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Develop a Winning Newsletter Marketing Strategy: Proven Tactics
A Step-by-Step Guide to Building Your Newsletter Brand
Megan Smith
January 5th, 2025
Most beehiiv articles break down email and newsletter marketing strategy into its components and focus on a single aspect of your master plan.
Not this one.
We thought you guys might appreciate a comprehensive guide to creating and executing your newsletter marketing strategy.
A strong strategy connects you with your audience and builds your community. This overview can help you develop your strategy from the ground up or help you evaluate your current plans. Is there something you're neglecting?
Start from the beginning or jump to the section most relevant for your brand.
I've linked to our hottest articles throughout, so you can dig deeper into any element.
There's a lot to cover, so without further ado...
Table of Contents
This blog covers tried and true email newsletter marketing strategies. But what exactly is newsletter marketing, and why should you consider it for your business?
Newsletter marketing involves sending regular emails to subscribers who have opted in to receive emails.
These emails create an ongoing conversation with your customers that does more than simply sell to them. They share valuable information that engages readers with your brand.
Your newsletter strategy is your roadmap, showing you all the places you want to go and how you intend to get there.
You may run into obstacles along the way and need to reroute. (I live in Minnesota, where there are two seasons: winter and construction. It's important to stay flexible.)
Your newsletter marketing strategy should include alternate paths and status checks along the way.
A strong but adaptable vision will take you far — and help you take your readers along with you.
Different brands publish different types of newsletters and require marketing strategies to fit their needs.
Whether your newsletter is the primary product or supports your other offerings, you want to build a relationship with your audience through valuable content.
Is a newsletter a good marketing strategy for any industry? Yes. (There may be an exception, but I can't think of any.)
You can use newsletters as a digital storefront for your latest deals, a source of articles that position you as an authority in your field, and a way to keep customers engaged through stories or fun extras.
There are also multiple ways to monetize your newsletter itself. You can offer premium content, attract sponsors, or join an affiliate program.
Newsletter marketing works for several reasons:
Personal Connection: Email is a direct line to your audience. When someone subscribes to your newsletter, they're permitting you to enter their personal space. This creates a sense of intimacy and trust.
Cost Effective: You don't need a huge budget to reach a large audience. Email marketing is relatively inexpensive but yields the best return on investment (ROI) of any channel: $36 for every dollar spent.
Targeted Content: You can segment your email list to send tailored content to different groups of subscribers. This means that your messages are more relevant and engaging for each reader.
Measurable Results: Email marketing platforms provide detailed analytics, so you can see how many people opened your email, clicked on links, or took other actions. This data helps you refine your strategy over time.
Brand Loyalty: Regular communication keeps your brand top-of-mind for your audience. By consistently providing value, you build a loyal customer base that is more likely to support your business.
Setting Clear Goals
Specific goals give you direction and help you measure your progress. You need to identify the right objectives for your brand and corresponding key performance indicators (KPIs).
Define Your Objectives
Your marketing objectives will guide your newsletter content, design, and frequency.
Start by aligning your newsletter goals with your overall business objectives so that your newsletter efforts contribute directly to the broader success of your business. Be flexible as you refine these goals based on your performance.
Stay current with your audience's needs and industry trends. This awareness will help you set realistic goals and tailor your newsletter content.
The best newsletter goals take advantage of the format and an audience with a demonstrated interest in your brand.
Newsletters can help you:
Generate Leads: Promote your newsletter and make it easy to subscribe and share on social media.
Educate Your Audience: Establish your brand as an authority in your industry, moving prospective customers down the marketing funnel as they learn the options and advantages you provide.
Improve Customer Engagement: Create interactive content that encourages readers to respond, share, or participate.
Boost Website Traffic: Use direct links in the newsletter to drive traffic to your website or target landing pages.
Encourage Customer Retention: Remind customers why they chose you and provide valuable resources that support their relationship with you and help them get the most out of their purchases.
Drive Sales: Promote new products, offers, or services directly to an audience who has already shown interest in your brand.
Set SMART Goals
SMART goals have become a mainstay for manuals about how to do...anything effectively. The acronym stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
It's a useful framework for setting clear, actionable goals that maximize your results.
For example, instead of a vague goal like “increase readership,” a SMART goal would be “increase the number of newsletter subscribers by 15% over the next 6 months.”
Key Performance Indicators
Once you have defined your objectives, the next step is to determine how you will measure success. Your KPIs should match your primary goals.
Consider the above marketing goals. Here are some associated KPIs to use:
New Subscribers (Generate Leads): Track the number of new subscribers per month. This KPI helps you understand how effective your lead-generation strategies are.
