Whether you’re running a small business or work as a marketing expert at a large firm, no doubt you’ll be spread thinly trying to do all your day to day tasks and those extra tasks that always seem to pop up at the most inconvenient time.
Email newsletter content takes more time to perfect than social media posts on Facebook and Twitter. Often because newsletters are more thought out and planned, partly because they can have a much higher return on investment than other forms of marketing. On the other hand, it’s the one time to influence your audience and convince them to take an action.
In this post, I’m going to show you five time-saving email newsletter content tips that you can use to create your perfect newsletter, while still having time left when clocking out time comes round.
Tip #1: Focus on one thing at a time
Ever stared at your computer screen and thought, “What on Earth am I going to include in my newsletter?” whilst also trying to perfect the layout?
Try jotting down a few ideas for your newsletter throughout the week or month leading up to when you put together and send out your email newsletter. Your notes might include blog posts you’d like to promote, product updates, or other information about your business you want to share with your subscribers. Keeping notes, even if they’re just brief bullet points, will give you a solid head start so you feel less stressed when it comes time to sending your newsletter.
Tip #2: Plan ahead
Planning your newsletter is vital, while it’s possible to put together a newsletter without planning, that’s the exception and not the rule. Often unplanned newsletters are scrappy and disjointed; you’d plan your holiday, you’d plan your shop, why should your newsletter be any different?
To start planning your newsletter you need to decide the message you want to communicate, is this going to be a newsletter about a new feature? Maybe it’s going to be a newsletter about a special offer? Whatever the purpose, decide on the mission of the newsletter before anything else.
With your mission in mind think about the time of year, relevance is important if it’s coming up to a holiday season plan to send content relevant at the time. For example, Christmas is a great time for sending a special offer to entice subscribers to buy gifts for their loved ones.
If you still find that planning trips you up from time to time, keep a spreadsheet to track ideas, it’s always useful to refer to what you thought weeks and months ago to plan what you want to do in the future.
Tip #3: Reuse content
If you’ve written something interesting, don’t confine it to the past, perhaps it was the main feature in your last email? Why not reuse your old content further down in future emails? You could create a “best of” section in your newsletter to share highlights of previous months’ content.
Remember just because you’ve already sent the content once, new subscribers and those that missed it the first time will be happy to see it again! And as long as it isn’t the main feature of future newsletters, subscribers that have already seen it, generally won’t mind.
What though if you want to re-present the content? We’re glad you asked! Re-presenting content is a great idea, perhaps modify the title, change the featured image and the material you’ve written stays relevant, persevering all the hard work you put in.
Tip #4: Research, research and then research some more
Research is like learning. If you don’t keep learning you’ll quickly fall behind with the breakneck pace of everything these days. It’s important to research your competitors, find similar companies, sign up for their newsletter, and see what they do, take notes! Inspiration can come from anywhere.
Researching doesn’t mean copying. Just like it’s not a good idea to cheat and copy someone else’s exam paper, it’s also not a good choice copying a competitor’s newsletter section-for-section with your own content. There’s a chance that subscribers may be subscribed to both and it’ll quickly become obvious who’s copying who. Make the idea original, stand out from the crowd, and don’t be afraid to experiment!
Tip #5: Duplicate your previous MailPoet campaigns
Created a layout you love? Don’t waste time setting it all up again, MailPoet provides built-in template support, allowing you to turn a newsletter into a stunning template ready to use again and again. Thus saving you the time it takes to set up a newsletter from scratch.
Not keen on the template idea? That’s cool too. MailPoet includes the ability to duplicate your campaign, just edit the title and content and get sending, easy peasy!
Have some of your own favorite time-saving email tips? Let us know in the comments below!
