Creating an Email Newsletter: Examples & Design Tips 

Email newsletters are not just a trend, they’re a powerful tool for engaging your prospects and online audiences. If you haven’t started one yet, you’re missing out on a significant opportunity to connect with your audience. 

What exactly is an email newsletter? Is it something my business needs? Can you show me some examples of companies that are doing it well? How do I write a newsletter? How do I send one out? If these questions have been on your mind lately, you’re in the right place. 

Stop wasting time thinking and googling these questions. Instead, read this blog until the end to learn how to start a newsletter and send out email content to engage your subscribers.

So, let’s begin.

What is an Email Newsletter?

In the simplest form, an email newsletter is information and updates shared with interested prospects and customers via email. An email newsletter shares: 

• Company news and announcements; 
• Industry news;
• Product or service updates; 
• Sales offers; 
• Content round-up (e.g., Youtube or Podcast links, Blog post updates); 
• Educational tips & tricks; 
• Weekly or daily newsletter digests; 
• New arrivals, and more.

Newsletters are sent periodically — daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly — so an email newsletter should be a regular feature of your email marketing strategy.

Once viewers subscribe to your email list, they’re referred to as your subscribers or contacts. Subscribers could be prospects (non-paying but interested in your product or services) or customers (paying). Remember to add an unsubscribe link to your newsletters allowing your subscribers to opt-out anytime.

The whole point of an email newsletter is to keep your subscribers engaged and informed about your business and entice them to try out your product or services.

Email Newsletter Benefits

In today’s world, it isn’t easy to become successful without being customer-centric. Regular communication is the key to customer delight, and an email newsletter is the best way to interact.

81% of B2B marketers use email newsletters to distribute their content pieces. A newsletter allows them to reach out actively, create a brand recall, and stay in the minds of prospective customers. 

Also, running an active newsletter makes you an authority in your niche. Your customers start trusting you for the insights and valuable info you share via your newsletter.

If that’s not enough, here are nine reasons to create a newsletter: 

1. Excellent source of traffic. Sending periodic newsletters with internal links increases traffic to your website, blog, or landing pages.
2. Owned media. Newsletters save you from falling prey to algorithmic feeds. The poor organic reach doesn’t hit you on Meta, the high CPM for paid email advertising, or the crazy algorithm updates of Instagram. This is your list and your people who go where you want them to.
3. Increased sales. Adding constant value over time will only help your business grow. Simply put, your email newsletters educate, entertain, and delight users, prompting them to remember you when they need to buy something. 
4. Increased engagement. Newsletters provide your subscribers with relevant information and updates to keep them engaged with your brand.
5. Enhanced customer delight. Customers and prospects love to hear relevant information about what they care about. Newsletters allow you to share relevant stuff regularly, improving your relationship with them. 
6. Brand authority & deep loyalty. Staying top-of-mind makes it easier for subscribers to synonymously associate the solution you provide with your brand and create extreme loyalty.
7. Improved brand thought leadership & readership. Email newsletters improve your authority and credibility in the eyes of your subscriber base. Having your brand looked up as a thought leader can be a big deal.
8. Easy to implement, low-cost to operate. Paid ads are expensive, influencer marketing is unpredictable, SEO takes time, and you have little to no control over it. Email marketing via newsletters can offer significant benefits, such as an increase in ROI and a boost in your overall marketing effectiveness. 
9. Easy to track metrics. Simpler to track critical parameters such as open & click rates to help you compute accurate ROI and improve and make your email marketing more effective.

Why You Should Send Email Newsletter?

Ever wondered why email newsletters should be your go-to move? Imagine having a secret door that opens directly into your audience’s inbox, bypassing the noise and chaos of the digital world. That’s what email newsletters are all about. They’re your golden ticket to not just reaching out but truly connecting. 

So, why should you jump on this bandwagon? Let’s break it down, shall we?

Reliable Traffic Source

Think of email newsletters as your reliable source of inbound traffic. While social media traffic is like relying on public transport with long wait times, email newsletters are like the private car that takes you straight to your audience’s inbox — no detours, no delays while driving visitors to your website. 