Time Spent on Page (Educate Your Audience): Measure the time subscribers spend reading your newsletter. Longer reading times indicate that your content is engaging and informative.
Open Rate (Improve Customer Engagement): Monitor your emails' open rates. Higher open rates indicate greater interest and interaction.
Traffic Source (Boost Website Traffic): Use your web analytics to monitor the number of clicks leading to your website from your newsletter.
Unsubscribe Rate (Encourage Customer Retention): A low unsubscribe rate indicates that your content continues to be valuable to your audience.
Conversion Rate (Drive Sales): Monitor how often your newsletter promotions result in sales.
You can track most of your email marketing KPIs in your newsletter's analytics dashboard. I'll cover these email marketing metrics in greater detail below.
These numbers offer you valuable insights into your strategy's effectiveness. Start by establishing a baseline based on your current performance.
As you run your campaigns, regularly analyze your KPIs to identify trends and tweak tactics.
KPI analysis should be an ongoing process. Continuously iterate and optimize your strategies based on your insights. For example, if you notice a spike in the open rate after a particular type of content, produce more of that content.
Building and Segmenting Your Audience
Your publication is only part of the newsletter marketing process. You must build a quality email list and segment your audience to deliver the most relevant content.
Building an Email List
How do you market a newsletter?
Get more newsletter subscribers with these proven list-building tactics.
Create Compelling Sign-Up Forms
Follow sign-up form best practices to create user-friendly forms that invite new subscribers into your community. Highlight the benefits of subscribing like exclusive content or special offers.
You should also keep it simple. The more information you ask for, the less likely someone is to fill out your form. Stick to the essentials like name and email address.
This sign-up form for embedded slays with a quick reminder of what’s inside, social proof, a request for your email, and absolutely nothing else.
Offer Incentives
People are more likely to sign up if they receive something in return. Create powerful lead magnets like discounts, free ebooks, or access to exclusive webinars. These perks can entice visitors to join your email list.
Superhuman AI offers its subscribers a small library of exclusives as incentive to join the fold.
Use Multiple Channels
Don't rely on just one method to collect email addresses. Use social media, your website, and in-store sign-ups if you have a physical location.
The more channels you use, the wider your reach will be.
Convert followers into subscribers by inviting them to connect with you in this additional channel through a sign-up link in your bio or on your page.
Check out our related guides on using other platforms to grow your audience:
Leverage Gated Content
Gated content is content that requires an email address to access. Anyone who wants to know today’s TeaTalk will have to sign up or sign in to the publication.
You can also tease readers. Make the beginning of your post instantly readable, but require an email for the whole piece.
Optimize Landing Pages and Pop-Ups
Landing pages are standalone pages designed to capture email addresses. They can be optimized with attention-grabbing headlines and clear calls to action (CTAs).
Pop-ups work precisely as the name suggests. These boxes appear on your website and offer visitors a chance to subscribe before they leave.
The best pop-up examples are used sparingly on their sites to avoid annoying your visitors.
It’s easy to dismiss this pop-up on the Camber website, and it won’t follow you around as you continue to read.
Encourage Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Let your readers share their favorite issues by highlighting social media share buttons in your blog and newsletter content.
Create a referral marketing program to encourage your current subscribers to share your newsletter with their friends and family.
Offer incentives to share, such as a free month of your publication or an exclusive gift when they bring you new subscribers.
beehiiv's built-in referral program allows you to track referrals and distribute rewards all from within the newsletter platform. You can also cross-promote with other newsletters, exchanging recommendations.
If you're willing to spend money, your advertising options increase. Use Google search ads for your newsletter and sponsored social media content.
Don't forget about beehiiv boosts — the in-platform advertising opportunities that allow you to pay per new subscriber referred by other publications.
Audience Segmentation
Email marketing platforms let you benefit from the power of segmentation to send more relevant and personalized content, boosting audience engagement and conversions.
Here are the most common segmentation strategies:
Demographic Segmentation: Divide your audience based on factors such as their gender and age to send them the right offers and products.
Behavioral Segmentation: Use criteria such as previous purchases or email engagement. For example, you can send content to highly engaged readers more frequently than people who only open your emails occasionally.
Geographic Segmentation: Segment your audience based on their location, particularly if you have region-specific promotions or events. You can also use geographic segments to send emails at a certain time of day, regardless of each reader's time zone.
Self-Segmentation: Let your readers tell you their subscriber preferences when they sign up. Let them tell you what and when they want to hear from you.
Crafting Compelling Content
The key to compelling content is creating value while maintaining reader interest.
