How to Create an Email Newsletter: 2023 Best Guide

This guide on how to create an Email Newsletter is the complete information about email marketing for bloggers, internet shops, and small and medium-sized organizations. Today, you will learn how to start an email newsletter. You will also learn about marketing email newsletter

The world of email marketing can appear a little confusing at times. How can you ensure that the subscription procedure won’t land you in trouble with the law? How do you keep up with your subscriber list? And how do you initially acquire subscribers?

Along with a step-by-step video on how to make and send newsletters, we will respond to these queries in this article.

We’ll talk about the following:

What is an Email Newsletter?

What is a newsletter, you can ask as a starting point? A regular email distribution, such as once per week or once per month, is known as an email newsletter. It may be displayed in plain text or HTML (which is displayed within a design).

Email newsletters are a common marketing tool for companies, as you can undoubtedly tell by looking at your inboxes. For instance, 85% of B2B marketers use email newsletters as a component of their content marketing strategy.

Since they are named newsletters for a reason, email newsletters typically concentrate on giving subscribers educational content. It might cover a single subject exclusively or might cover a variety of subjects.

Newsletters are distinct from other sorts of marketing emails, such as transactional, triggered/automated, or autoresponders (such as welcome emails). They can, however, occasionally overlap. Newsletters should be used to supplement these emails rather than to replace them because each has a crucial role to play in any effective email marketing plan.

A simple email builder can be used to create your email. The sample below makes use of MailerLite, which is quite simple to use!

Email newsletter benefits

• By sending out regular newsletters, you can stay in touch with your readers and stay top-of-mind. This raises the likelihood that they will become clients for you.
• It costs a lot less than traditional media (like printed goods)
• The media can be produced and delivered more quickly.
• Your outcomes can be actively monitored. This allows you to adjust your content to the market while also monitoring your return on investment.
• It is possible to mix purchases and registration without switching between media types.
• Your subscribers will receive email newsletters wherever they are thanks to their smartphones.

Issues with email newsletters

• A print product’s tactile experience is diminished.
• Emails are often read immediately and discarded quite quickly.
• People already receive a lot of email newsletters in their inboxes.

Despite the drawbacks, it’s difficult to discount the compelling justifications for sending email newsletters. Since they are relatively inexpensive to distribute, cost-effectiveness is arguably the strongest argument in favor of them. Additionally, the average return on investment (ROI) for email marketing is $38 for every dollar invested. That justification is plenty for us!

How to Make a Newsletter in Email

You’d be astonished at how simple the process of establishing an email newsletter is after the content is set in stone! The next video demonstrates how to construct an email newsletter using examples from two different email marketing programs, MailerLite and ActiveCampaign.

Both offer a graphical editing interface, as is the case with the majority of providers. You can add the building pieces you want to your newsletter using the drag-and-drop editor. You don’t even need to know how to program to achieve it.

For in-depth assessments of a number of newsletter tools, including Constant Contact, Mailchimp, Brevo, and many others, click here.

Six simple steps to sending your first newsletter

1. Register with an ESP (email service provider)

Choose an email service provider that satisfies your requirements, whether you value price, sophisticated automation tools, or ease of use. Due to their substantial free plans, we typically suggest MailerLite and GetResponse for newbies. 

2. If you already have a mailing list for your newsletter, import it.

Make sure your email list only contains subscribers who are either current clients of your company or who have opted-in specifically to receive your newsletters. Your contact list can typically be uploaded as a CSV file or, if it’s a smaller list, by simply copying and pasting your contacts.

3. Create your newsletter subscription form.

Create a sign-up form that is prominently displayed, makes it simple for website visitors to subscribe, and expresses the benefits of doing so. By pasting the form code from your email marketing platform, you may add the form to your website. Additionally, WordPress plugins and website apps for website builders like Shopify and Wix are typically readily available.

4. Establish authentication

Make sure you set up popular authentication techniques like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prevent your emails from ending up in the spam bin. Your domain registrar and email service provider can support you with that.

5. Start a campaign for your first email newsletter.

Establish the objectives and purpose of your newsletter, provide interesting content that appeals to your target market, and design a catchy newsletter template that reflects your brand. Keep in mind these best practices. When your material is prepared, use your newsletter editor to upload it.

6. observe the results

To gauge the popularity of your newsletter, evaluate data like open and click-through rates frequently.  To improve performance, try various subject lines, content, and design components using A/B testing.

What Qualities Should Professional Emailing Services Have?

What about the capabilities of emailing software now that you understand how to create a newsletter in 5 simple steps?