• Targeted reach. Talk directly to the people who really want to hear from you. It’s like having a VIP list for your digital party; 
• Consistent engagement. Keep the conversation going and engage your prospects with information they love; 
• Higher conversion rates. Emails bring 40 times more customers than Meta & X.com combined for businesses sending newsletters. 

Cost-Effective 

Low cost, high return — email newsletters are the thrift shop of marketing strategies. You can look fabulous without breaking the bank. In fact, emails generate $36 for every dollar spent. 

• Low overhead costs. Forget about burning cash on ads. You can send email campaigns, without any setup or overhead costs; 
• High ROI. Email marketing promises better returns than many other marketing tactics. Don’t believe us? Check out these email marketing ROI statistics. 

Efficient & Time-Saving Email Automation

You can set up email newsletters on automation, and they’ll keep working as per your preferences. In fact, marketing automation tools like Sender can automate email newsletters based on online activity and behavior of your audience. 

Think of automation as your faithful friend, handling the grunt work while you sip on that latte.

• Automated campaigns. Automate your way to success. It’s like having an autopilot for your emails; 
• Personalization at scale. Treat everyone like they’re your only subscriber. Automation makes it personal, not just another blast; 
• Schedule sending. Plan ahead and send emails at just the right time, like dropping a surprise birthday card in the mail.

Advanced Performance Tracking

Email newsletter platforms offer built-in analytics dashboards. This way you can track every click, open, and conversion and see real-time updates on what’s working and what’s not.

• In-depth analytics. Get the scoop on your audience’s interests, preferences, and activity; 
• Subscriber insights. Know what your subscribers like, segment your list according to their preferences, and personalize your future campaigns based on past performance.

Seamless Integration with Other Online Channels

Email newsletters are the social butterflies of your marketing strategy, blending seamlessly with your other channels. So, you can successfully power your omnichannel ambitions and engage your customers across platforms. 

• Social media. Drive subscribers from your social profiles and own your audience;
• Distribute content. Your newsletter can connect to your website or blog and distribute your latest insights, collections, and products to subscribers.

In a nutshell, email newsletters are your marketing Swiss Army knife—versatile, efficient, and essential for engaging the audience. So, why not start planning your first newsletter? 

How to Create an Email Newsletter Campaign?

Wondering how to launch an email newsletter campaign that grabs attention and delivers results? 

Creating a memorable newsletter is both a creative and strategic process. Here’s a simple guide to help you make decisions at every step of building an email newsletter for your brand: 

Establish Your Goals & Objectives

Kick things off by writing down what you want to achieve with your newsletter. This clarity is crucial as it shapes the direction of your content and how you measure success. Here’s how to make it possible: 

• Pinpoint the purpose. What’s your newsletter aiming to do? Boost brand visibility, ramp up sales, or keep your community in the loop? Decide on your primary focus; 
• Set measurable targets. Choose specific indicators such as open rates, click-through rates, or conversion rates to track how well your newsletter is performing; 
• Align with your broader goals. Your newsletter should not just float in its own bubble. Make sure its objectives are in sync with your overall marketing and growth strategy.  

Find the Right Email Marketing Software for You

The success of your email marketing campaigns depends on the software you pick. So, spend some time evaluating different newsletter tools. Make sure to choose a platform that not only meets your current needs but also grows with you. 

• Prioritize essential features. Choose software that brings essentials to the table—think automation, detailed analytics, and versatile templates that support and improve your email marketing efforts; 
• Ease of use. Go for a platform that’s straightforward and intuitive. If you’re going for consistent email marketing campaigns and analyzing metrics, simplicity is key to saving time; 
• Growth ready. Make sure the software can handle an expanding audience and increasing email volume. You want a solution that grows with you without a hitch in performance or a steep climb in costs.

Define Your Target Audience & Subscriber List

Once you’ve set your goals and picked a solution, you can identify your target audience and subscriber list. This helps you come up with the best ideas about your newsletter content. 