Content Creation Tips
Here's how you can write incredible newsletter issues, time after time.
Understand Your Audience
Before you put (virtual) pen to paper, learn about your readers so you can create content that resonates with them.
Conduct Audience Research
Create surveys to gather information about your audience. Find out their interests, preferences, and what problems they want to solve.
Limit the length of your survey and write good survey questions. Use clear, natural language and close-ended questions that rely on multiple-choice answers or rating scales. You can add one open-ended question at the end to solicit additional feedback.
Create Subscriber Personas
Develop audience personas based on your research. These are fictional characters that represent your different audience segments. Write for these make-believe readers with a style and topics that appeal to them.
Ask for Immediate Feedback
Listen to what your readers say about your newsletters. Are they enjoying the content? What topics are they most interested in? Use this feedback to improve your future newsletters.
It's easy to add one-click polls to beehiiv publications. Ask readers to rate issues or choose the topics that most interest them.
Engage Your Audience
Once you understand your audience, the next step is creating content that captivates them.
Choose Relevant Topics
Pick topics that are relevant to your audience’s interests and needs. Consider current trends, common questions, and issues that matter to your readers.
Make It Readable
Break your content into small, digestible chunks. Avoid jargon and complicated language. Instead, cultivate your own, conversational style.
Use subheadings and bullet points to break up your content and help readers scan it to find the information they want. Short paragraphs also help, particularly for subscribers scrolling through your content on their mobile phones.
Keep It Snappy
People have short attention spans, especially when reading emails. Keep your content concise and to the point. Avoid unnecessary information and focus on delivering value.
Add Interactive and Multimedia Elements
Interactive content makes your newsletters more fun. In addition to polls and surveys, consider incorporating video elements into your newsletters.
Most people prefer videos to other content, watching about an hour of social video daily. The most popular video types include how-to videos, reviews, and vlogs. Videos are a great way to establish a connection with your audience and explain complex information.
Quizzes are another fun way to engage your readers. Test readers' knowledge about your field or entertain them with personality insights. Encourage readers to share their results online, spreading the word about your quiz and newsletter.
You can even create dynamic emails that allow readers to take desired actions — such as RSVPing to an event — directly in the body of your message.
Call Upon Your Audience
CTAs encourage your readers to take the next step in the relationship — becoming customers and deepening their relationship with your brand.
Follow CTA best practices:
Be Clear and Direct: Tell your readers exactly what you want them to do.
Use Action-Oriented Language: Use action words like “Download,” “Sign Up,” “Learn More,” or “Get Started.” This creates a sense of immediacy and progress.
Place CTAs Strategically: Place your CTAs where they’re easy to find, such as at the end or beginning of the associated section.
Make CTAs Stand Out: Use buttons and vivid colors to pull attention to your CTAs.
This earbuds CTA is clean, clear, and visually distinct from the rest of the content.
Subject Lines and Preheaders
The subject line and preheader are your first (and sometimes only) chance to grab your readers’ attention. They are the first things your audience sees in their inbox and play a critical role in whether your email is opened or ignored.
Strong subject lines and preheaders result in higher open rates, more clicks, and improved performance of your email campaigns.
Subject Lines
Your subject line is the headline of your email. It needs to be compelling enough to make your reader want to find out more.
A great line will boost your open rates, while a weak one can doom your email to the trash folder.
Reach more people with these tips:
Be Clear: Your subject line should convey the main point of your email. Give people an honest idea about what they can expect to find inside.
Get to the Point: Less is more. Apple and Android devices only display the first 33 characters of your subject line. Put the most important information up front. beehiiv publications get the best open rates when writers limit themselves to less than 40 characters.
Use Action Words: Words like "discover," "unlock," and "get" encourage readers to take the next step and open the email.
Spark Curiosity: Offer a hint of what's inside without giving everything away, teasing the valuable content that’s only a click away.
Add Emojis: Emojis help you make the most of limited space, but only add them if they’re appropriate to your brand. In the right context, subject-line emojis can improve open rates.
Preheaders
Master the email preheader as well as the subject line.
Preheaders, also known as preview text, complement your subject line. They appear right next to or below it in most email clients.
Your preheader should expand on the subject line by providing extra details or reinforcing the message.
Like subject lines, preheaders should be concise. Mobile devices will cut them off at 37 characters.
Testing Subject Lines
I'll cover analytics and testing in greater detail below, but the subject line is one of the newsletter elements that benefits the most from A/B testing.
Create two versions of your email with different subject lines or preheaders. An email marketing platform such as beehiiv will send each to a small sample of your audience to see which performs better. It then publishes the winner to the rest of your list.