Email list management is a requirement in order to operate a mailing list for a newsletter. By doing so, you’ll be able to create and maintain a database with a list of subscribers that you can filter and organize into different categories. Integration into CRM systems may be possible depending on the program, but it’s not always an easy procedure.

An editor will then be required to create the newsletter. The capability to test the design in well-known webmail and email applications (including Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail) is one of the features you’ll require.

Since more than half of all email newsletters are now viewed on mobile devices, responsive newsletter designs are absolutely necessary. Because of this, you should use optimized email templates to make sure your emails look good on mobile devices. You can utilize a specialized email template builder (most of them are free to use!) if you don’t like the templates offered by the ESP you use.

Don’t forget that you’ll also require a few clearly defined procedures, such as joining (preferably via double opt-in) and leaving, as well as a mechanism to handle invalid email addresses. The ideal way to gather subscribers is through landing pages and sign-up forms.

Find the top email marketing services here. All of the tools we review on EmailToolTester offer the functionality listed above. There are many people who just use Mailchimp, but there are a lot of great alternatives as well. Before making a choice, make sure to look over them.

Additionally, deliverability rates are crucial. Since we’ve been testing email deliverability for a while, we can attest that the deliverability rates of various mailing services do vary. However, you also want a supplier who takes deliverability as seriously as you do. Of course, like a good marketer, you should always adhere to best practices to boost deliverability, such as list cleaning and keeping subscribers engaged with high-quality content. We recommend ActiveCampaign and MailerLite as the top vendors in this space.

Email Newsletter Best Practices

Content:

Traditional newsletters (such as those published in print) tended to be more business-oriented. They frequently included company updates, news about new products, accolades, and other generally boring material. The world has evolved.

Put yourself in the reader’s position. What type of news would you want to see if you had signed up for your company’s newsletter? What would prompt you to swiftly click “unsubscribe”?

The most effective email newsletters we’ve seen—and the ones that typically outperform others—contain information that is pertinent to the reader. Frequently, the information is

• Tips or links to helpful ‘how to’ articles, tutorials, or guidelines are a few examples of useful content.
• Make it visually appealing and readable. Emails with a lot of text feel like labor these days.
• Consider all the promotions you see leading up to the Super Bowl, Coachella, or Christmas. There’s a straightforward explanation for this: people are curious!
• A recent development in your field, for instance, that is newsworthy, could make for engaging content for your readers. Consider the effects of artificial intelligence advancements on your industry. By the way, ChatGPT is a great resource for coming up with fresh ideas.
• Personal: Readers enjoy stories. Share it if anything intriguing happened to you that is also important to your readers. This kind of material can be the most effective one you can provide. It’s also simple to make.
• Special discounts, promotions, and lead magnets are examples of these. They can also be digital freebies like webinars and ebooks.
• Events: Inform your subscribers about any upcoming online or offline events you are hosting, along with information on how they can join up.
• If your email program permits it, you can send information that is personalized and adapted to the reader’s interests and preferences (think of Amazon’s “Products we recommend” emails, which are based on readers’ purchases). It’s a tactic that actually works, according to studies, which show that personalizing increases conversions by 10% and click-through rates by 14%.

Still not sure how to write a newsletter? Here are some newsletter examples and tips to help you with your email content.

Subject headings

The effectiveness of your email subject line will determine whether your subscribers open your newsletter or toss it in the trash. Here are a few advice:

• Make it brief and to the point; the ideal length is 41 characters, so you must use your words sparingly. Utilize our subject line previewer to test yours.
• Don’t try to fool or mislead the reader since, while this may gain an open, it will probably result in their unsubscribing. Instead, let the reader know what to expect.
• !!!!!! – Refrain from using capital letters and punctuation excessively. Avoid making the reader feel as though you are yelling at them.

Scheduling:

Sending too many emails to your subscribers will simply cause them to unsubscribe from your correspondence.

• Make a schedule; try not to send emails to your subscribers more frequently than once a week. It’s best to send emails once a month or biweekly. You can even ask your readers how frequently they’d like to hear from you via email.
• You may need to conduct an A/B test to determine the optimum time to send your email newsletters, so plan what you’re going to say in advance. 
• In order to prevent delivering newsletters in the middle of the night, keep your subscribers’ time zones in mind.

Bring visitors to your website:

What’s the point of sending email newsletters to your contacts? How do you want them to respond?

