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This post was originally a guest post on Bloggertone.com

Email newsletters offer one of the highest returns on investment in online marketing, second only to search marketing. But it only works when you do it right.
Assuming you have interested subscribers; the following are the key parts of an email newsletter guaranteed to bring you success.

1. Subject line
Your very first point of contact. Use this to tempt the reader to open the mail.
I add the company name to every subject line to build trust over time. Readers learn that if the mail is from Sheepstealers then there will be something inside they will enjoy or find interesting.

2. Preview
This text will appear in the preview pane of the email client when it arrives to the inbox. It should add to the subject line and provide more reasons to open the newsletter.

3. Main offer
A clear offer with a strong call to action. A reader should be in no doubt what to do next and why. Fancy fonts will need to be images so make sure you have text and links that work when images are turned off.

4. Sell stuff.
Don’t forget your ultimate goal is to sell your products or service.

5. Being useful
Subscribers would get turned off pretty fast if every mail was about me. I always add content I know would be of use to a subscriber. It increases the chance of them opening again next month.

6. Expand the conversation
People love sharing good links and information online. With an army of subscribers loving your updates, make it easy for them to tell others and chat back to you.

7. Reminder
A personal touch to let them know you are human and a simple reminder of where they signed up can drastically reduce the number who unsubscribe. But if they want to go let them.

8. Short & Sweet
I like keeping my newsletters short and easy to scan. If I have a long article I split it into a snappy taster for the newsletter and a read more link going to the blog.

That’s all! If you start applying these points to your email marketing campaigns you will see your open and click through rates start to rise.

Disclosure: Sheepstealer GAA T-Shirts is a product from Spoiltchild. This email does not currently exist and was produced for this post.

To celebrate our email design feature in this months .net magazine we are offering $200 of a custom design order.
This offer is for two days only, after which the offer drops to $100 off.

If interested click here for a quote.

Check out our work that is featured in the July issue of .net magazine on the shelves now. I believe the magazine is called Practical Web Design in the US and Australia. What ever the name look for the cover to the left.

Alan designed a fictional email offer for the real web application Finetuna.com. This is how he described it:
“Finetuna.com is a real web application run by the team at Spoiltchild. It’s for sharing feedback on concepts between a designer and client. However, it doesn’t have subscriptions or even an email newsletter, so I thought it would be fun to see what one might look like.

I approached this email as if it was one edition of a newsletter that’s been going out regularly. With that in mind, the subject line is ‘Finetuna.com – WIN a lifetime subscription’. The hope would be that the Finetuna brand name would have built up recognition and trust over previous emails, making a subscriber pay more attention when they see it.

The design is consistent with the look and style of the website, except for the main competition piece, which has large formatted type, an off-brand contrasting colour and big call to action button so there’s no doubt this is the most important part of the email. Entry is as simple and quick as possible because a subscriber’s attention span won’t be that long with this mail.
I also deliver on the established trust by providing links and an article that would be of value to a designer reading it.

Finally, while I love email newsletters, I realise they’re just one part of a wide marketing mix, so I’ve included links to the other channels where a subscriber may prefer to interact instead.

Overall, the design and art direction captures the brand and personality of the service. It requests instant action from the subscriber, but doesn’t sacrifice the long-term relationship in favour of a quick win.”

Alan also gives a break down in the article of the the individual sections of the email design but i will not give those away so that you go out and buy loads of copies!
Check it out now on your magazine stands.