Designing Visually Appealing Newsletters
Writing newsletters is a little like gourmet cooking. The substance is the most important thing — you need nutrition and want a tasty meal — but the dish should appeal to the eye first. (It should also smell good, but that's harder to work into the analogy.)
Email Templates
Email templates provide structure and consistency, improving the user experience. They help readers know what to expect and where to find information.
The right email template sets you up for success with an attractive, readable, and enjoyable newsletter.
Best Practices for Email Design
You can design your custom newsletter template with beehiiv. Just add the content blocks you want and save the template for future use.
With great power comes great responsibility, so pay attention to the following:
Clutter-Free Design: Use a clean layout with plenty of white space for easier, more pleasant reading.
Brand Consistency: Use your brand colors, fonts, and logos consistently.
Hierarchy: Use headers, subheaders, and bullet points to break up text and guide readers through your content. Nobody likes a wall of text.
Visuals: Images, GIFs, and videos can make your emails more engaging, but don't overdo it — too many visuals slow download times.
Buttons: Make your CTA buttons stand out with sharp borders and vivid colors.
Accessibility: Follow ADA guidelines for email such as using high-contrast colors, accessible fonts, and alt text for images.
Testing: Always test your emails on different devices and email clients. What looks fantastic on your laptop might be a hot mess on a smartphone.
Your own inbox should offer you plenty of examples of email marketing design practices. Take note of the emails that appeal to you and ask yourself how to apply these design principles to your publication.
Free Email Templates
Inspiring email template examples are all well and good, but some of us want the design done for us from beginning to end.
You have options. You can hire a newsletter expert to design your beehiiv publication, or you can take advantage of one of these sources of beautiful HTML designs.
The following tools are freemium, and a free plan will suit most users' needs:
Canva: Canva is an all-in-one, intuitive graphic design platform for people who aren't professional graphic designers. You can use the application for social media and print content as well as emails and simple websites.
Designmodo: The Postcards app within the Designmodo suite features a drag-and-drop editor and plenty of ready-made templates.
Unlayer: Unlayer is all about email design. The application puts gorgeous designs at your fingertips, and you can sort to show only the free templates.
Note: Not all email clients will display embedded HTML designs properly. Test yours thoroughly before sending.
Mobile Optimization
Now, let's talk mobile. In 2018, almost half of all marketing emails were opened on mobile devices.
That percentage has grown, passing the halfway mark, but changing privacy practices make it difficult to get accurate, current numbers.
If you intend to use a newsletter as a marketing strategy, your design had better look great on the small screen.
There are a few musts for mobile-friendly designs:
Responsive Templates: Use responsive email templates that adjust to different screen sizes. This ensures that your content looks great whether it’s viewed on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.
Single-Column Layout: Stick to a single-column layout for mobile emails. This makes them easier to read and navigate.
Readable Fonts: Use larger fonts, generally 14-16px for body text and 22px+ for headlines. Nobody wants to squint at their screen.
Touch-Friendly Buttons: Ensure that your buttons are large enough for people to tap with their fingers — think at least 44x44 pixels.
Short Load Time: Mobile users are often on the go, so your emails need to load quickly. Optimize your images and keep your design lean.
Mobile App
What's even better than a mobile-first email design? How about a dedicated app for your most loyal readers?
With beehiiv, you can now provide your readers with a custom app for the ultimate reading experience. Check it out!
Personalization and Automation
Personalization and automation can take your email newsletter marketing strategy from good to spectacular. Elevate your campaigns with these two powerful tactics.
Personalized Content
Email personalization is similar to segmentation but allows you to refine emails on an individual basis (rather than dividing your audience into groups).
It lets you send emails that address customers by name, recommend products based on past purchases, and tailor your articles or promotions to their interests. They receive only the most relevant content, which boosts their engagement.
Address Your Readers by Name
Turn your email from a generic blast into a personal note. Many email marketing platforms allow you to add personalization tags for each recipient's name. Use their name in the subject line or the first paragraph.
Honor Personal Occasions
Automate messages that use subscriber data to recognize special moments, such as birthdays or anniversaries.
Use Dynamic Content Blocks
Take advantage of data on past purchases and interests to create dynamic content. Dynamic content blocks change based on the recipient's behavior or stored data.
You can recommend similar or complementary products, direct subscribers’ attention to upcoming events or promotions, or spotlight new articles that align with their interests.
For example, the business prospecting tool Crunchbase sends its subscribers a list of companies they should check out, basing its suggestions on each reader’s previous interests.
