Best Practices for Marketing Newsletters

A marketing newsletter is a highly effective marketing tool for every stage of the customer journey.

With an ROI of 28.5%, it’s one of the most powerful marketing channels (source: Monde du Mail). 

So, what are the secrets to structuring, configuring, and optimizing your marketing newsletter for your e-commerce strategy?

Effective Topics for a Newsletter

Start by defining your objectives. They should answer this question: why should this segment of your audience want to receive your newsletters?

Each newsletter can have a secondary goal but should focus on one main objective only.

Showcase Your Products

Combine product features with additional content to justify the email and increase motivation.

Examples : Featured category or product of the day, week, or season, items from a smart list, and more.

Example of a newsletter campaign from the brand Lyst

Convert and Retain with Your Offers

Share your offers on key dates like Christmas, Black Friday, or your brand anniversary. Leverage smart product lists to customize offers based on each customer’s shopping habits.

Examples : Promotions, sales, loyalty or referral programs, product launches or returns, private sales, and more.

Example of a newsletter campaign from Yves Rocher

Grow Your Brand Awareness and Drive Engagement

For this goal, use your storytelling to build and strengthen relationships with your customers.

Examples : Premium or mystery products, samples, contests, surveys, engaging social media posts, top partner/client posts, e-commerce or partner news, customer reviews, your team and offices, and more.

Position Yourself as an Expert

If your newsletter is recurring, keep the same structure to help readers follow along.

Examples : Blog articles, e-books, white papers, webinars, tutorials, offers to help, customer Q&As, business anecdotes, educational sections, client or influencer testimonials, and more.

What Your Newsletter Contains

A newsletter is made up of four distinct elements:

1. Email Subject : “Check out our new catalog”
2. Sender’s Name or sender label: “My Company”
3. Sender’s Email: “communication@email.my-company.com”
4. HTML Content: The content visible when the email is opened

Between the moment your email arrives and when your recipient takes action, there are two key steps:

Encourage Opening with the email subject and sender name. If recipients don’t open your newsletter, the rest of your efforts go to waste.

Prompt Customer Action thanks to content and the sender’s email address, sometimes checked by recipients to confirm your identity.

Encourage Opens

The Subject Line

The subject line is the first thing your customers see—right after spam filters do their job.

Check your own inbox for emails that land in spam or your main inbox and notice which ones you actually open. You’ll find the following best practices:

• Little or no ALL CAPS, emojis, punctuation, and Spam Words (like “Free”, “Save”, “Discount”);

• A clear subject between 30 and 50 characters, with 100 characters as an absolute maximum;
• The most important keyword or main message at the start—especially since most people check emails on mobile;
• Sometimes a personalized subject line.

Example of an effective subject: “Christmas Offer: 40% off your ShopiMind Newsletters 🎁“

Example of a subject to avoid: “🤩🎁 CHRISTMAS!!! AMAZING SALE!!! Save 20% on ALL your email campaigns 🎁🤩“

Your Sender Name

Follow these three simple tips for your sender name:

• Use a label that clearly identifies you (your brand name);
• Stick to a maximum of 25 characters;
• Avoid using email addresses, emojis, and punctuation—unless they’re a core part of your brand name.

Your Sender Email

Create your address and connect it to an inbox, following these guidelines:

• Prefix before the @: Reassures users about the sender’s identity and the nature of emails: communication@email.my-company.com;
• Domain name: Lets users quickly identify your website:communication@email.my-company.com;

Subdomain: Helps you control its deliverability reputation: communication@email.my-company.com.

Your Timing

For maximum impact, choose the days of the week with the highest open rates. Stay consistent to create a routine that conditions your contacts to read your content.

Use the “perfect timing” feature to schedule sends according to each contact’s preferred opening times.

Prompt Customer Action

Start by ordering information with the most important content first in clear, distinct sections: your main topic up front, followed by products and then secondary topics.

Text

Just like with your subject line, avoid overusing Spam Words, emojis, and ALL CAPS.

Personalize your content with smart product lists and variables like “Hello {Customer_FirstName}”.

Favor short, punchy headlines and copy—a few impactful lines work better than long, detailed paragraphs.

To learn more about spam words and get our full email deliverability tips, check out our article “Email Deliverability: Technical Optimization Checklist“.

Example of a newsletter campaign from Petit Bateau

Links

For each goal, highlight your Call to Action (CTA) buttons or visuals—limit to 2 to avoid scattering clicks.

You can also add additional links to every visual—be it a product, promo page, or your logo.

Include your social networks in the footer, and make sure there’s an easy-to-find unsubscribe link at the top or bottom of every newsletter.

Visuals

The optimal ratio for newsletter design is 60% text, 40% visuals.

Mix up visual types (photos, infographics, icons, videos, etc.) while maintaining a consistent visual style in line with your e-commerce site.

Conclusion

You now have everything you need to succeed with your newsletter campaigns!

But before sending a newsletter to your entire contact database, make sure to test it with different email providers (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.).

If your newsletter lands in spam, test different parts of your content to pinpoint the issue.

And don’t hesitate to run A/B testing. Send two variations to a small segment of your list to compare which works best and optimize your campaign.

Now it’s your turn!