• Most likely, you desire to increase website visitors. Make sure the call to action (CTA) is obvious. Add a button that has a straightforward call to action. For instance, you could inform readers that you have a new blog article and include a button that connects to it and says, “Read Article.” If you don’t want to overwhelm readers, I’d advise having one distinct objective.
• Include social media links in your footer. Links to your social media profiles should be included. The majority of mailing software will offer a particular content box where you may quickly enter this information.

Monitor metrics and perform tests:

Use A/B testing to determine what works and what doesn’t.

• Which topic lines increase the open rate?
• Which CTAs bring more visitors to your website?
• What email content has the highest rate of unsubscribes?

You should be able to maximize your marketing emails with the help of all of these suggestions.

Email Newsletter Examples

Netflix

Their newsletters are straightforward but excellent. Take a look at this advertisement for the last season of House of Cards, which is disguised as an email from the president. You definitely pay attention to it! What better way to make their product come to life than to constantly incorporate animated GIFs from their TV episodes in their email newsletters?

Society6

We at EmailToolTester are suckers for beautiful design, which is why we adore the Society6 newsletter, an online art retailer. Each one has appealing graphics and motifs that give it a homemade feel. For their artistically inclined clientele, there is also a ton of interesting information available. Even their regular advertising emails are presented so elegantly that we don’t hate receiving them.

MOO

B2B newsletters are frequently somewhat boring. By employing a GIF, MOO demonstrates that they may actually be quite entertaining and lively. GIFs are a fantastic method to engage your audience, especially if they help to promote your product or service rather than just being pretty pictures of dogs.

Why does each of these newsletters function? It’s easy; each was made with a particular target demographic in mind. Do you think your readers frequently travel? Keep your email brief and to the point. Are they more imaginative and visual? Put your attention on the layout and the pictures. And if you want to reach different audiences, you should use customized newsletters.

Your email newsletter’s A/B testing

A/B testing (also known as split testing) on your mailings will help you increase your success rates. This works by dividing a small, randomly selected fraction of your mailing list subscribers into two groups. It’s a terrific way to test subject lines or calls to action.

Then, one of the two emails will be sent to each of these groups, allowing you to gauge which is more well-liked and employ that. Remember that you need at least 2000 subscribers on your list for an A/B test to make sense.

The majority of mailing providers offer this option, however, it might only be available with higher-tier subscriptions, so be aware of that.

What Is the Price to Send a Newsletter?

Theoretically, sending HTML emails is cost-free. You only need to launch your default email client, such as Outlook, and you’re ready to go. However, you’ll likely encounter a number of issues quite quickly. First off, it’s not exactly simple to create HTML emails in Outlook. Additionally, you lack the tools necessary for analysis or for automating subscriptions and unsubscriptions.

But a useful newsletter tool need not be pricey. In reality, a few suppliers actually provide totally free plans. Even if you require specialized features and have a sizable subscriber base, your marketing budget could be sufficient to easily pay for this. For instance, you should budget between $25 and $45, if you want your email newsletters to be read by 5,000 people each month. You can also utilize a prepaid plan, in which case you only pay when you really send out a newsletter if your emails are sent out at irregular intervals.

Best Email Newsletter Tools

These are email newsletter software that allows you to send email campaigns to your subscriber list.

1. Constant Contact

One of the biggest and fastest-growing email marketing services in the world is Constant Contact. Additionally, it is the most user-friendly email marketing service for beginners.

Your email lists, contacts, email templates, marketing calendar, and more are all simple to manage.

2. (Formerly Sendinblue) Brevo

Brevo, originally Sendinblue, is an all-inclusive SMS and email marketing platform for companies. They are among the email marketing platforms in Europe with the quickest growth.

It is a platform that is quite simple to use and has great features for creating emails that are both beautiful and highly engaging. For newcomers with no prior experience in email marketing, their straightforward drag-and-drop email editor is ideal.

3. HubSpot

One of the most well-known CRM and email marketing software programs is HubSpot.

Their email marketing solution is free to start using and includes several potent automation capabilities that are intended to help you expand your company.

4. Omnisend

For eCommerce companies seeking an omnichannel marketing automation solution, Omnisend is a potent SMS and email marketing service.

Because it contains all the effective features including pre-built automated workflows, subscriber segmentation, A/B testing, performance reporting, and even SMS + online push notification, they provide one of the most generous free email marketing plans.

5. Drip

Drip is a strong enterprise email marketing platform for eCommerce, bloggers, and digital marketers. They offer a wide range of solutions to make marketing automation, sales funnels, and customization easy.