Use your Google Analytics or social following to gather insights about your audience’s interests and start thinking about your newsletter accordingly. 

Build Subscriber List via Signup Forms 

Once you’ve gained insight into your audience, focus on capturing interested leads via website sign-up forms. 

• Embed signup forms: Strategically place signup forms on your site to convert visitors into newsletter subscribers; 
• Offer incentives. Motivate visitors to subscribe by offering exclusive content, discounts, or early access to new products; 
• Communicate the benefits. Highlight the value subscribers will receive, such as insider information or special offers, to increase signup rates. 

Did you know you can set up a newsletter sign-up form for free using Sender’s drag-and-drop popup & signup form builder?

Remember List Management

Gathering subscribers is just the start. Effective list management is crucial for a thriving email newsletter. This involves:

• Keeping your list clean. Regularly review and clean your list by removing inactive subscribers to improve engagement rates; 
• Segmenting your subscribers. Organize your list into segments based on interests, behaviors, or demographics for personalized content delivery;
• Complying with laws. Adhere to email marketing regulations like GDPR by ensuring transparent opt-in processes and respecting privacy; 

Taking these steps ensures not only a growing subscriber base but also a highly engaged and compliant newsletter audience.

Focus on Email Newsletter Design

Design isn’t just about looks; it’s a vital engagement element that impacts how readers interact with your content and perceive your brand. 

Your design should be eye-catching and represent your brand’s essence. Use a drag-and-drop editor to quickly create a beautiful email template that works great on any device. 

A beautiful newsletter template will compel your subscribers to read till the end and convert. Also, having a standard template will create a strong brand recall in the long run. 

Here are some more design tips: 

• Opt for responsive email newsletter templates. Use a template that’s flexible across devices, ensuring your newsletter is accessible (and readable) on every device – whether a phone, tablet, or desktop; 
• Add your brand’s design language. Seamlessly weave in your brand’s colors, fonts, and logo to craft newsletters that align with your brand guidelines; 
• Simplicity is key. Adopt a minimalist design approach while creating a newsletter format. A clean layout with plenty of white space is a great example of a simple yet effective design. It not only boosts readability but also looks elegant. 

Create Engaging & Relevant Content

Content is the heart of your newsletter. It’s what keeps subscribers coming back for more. Your subscribers gave you their personal email addresses, so make every word count and always aim to add value for the reader. 

Here’s how you can make it happen: 

Ensure Content Quality

While what content you create depends on your creative process and industry, there are two checkpoints you should follow to ensure its quality:

• Relevance and value. Provide content that addresses the interests, needs, and pain points of your target audience;
• Clear and crisp writing. Use clear and straightforward language. Keep your sentences and paragraphs brief to make it easy for readers to understand and retain the information.

Another thing to consider about content quality is accuracy and credibility. Ensure that all information presented in the newsletter is factual and up-to-date. If you’re sourcing curated content, make sure to fact-check everything before you share.

You should also proofread and edit content without leaving any stone unturned to eliminate errors, ensuring a professional and trustworthy appearance.

Finally, remember that you’re writing to your readers, so they should have a word in it. In each newsletter, include CTAs inviting readers to share their thoughts and content ideas about what they want to read next. 

Craft Attention-Grabbing Subject Line

The subject line is the best way to capture the reader’s attention and is one of the main reasons someone opens an email. 

Here are a few tips to craft compelling subject lines: 

• Use action verbs to capture a reader’s attention; 
• Keep your subject lines short and sweet; 
• Avoid generic subject lines with words like “New Product” or “Special Offer”; 
• Personalize your subject line using the reader’s first name or another data point; 
• A/B test your newsletter campaigns to find winning subject lines; 
• Use a subject line generator or tool to create a compelling subject line; 
• Add emojis to your subject line to grab attention instantly. 

Personalize Newsletter Content

Sending personalized emails based on thoughtful segments increases your chances of making sales. Customer segmentation helps you personalize your emails, making them more effective and relevant to your prospects. 

Segmenting your contact list will give you the power to create more personalized newsletters and email campaigns. With an email marketing software, you can easily segment your contact list based on age, location, gender, interests, purchase history, online history, and other factors.