Automation
beehiiv's email automation allows you to reach the right people at the right time, responding to each subscriber's interactions with your brand. Send emails based on specific triggers such as a purchase, a new subscription, or a failure to engage with past email content.
When you master email automation, you save yourself time and effort. Scale your brand while improving response times and engaging more with every reader.
Some of the best emails to automate include:
Welcome Emails: Start new subscribers with a welcome series to introduce them to your brand and set expectations.
Nurture Campaigns: Create nurture campaigns that guide leads through the sales funnel with a targeted set of emails.
Re-Engagement Campaigns: Send re-engagement emails to inactive subscribers to re-interest them.
Abandoned Cart Emails: Recover abandoned carts by sending emails reminding shoppers of their unpurchased items.
You can also automate other email marketing tasks such as list cleaning and audience segmentation.
Have your robot army instantly delete people who remain unresponsive for too long or add them to groups based on the actions they take when reading an email.
Transactional Emails
Automation is also one of the best practices for transactional emails — the messages sent as part of certain transactions between you and a customer.
For example, you can send order confirmations, shipping notifications, or instructions to reset passwords.
Make your life easier by offloading some busy work, and build trust with your customers by providing immediate and accurate information.
Analyzing and Optimizing Performance
Email and newsletter marketing can be a powerful tool in your digital marketing arsenal—but only if you know how to analyze and optimize your performance.
Let’s dive into the key aspects of tracking metrics and A/B testing to ensure that your campaigns are hitting the mark.
Tracking Metrics
With beehiiv's 3D email marketing analytics, you can look at your publication from any angle — subscribers, posts, or clicks — evaluate your emails' performance and make data-driven decisions.
Pay attention to these top newsletter metrics.
Open Rate
The open rate indicates how many people open your newsletter. It helps you gauge audience engagement and long-term loyalty.
High open rates also set up other key performance indicators (KPIs). Before your emails can drive clicks and conversions, your readers need to open them.
Do you need to increase your open rate? Measure your numbers against the average open rate for your industry and try to outperform your niche.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The CTR measures the percentage of recipients who click on links within your email. It aligns with goals like driving website traffic and increasing customer interaction.
Strong click-through tactics revolve around crafting compelling content and CTAs.
Conversion Rate
The email marketing conversion rate measures the percentage of recipients who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for an event. It's a key indicator of your email's effectiveness in driving sales, nurturing leads, and driving growth.
Unsubscribe Rate
The unsubscribe rate shows how many people opt out of your mailing list after receiving your email. Monitoring this rate helps maintain customer satisfaction and retention.
A sudden spike in unsubscribes may indicate issues with your content or email frequency.
Bounce Rate
Bounce rate measures email deliverability, indicating the percentage of emails that weren't successfully delivered.
A low bounce rate is essential for maintaining a good email sender reputation. You want a strong reputation that ensures that your emails continue to land in subscribers' inboxes.
Regularly remove inactive subscribers and check for typos or incorrect addresses to keep bounce rates low.
A/B Testing
A/B testing, also known as split testing, involves sending two variations of an email to small segments of your audience to see which one performs better.
In addition to trying out subject lines (see above), you can play around with other elements.
Make use of the following elements for A/B testing:
Email Copy: Try varying the length, tone, and structure of your email content. Does a more casual tone drive higher engagement, or does your audience prefer a formal approach?
Visuals: Experiment with different images, GIFs, or videos. Visual content can significantly impact engagement rates, so find out what works best for your subscribers.
CTAs: Test different CTA placements, colors, and text. A more prominent or compelling CTA can lead to higher conversion rates.
How beehiiv Can Play a Central Role in Your Strategy
Let's return to the original question. Is a newsletter good marketing strategy? Yes.
Let's ask a different question. Can you implement this strategy for your brand?
beehiiv makes it easy to execute all elements of your newsletter marketing strategy.
beehiiv's built-in growth tools are best-in-class. You can use them to develop a referral program, find compatible publications to cross-promote, and create user-friendly sign-up options.
There's even a built-in ad network and paid newsletter-to-newsletter promotional opportunities.
Our email editor also makes it easy for you to create visually appealing emails with customizable templates, interactive forms of content, and drag-and-drop elements.
You can also design custom automations and integrate personalized elements.
Finally, advanced analytics and testing tools provide detailed insights that help you optimize your content and refine your strategy.
But enough about us, let's talk about you. beehiiv's a powerful email marketing platform. What do you want to create?
Sign up for a free trial of our most popular plan today.
Why Trust Me
I'm a digital marketer that specializes in email marketing and long-form content. I put my skills to work in well-researched articles and campaigns for my Twin Cities clientele.
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