Their email software offers smooth connectivity for all common website platforms including WordPress and WooCommerce. This allows you to effortlessly add pop-ups / opt-in sign-up forms to your website and collect more leads.

Read: Top 7 Best Email Marketing Solutions for Small Businesses

Can you outsource Your email marketing?

Of sure, you can seek newsletter email services from freelancers. There are various choices. One option is to work with an email marketing company. Two of our team members have previously held positions with these organizations. The most expert method of email marketing, but it is also the most expensive. It will cost several hundred dollars for every newsletter campaign, if not more, depending on how much you want to outsource (copywriting, campaign and artwork production, project management, etc.).

Hiring a freelancer would be a less expensive option. You should look into websites like Upwork, FreeeUp, or Freelancer.com to accomplish that. There, you may locate experts with the necessary expertise from all over the world. The ability to view their prior evaluations is a significant benefit of such employment platforms. If you do manage to locate someone, you typically have to pay a fee to the marketplace.

Do I need My Own Email Server to Send Email Newsletters?

A software program or web application that develops the newsletter and an email server that sends it are just two of the many parts that go into sending an email newsletter. In general, you are free to handle each of these parts independently. Use the email server that is provided by your web hosting company (such as Namecheap or GoDaddy) after installing the newsletter program on your server or client computer.

Unfortunately, the majority of these email servers aren’t designed to handle heavy email traffic. When you attempt to send out several hundred emails in an hour, the majority of servers lock you down. Transferring to an external email server, such as Mailjet or Brevo, is one solution to this problem.

Running your own email server is an additional choice, however, it is purely theoretical. This solution is frequently unachievable for the majority of small enterprises based on a quick cost/benefit analysis. Email distribution isn’t a huge concern. Major email services like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. won’t accept your emails, nevertheless, if your email server has a poor sender reputation.

You can use a hosted email system if you wish to go the simple route. In this case, the service provider does more than just offer you access to the newsletter software; it also handles maintenance and deliverability on your behalf. You’ll frequently also receive some templates to use as a base. Here at EmailToolTester, we concentrate on these particular mailing tools:

A list of newsletter providers that don’t need an additional email server is provided here.

What Am I Required to Know Legally When Using Email Marketing?

You need to be familiar with the following two legal concepts:

USA

As long as the recipient does not unsubscribe (opt-out principle), you are allowed to send (nearly) as many emails as you like, according to the CAN-SPAM Act. However, some email platforms (like Mailchimp) would require documentation of your subscribers’ prior opt-ins.

This is because a newsletter provider does not benefit when numerous people voice complaints about emails that were sent using their servers. As soon as enough individuals designate your newsletter as spam, the email service provider’s server is suddenly added to a blacklist. The provider will obviously wish to prevent that.

Canada and the EU

There is a different philosophy in Canada. You must be able to demonstrate that the recipient specifically subscribed to your newsletter in this situation. A double opt-in process is the most effective way to accomplish this. Here, in order to truly join the mailing list, the subscriber gets a confirmation email with a link they must click.

EU member states go far further than this. With the advent of the GDPR, businesses must adhere to a number of strict criteria, including having specified procedures in place for processing and storing data in addition to implementing double opt-ins.

There are several exceptions, such as current commercial agreements. You can often send emails to current clients without getting their permission if they are clients of yours. Follow this link to learn more about the legal framework in the US, Canada, and the EU with regard to legal issues involving email newsletters.

What about email lists that were bought?

There are vendors who attempt to sell you these lists, and in some cases, they even have legal opt-in documentation. However, the majority of email systems that we are aware of forbid using those kinds of lists. They forbid the use of purchased mailing lists since they don’t want to jeopardize their positive sender reputation. Statistics unambiguously demonstrate that for certain lists, there are more complaints than successful clicks.

How Can I Encourage People to Sign Up for My Email Newsletter?

Your best course of action, in the long run, is quality material. If the information in your newsletter improves readers’ lives in any way, they will talk about it and spread the word. Therefore, try to avoid sales-oriented advertising emails as much as you can. Instead, we advise you to spend money on solid client connections through email marketing.

Offering perks can also increase the amount of subscriptions you receive. For example, our sister site ToolTester discovered that giving away a free ebook to every new subscriber resulted in tremendous growth (by a factor of 10 in this case). Even more, progress can be made with a pop-up, but watch out not to irritate your readers! Here are some more pointers for expanding your subscription base.

You should read our comprehensive guide on lead generation through email marketing while planning your marketing strategy because it is jam-packed with useful advice and best practices.