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Email Announcements: Quick Start Guide (2024)
The Ins & Outs of Email Announcements
Brandon Storey
February 7th, 2024
Table of Contents
As a business owner or newsletter operator, how do you stay in touch with your audience?
While social media can be an easy way to engage with your followers, it’s got nothing on email.
Most people would be amazed at how simple, yet effective, an email announcement can be for a small business.
Think about major product launches like when Apple launched the first iPhone or when Elon Musk and Tesla announced the Cybertruck. We’ve all seen those extreme examples of marketing breakthrough innovations.
But what about a one-person newsletter publication or a small business? What about when there’s something new that’s happening like a new product or a change in your business?
Email announcements are the solution, and they work just as well for the little guys as they do for the big guys.
In this guide, we’ll break down the key components and benefits of an email announcement and how you can use them to maintain a relationship with your audience and even generate income.
Let’s dive in.
What Are Email Announcements?
So what is an official announcement email?
Simply put, an email announcement is a marketing tactic used to tell your subscribers about something new in your business. However, it can be about some kind of change happening as well. They’re most commonly used for:
Special events
Limited-edition product release
Pre-order opportunity
New hire
New business structure
New website or website redesign
A new way you’ll operate your business
While you’re likely very excited about something new happening in your business, your customers or subscribers will have no clue unless… you guessed it – you tell them!
Just remember, there are dozens of different types of emails you can send. Writing an email announcement is a lot different than writing a typical email newsletter or replying to a customer support question.
Keep reading to learn why email announcements are a crucial component of an email marketing strategy and how you should format them.
Benefits of Email Announcements for Businesses
Did you know that over 90% of people age 15+ use email regularly, and 99% of regular email users check their email inbox every day? Email isn’t outdated, and it isn’t going away anytime soon.
Email announcements can help you communicate important information and updates to your subscribers, but there are a few other advantages to using them as well.
1. Brand Awareness
The biggest benefit of sending out email announcements is simple – it helps keep your brand at the forefront of your audience’s mind. Email marketing isn’t a complicated strategy when it comes to building and growing a business. The reason it works is because it gives you a direct line of communication with your audience that you can use to reach out at any time.
If you don’t communicate with your audience, they’ll forget about your brand, plain and simple. And if people forget you, then you won’t have a business or a newsletter.
Email announcements can be a great way to boost your overall email marketing efforts. And just remember, you might think this is going to be a boring email and pointless to send, but that’s only if you don’t put any effort into it. Make it fun. Make it intriguing. There are always ways to add value to your emails, even if it’s just a simple announcement.
2. Improved Personalization
The second reason email announcements are so advantageous is because they’re extremely personal. It’s one thing to post on Instagram that you’re launching a new product, but what about sending a personalized email message to each subscriber’s inbox? That’s more intimate.
This is especially true when it comes to the ability to segment your audience. For instance, let’s say you own a dog fashion brand and you sell fancy collars. Maybe you released a new product specifically for small dogs. If you post about it on Instagram, it will be somewhat relevant to the part of your audience that has a large dog.
But with email, you could send that email only to the users that have small dogs, offering way more relevancy to them, which means adding more value.
Email announcements allow you to personalize your communication with your audience, which provides them with more value.
3. Generate Income
The third advantage to sending email announcements is simple – money.
Look at the first two benefits – brand awareness and personalization. When you add those two together, you get an opportunity to drive sales.
Now, if you own a small business that offers products or services, an email announcement is a great opportunity to hype up a new product or service. But even if you aren’t launching a new product and the announcement is about a change to your website or a new hire, you can use the announcement email as an opportunity to share a reminder about a product.
On the other hand, if you don’t have any products and you’re running an email newsletter, you could send out an off-hand announcement email which will accomplish two things:
1. Shake up your reader’s inbox with an atypical and intriguing subject line
2. Give you an opportunity outside of your typical newsletter schedule to place an advertisement
There’s a reason the ROI of email is $42 for every $1 spent. It’s a highly personalized way to get a message to your readers, providing an easy opportunity to generate additional revenue.
Key Components of Effective Email Announcements
So how do you write an announcement in an email?
The truth is that these emails won’t be designed the same as a typical newsletter format. The layout should be different since you’re focused on only one thing – the announcement.