Here are some newsletter personalization ideas: 

• Use the recipient’s name;
• Personalized content based on behavior/interests that the reader has shown in the past;
• Include location-based content, for example, upcoming events in the reader’s city;
• Craft personalized recommendations on reading lists, playlists, news articles, or content recommendations.

Add a Clear and Effective Call-to-Action

A powerful call-to-action (CTA) button has the potential to blow up your traffic, sales revenue, and conversion rates. 

A good CTA guides the reader through the entire conversion process. They know what to do next with a CTA (buying the product, visiting a page, or signing up for the service). Here’s how to ensure your CTAs are effective: 

• Visibility. Make your CTA buttons or links prominent and easy to find; 
• Be specific. Be clear about what you want the subscriber to do next; 
• Make them personal. Use different CTAs for different segments or content types to increase relevance.

For example, suppose your newsletter is about a product update. In that case, you can add a CTA asking users to try the product themselves or prompting them to check out YouTube videos demonstrating it.

Incorporate Visuals and Media

Visuals enhance the appeal of your newsletter and help communicate your message more effectively. So, make sure to add unique visuals to support the discussion within the newsletter. 

• Use high-quality images. Use crisp, relevant images to break up text and add visual interest.
• Maintain brand consistency. Ensure visuals align with your brand identity for instant recognition;
• Optimize your images. Compress images for faster loading times without sacrificing quality.

Also, test your email newsletter on different devices and platforms to ensure it looks visually appealing before hitting the final send button. 

Optimization, Tracking & Analytics

Continuous improvement is key to the long-term success of your newsletter campaigns. You need to regularly monitor relevant email metrics, optimize your designs and content, and keep iterating to achieve the best results. 

Here’s what you can do to maximize the impact of your email newsletters: 

Optimize for Mobile Devices

Users will access your email newsletters mostly from their smartphones. So, optimizing your newsletter design for mobile devices is a crucial aspect of the success of an email newsletter campaign. Here’s what you can do: 

• Use a mobile-first design template. Given the prevalence of mobile email access, design your newsletter with mobile users in mind first or pick a responsive template; 
• Test across devices. Send a test email before scheduling a campaign to ensure your newsletter looks good on various screen sizes and email clients.

Timing and Frequency

Newsletters are sent to your audience periodically, which means readers expect to hear from you in a similar format at a specific time. They expect a newsletter edition from you every week or month, as you told them in your welcome email or landing page. 

Here’s what you must remember: 

• Find the optimal sending time: Experiment with different sending times and days to discover when your audience is most likely to open and engage with your newsletter.

• Maintain consistency. Stick to a regular sending schedule, whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, to keep your brand top-of-mind with subscribers and build anticipation among your subscribers; 
• Respect preferences. Listen to your audience’s preferences regarding how often they wish to receive your emails and adjust your sending frequency accordingly.
• Experiment. Test different days and times to find the optimal schedule for your newsletter campaigns. 

Stick to a schedule and a standard format or template. Use an email marketing platform like Sender if you want to simplify everything. With a drag-and-drop builder, pre-made templates library, and automation capabilities, you can standardize your newsletter design and maintain consistency. 

Testing and Optimization

Understanding how your audience responds to your newsletters helps you optimize what you send. Track each email newsletter’s effectiveness and optimize your future campaigns based on the results.

Keep an eye on open, click-through, conversions per click, and unsubscribe rates. This will help you understand how many people opened your email, how many clicked, converted, or unsubscribed. 

These reports and analytics must drive your optimization efforts. 

You can regularly test different elements of your newsletter, including subject lines, content, and design. Monitor any changes in these email metrics and engage in iterative improvements to continually refine and improve your newsletter.

