp & Campaign Monitor Compatability. Commented HTML code. Modular Layout allows to build your own layout easily for the template (delete/copy/replace). Download here.
Umail – Responsive Email Template + Online Editor
Features: + 20 Modules. Drag and drop online Builder. WYSIWYG editor. Unlimited color skin. Export to desktop. Change background image. Duplicate or hide modules. Inline Css and optimized code. Fully Layered PSD included. MailChimp compatible. Campaign monitor compatible. HTML without tags version. Documentation included. Download here.
Path – Multipurpose Email Template
Features: Responsive Email Template. Drag & Drop Editor. Unlimited Colors. Full Layred PSD files. Documentation. Litmus Tested. Free Support. Download here.
Best – Ecommerce Responsive Email + Builder Access
Best Ecommerce is responsive e-newsletter email template with appealing, clean and professional features, which can be used to serve multiple purposes like finance campaigns, portfolio, corporate and more for your online business and all other promotional activities, which will surely help you to drive more traffic on your site. Download here.
Sunn – Responsive Email and Newsletter Templates
All Features: Responsive Email Template. Online Editor. Unlimited Colors. Full Layred PSD files. Documentation. Optimized code. HTML without tags version. MailChimp, StampReady, Campain Monitor compatible. Litmus tested. Free Support. 6 templates ready to use. Download here.
Essentials | Responsive Multi-Purpose Email Template
Easily build countless responsive emails with this drag and drop template. Customize the fonts, change the colors, edit the header image, control buttons radius and lots more with a few clicks using these email template with layout builder access. Using these ready-made building blocks you can create your emails quickly and easily by simply dragging and dropping elements on the virtual canvas. Email Template Features: Flat and clean design with a professional touch, Responsive Email Template. Unlimited colors and layouts with a layout builder access. Ready to go, 3 layouts X 9 colors html’s. Has been tested on every major email client and Inline CSS used for a full cross browser compatibility. Html’s are lightweight, modular layout makes the job of duplicate or hide modules very easy. Download here.
Boxy Multipurpose E-newsletter + Builder Access
BOXY Multipurpose E-newsletter Template is a clean, highly flexible and beautifully designed Responsive email marketing templates specially design to promote your creative studio, startup & corporate business application, event, seminar, your stock deals, web services, promote your goods or whatever else you think this template fits. You can use the predefined templates or combine the elements the way you like. Download here.
Alpha – Modern Email Template + StampReady Builder
Template Features: StampReady Online Builder. Drag & Drop modules. Duplicate or hide modules. Unlimited Modules and Colors. Full Width Design & Responsive. PSD Photoshop File available. Included Files: StampReady Template Builder Access. Mailchimp Compatible files. Campaignmonitor Compatible files. HTML Compatible file. 1 PSD Layered File. Full Documentation HTML page. Download here.
DCFA – Responsive Email + StampReady Build
Features: Responsive Email Template. Drag & Drop in StampReady. Unlimited Colors. StampReady, Campaign Monitor & MailChimp compatible. Documentation. Download here.
