A newsletter is a newsletter sent periodically by email to subscribers. Composed of text, illustrations, links to your site, its content can be for example a selection of products, an article about news in your company. The newsletter a very good way to retain customers.
Three good reasons to send a newsletter:
- inform its customers of thecompany news,
- maintain a regular contact with its customers,
- increase traffic to your site by encouraging subscribers to visit it.
- Our video
- Choose a sending service
- Create the newsletter template
- Create newsletter content
- Sending the newsletter and monitoring receipts
- Keep your database up to date
- Find the right tools
- Legal obligations
Our video
Loading your video "FAQ: Make a newsletter"Choose a sending service
Sending a newsletter through a classic email address turns out to be impossible as soon as the number of subscribers is high. It is therefore strongly recommended to use an e-mail sending service.
For the first mailings, you can choose from free solutions: PopList, Mailify, MailingList.
All you have to do is create an account, import your contact list, newsletter and send.
For more mailings and to access more options (newsletter templates, statistics), opt for a paid solution: PG-Mailing List PRO, Constant Contact, Etarget Emailing, Sendpro.
Create the newsletter template
First step: choose the format of the newsletter. In text format, the newsletter looks like a classic email. In html format, newsletters are more eye-catching, they include images, links, formatted text (color, bold, italics, etc.) that can recall the graphic charter of your website.
Some sending services offer templates, models, ready to use. A template is a page template, reusable for each newsletter, in which all you have to do is insert its text and content. Your template can simply be a page with your logo and some images.
To create a more sophisticated page template yourself, web design software is needed. Some are free (NVU), free software from Mozilla) others pay (Dreamweaver).
Namely
Do not copy / paste your text from a Word document to the html editor. Otherwise, you may see unwanted characters like "Ã ¢ Â €" appear. Copy text from any text editor, like note-pad.
Create newsletter content
Subject of the message: court and seller
Avoid titles such as “newsletter n ° 5” or “Dupont company newsletter”. Choose a title that reflects the content of your newsletter and prompts the reader to read it. For example: "10 tips to increase your productivity", "10 € voucher", "free competition", "free opening fees", ...
Content: the key to a successful newsletter
The attention paid to a newsletter is often very limited, given the number of information and advertising emails received each day by Internet users.
Tips:
Structure the newsletter with informative titles and sub-titles. Instead of exhaustive content, prefer short texts for quick and pleasant reading. Complete your articles with links that will send the user to your site if he wants to know more.
Ideas for topics:
- Information about your products and your company
- News
- Promotions
- Tips and advice on your sector
Illustrations
Some sending services offer to host your images. If this is not the case and for an image to appear on the newsletter received by the recipient, it must be present on your website or online on another site.
To insert an image in your newsletter, you must indicate the url (address) of this image. For example, to insert the CCM logo at the top of this page in your newsletter, right click on the logo, copy its address
http://www.Idroid.com/img/logo.png et collez la dans votre éditeur html.
Avoid inserting too many images, your newsletter will go directly to the trash if the loading time is too long. Also offer Internet users to receive your newsletter in text format.
Sending the newsletter and monitoring receipts
Who to send the newsletter to?
To customers, prospects, partners.
On your website, add a section "subscribe to the newsletter" where Internet users can leave their email address.
How to increase the registration rate?
Encourage the registration of new Internet users, for example by adding a "send to a friend" link at the end of the newsletter.
Communicate on your newsletter: by reminding you of its existence in your emails, on your invoices, by putting old copies online on your site.
How to prevent your newsletter from being considered as spam?
Do not send your newsletter to recipients without their prior consent and do not send too many emails from your email address.
Regarding the content of the newsletter, avoid terms often used by spammers (capital letters, exclamation points) and keep the newsletter in html as simple as possible (no scripts, not too many CSS sheets).
In Spain spam is illegal, among the texts in force: the law on information technology and freedoms, the law for confidence in the digital economy, the consumer code and the directive on data protection in the context of electronic mailings. The CNIL website provides a summary of the legislative texts.
Keep your database up to date
The majority of e-mailing solutions offer database update functionality. Addresses considered to be invalid ("hard bounce") or user unsubscribe ("unsubscribe") are taken into account, in order to maintain a mailing list that is as clean as possible.
Advantage:
- A better open rate for future campaigns since invalid addresses and uninterested persons will not be sent to them,
- Less risk of being considered a spam sender, or of being blocked by the sending tool.
Updating the database also includes synchronization of addresses with company files. The sources can be various: company CRM, purchase of customer files, data from specific campaigns or social networks, etc.
Depending on the information available to the company, updating the database with a view to segmentation (geographic or socio-demographic criteria, etc.) may also prove to be relevant.
Find out more: manage your subscriber base for your e-mailing campaigns
Find the right tools
The success of an e-mailing campaign also depends on choosing the right tools. Several software and tools offer online solutions. They can be free or paid, but also differ in the features they offer.
How to choose a newsletter sending solution
Check the features offered and how they meet the objectives of the newsletter project:
- Pre-established themes with a facilitated layout (turnkey solutions),
- Management of lists and unsubscriptions,
- Figures after sending the newsletter: number of opens, number of clicks, origins and opening times ...,
- Number of shipments authorized in the free version.
The cost of the solutions must also be taken into account, as well as their compatibility with the software and CMS used in business.
For example, Mailchimp can be easily coupled with a Wordpress CMS site.
Examples of online solutions
- MailChimp,
- Activetrail,
- Sarbacane.
Legal obligations
Allow the user to unsubscribe
You have the obligation to add a link to your newsletter, generally at the bottom of the page, which allows the user to unsubscribe.
If your campaign is aimed at individuals, you must obtain the consent of the recipients when collecting their email address.
In addition, the author of the email must be clearly identifiable.
It is the law relating to computers, files and freedoms, which you can consult on the CNIL website, which obliges you to do so.
You can also send a welcome email to Internet users who have recently subscribed to your newsletter to confirm their subscription and explain the unsubscription procedure.
