Emails and E-newsletters
Why email marketing?
Email marketing allows us to communicate with our engaged audiences and nurture leads. It enables us to build relationships, brand awareness and brand engagement with our subscribers.
Email is a robust and reliable channel that we’re all very familiar and comfortable with. It's less intrusive than some marketing activity, and allows us to reach our audiences in the trusted space of their inbox.
It’s also a flexible communications channel, easily accessed on desktop or mobile phone. It allows us to make data-driven decisions because we can track audience response and behaviour.
This helps us to improve our content and the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns.
Types of emails
Emails can be categorised as different types depending on their purpose.
Welcome emails
These emails are delivered after someone signs up to a service or to receive a product. This first interaction is an opportunity to introduce our brand. You can set expectations for future communications and offer a compelling first call to action.
Thank you emails
These emails contribute to building a relationship with our subscribers, thanking them for taking a course of action. They help enhance the overall experience with our brand.
Nurture emails
This automated series of emails maintain contact with our subscribers. They offer targeted information and resources to engage our audiences and guide them towards a certain course of action.
Newsletters
This format of email features a round-up of content relevant to the subscriber. They foster engagement and loyalty, helping us build brand awareness.
Survey emails
These emails gather insights, opinions and suggestions from our audiences. They help us assess audience satisfaction and the effectiveness of our communications.
Re-engagement emails
The main function of these emails is to target inactive subscribers. They should offer a compelling reason to reconnect with our brand.
Writing emails
Email content should be easy for your audience to consume in a quick, logical and flowing way.
When writing an email, you should remember that you will be competing with a variety of other messages and competitors in a very busy inbox. This means it’s important that you get yours right.
Subject lines
The purpose of a subject line is to catch the attention of your audience and encourage them to open the email. They should summarise the email’s content, be informative, brief and ideally between 40 and 70 characters.
Tips for writing an effective subject line
- make it personal by adding the recipient’s name
- pose a question
- create a sense of urgency using imperative verbs which can improve open rates
- use an emoji if appropriate to the audience and email content
- avoid language that might result in your email being mistaken for spam
- subject lines can be humorous but be sure your audience understands the humour
Whatever approach you adopt, make it relevant to your content and tailored to your audience.
Preview text
Found below or next to the subject line, preview text is another opportunity to encourage your audience to open your email. Write it in tandem with your subject line and use this space to add more detail about your email content.
The amount of preview text that’s displayed depends on the email client and device a subscriber uses. General guidance suggests keeping preview text between 40 and 140 characters.
‘From' name
Research suggests that the ‘from’ name attached to your email can have equal or more impact than the subject line on your email’s open rate.
This is because the sender of an email is a crucially important trust signal. You’ll know from your own inbox that you open emails from people that you know, and companies and organisations that you value.
Some audiences respond better to organisational names, and others to individuals. If you’re unsure what the best ‘from’ name would be for your email, you can test it to optimise your communications.
Email body
Start your email with a greeting that’s appropriate for your audience and keep content simple, clear and concise.
Ideally, for emails other than newsletters, limit your content to a single topic. If you have to include another topic, introduce it with a subheading.
Offer added value in the form of additional, high-quality content. This might include links to eBooks and assets your audience can download, or blogs, video and web pages for further information.
Follow Newcastle University's style guide and always proofread for spelling or grammatical errors. Write in plain English, avoid jargon and use language appropriate for your audience. Use sentence case and introduce caps for emphasis only.
Call to action
A call to action (CTA) is a button or hyperlinked line of text. It guides your audience to take a specific action.
To be effective it should align with the goal of your email, be a simple direct phrase and use imperative verbs.
Just as you should try to limit email content to one topic, try to stick to one CTA. Position your call to action ‘above the fold’ (the point at which your audience has to scroll to read more). You can add another CTA at the end of the email but bear in mind up to 50% of people won’t read content after the fold.
Signing off
Sign off with an appropriate email signature. This is a trust signal, and should be tied to the ‘From’ name that you decided to use.
Don’t be afraid to test
Email communications can benefit hugely from testing.
Testing can check your ‘from’ name, your subject line, your pre-header, or the contents of your email to ensure you get the most out of your communications. Most email clients allow for A/B testing.
You should also think about the time of day that your email is sent, the day of the week, and even the time of year. All of these things can impact how likely people are to engage with your message.
Check the data and statistics from previous emails to learn about what is working well, and inform your plans for moving forwards.