There are three key components of an effective email announcement:
1. Subject Line
The first part of your email announcement starts on the outside – your subject line. You should do your best to differentiate your email announcement subject line from your typical subject lines. This will ensure that it grabs your readers’ attention and entices them to open your email.
Try to use the word “new,” if it applies, and build intrigue as best as you can. People want to know the latest happenings; so if you’re unsure of what to write, just be short and to the point (i.e., “X product is now available.”)
2. Intro
In the introduction, you’ll want to build on that curiosity and intrigue from your subject line. Try to hype up that something big is here (or coming soon) with a solid hook and let your readers know they’ll want to stick around to hear what the announcement is.
Then, once you’ve got your readers’ attention, it’s time to jump into the main part of the email.
3. Body
Now that you’ve given them an introduction, it’s time to break the news. Tell them what’s happening and don’t forget to tell them why it’s important. Let them know what the benefits are to the reader for this change. Focus on WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?
Focus on how the change will help your reader and why they should be excited about it.
4. Call to Action
Finally (and this is where most people make a crucial mistake), don’t forget to add a call to action!
Besides actually telling your audience what the announcement is, this is the second most important component of your announcement email.
You need to tell your readers what to do next.
Now, if this is a product launch announcement, it’s pretty obvious what you need to tell them to do – buy the product!
But what if this is about an upcoming event? Maybe you’ll want to tell your readers to add the event to their calendars and set a reminder. Maybe there’s a link to sign up for the event.
Why Listen to Me? I’ve managed two email newsletters over the years including one with 100,000 subscribers and one with 30,000. I currently run a digital media business, Hockey Question, that gets over 50,000 visits per month.
If you’re announcing a change to your website, tell them to check out your site. If there’s a new hire you just onboarded, link to their bio on your site or to their social media account.
Or maybe you have an in-depth blog post where you’ve written about the new change in your business. In this case, you can ask your readers to read more by clicking on a link to your blog.
Crafting Compelling Subject Lines
How do you introduce an announcement?
The subject line is a crucial part of any email announcement. If you mess up on your subject line, people won’t open your email and will have no idea about what’s new or changing in your business.
You need to create a compelling subject line that doesn’t just grab your readers’ attention, but also is highly relevant to them.
Oftentimes, the subject line that’s right to the point is the winner when it comes to announcement emails. Here are a few examples:
“X product/service available now”
“Guess what’s coming…”
“New X coming soon”
“Big change happening right now”
“Don’t miss this announcement”
“X event early signup starts now”
Maximizing the Impact of Email Announcements: Tips and Best Practices
Did you know that 47% of marketers believe that email is the most effective marketing channel (ahead of social media, content marketing, and SEO)?
Email announcements are a great tool in your email marketing belt that you can use to improve your marketing efforts and build a deeper connection with your audience.
So how do you write a good announcement?
Well, the most important component of an announcement email is that you’re clear about what you’re announcing.
But, unfortunately, there’s a lot more to consider than just telling your readers what’s happening in plain language.
You see, your email is going to be competing with dozens, if not hundreds, of other emails in your subscribers’ inboxes. The moment your email lands in an inbox, it’s likely going to be stuck in a crowd of other emails.
You need to ensure that your email is engaging, so it stands out and draws your subscribers in all the way to the end.
Here are a few tips:
Craft a compelling subject line.
Start your intro with a hook.
Use storytelling to draw your readers into the body.
Use short sentences and short paragraphs.
Add at least one link in the body of your email.
Include a call to action.
Send your announcements to specific email segments.
Use graphics throughout your email.
Remember, the best way to guarantee your announcement emails are successful is to ensure that every email you send is engaging and adds value to your readers. Chances are, if your readers love reading your emails, they’re going to open anything you send.
Get Started With the Right Email Platform
Writing an announcement email is easy, but writing a great announcement email takes some effort.
An email announcement provides you with a simple way to stay in touch with your audience, build a connection, and even generate income.
Thankfully, beehiiv can take the hassle out of crafting an effective email announcement. The creator-friendly platform features an intuitive email editor that allows you to customize your email however you want and allows you to segment your message so it gets sent to the right subscribers.
Built by the same team that took Morning Brew to millions of subscribers, beehiiv is the newsletter platform built for growth.
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