6 Inspiring Email Newsletter Examples

Every brand or business has a different take on newsletters. Some run a periodical that shares company news. Others use newsletter audiences to promote their latest offers. While you can look around the internet for newsletter ideas, here are some successful newsletter examples for you:

1. Weekly Newsletter Example by Taylor Stitch 

Weekly newsletters are a great way to stay on top of your subscriber’s minds. Brands plan weekly newsletters to share new blog posts, the latest brand news, collections, product launch news, and exciting things planned for the week ahead. Here’s an example of a weekly newsletter by Taylor Stitch: 

The newsletter reminds users about the upcoming summer season — warm weather and preparing for a wardrobe upgrade. The next section shares some outfit ideas for summer with a CTA to shop the products from the brand’s store. 

The contextual discussion about changing weather and summer collection fits the right image in the reader’s mind — they need something for summer, and the CTA entices them to check out the summer collection. 

Key Takeaways

• Use a common theme for the weekly newsletter; 
• Add contextual product links and CTAs to drive the discussion toward buying something. 

2. Monthly Newsletter by Double

Sending a monthly newsletter is a great idea to keep subscribers engaged with the latest updates. You can send product updates, the latest happenings, industry information, or even curate the best posts from your blog in your monthly newsletter, just like Double did here:

The minimalist layout makes reading easier and will motivate readers to explore. As the newsletter consists of curated posts, the layout, with a brief slug and a button is enough to make readers explore more on the blog or website. They could have made the header copy more enthusiastic and conversational for higher impact, though. 

Key Takeaways

• Create a monthly newsletter by curating the best posts from your blog; 
• Keep your layout simple and minimalist with lots of white space; 
• Add prominent CTA buttons to encourage readers to visit your website.  

3. Promotional Email by Macy’s

Macy’s sends engaging email campaigns and useful newsletters to its subscribers yearly. Here’s a discount email newsletter sent by the brand: 

What we love about this newsletter is the clearly worded offer (20% OFF) and an eye-catching neat design featuring cherry red against a white background. Perfect contrast!

Key Takeaways

• Pick an eye-catchy color theme for your email newsletter; 
• Mention the latest offers and discounts, if any, in your outgoing newsletters. 

4. Announcement Email by ClickUp

Now see this beautifully designed technical updates newsletter sent out by project management software ClickUp to its customer list:

The clean and minimalistic design sets up nicely against plenty of pure whitespaces. A bold headline highlighting the main story completes the look and feel.

Key Takeaways

• Keep your newsletters really simple and straightforward with one single theme per newsletter; 
• Add relevant CTA and links to drive traffic to your website or blog.

5. Referral Email by MedLab International Inc

The best way to ruin a referral campaign is to have a complicated one or spoil a decent one with poorly constructed communication. Check out this simple yet powerful referral program newsletter by a company called MedLab International Inc.: 

The copy, in this case, has been kept simple (including the headline) to ensure effective communication, and with a contextual graphic to boot, we cannot think that the newsletter must have had a successful run.

Key Takeaways

• Create a simple yet compelling email copy for your target audience; 
• Add links to your social media accounts in the newsletter footer.

6. Company’s Newsletter by Material

A company newsletter is a great way to let subscribers know what’s happening in and around your business. Material sends periodic updates about its product launches via its newsletters. Have a look: 

They’ve smartly used a large image showing the application on the header. Plus, the copy is really crisp and catchy. The mention of ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ product can induce FOMO to a lot of readers. The newsletter encourages the reader to know more about the product and even buy one for themselves. 

Key Takeaways

• Keep it simple and crisp; 
• Tell about your products or latest updates in company newsletters; 
• Use a compelling story or hook to start your newsletter. 

Key Takeaways

In this blog, you just saw just a few examples of email newsletters along with must-follow tips. Now, it’s time to plan an email newsletter to engage your subscribers. When you start, don’t forget the following: 

Excited to start your first email newsletter? Discover top-notch email marketing tools in these curated articles on software essentials:

• 15 Free Email Template Builders (HTML + Drag-and-Drop Editor)
• 14 Best Email Marketing Services in 2024

Author Bio

Anmol Ratan Sachdeva is a content marketer and small business consultant who has a strong grip on topics like marketing automation, email marketing, and content marketing. He loves to write about starting, improving, and growing a business.