Busy Lizzie writes...: July 2012

"You know about websites – you can set up an email newsletter, can’t you?"

If you’re thrown in the deep end of news-by-email and email marketing, here’s a buoyancy aid.

Before you start

Have a clear purpose. What’s the business goal? This sets the content agenda.
How will you measure success? Generate custom URLs to track website traffic coming from your mailing.

Make your subject line interesting and relevant to your subscribers. Not ‘Issue 12 of the hospital newsletter’ but ‘A&E waiting time improvements, beating superbugs, and more’. If you have a system that tracks opening rates, try two different subject lines on a sample of your mailing list, and mail the remainder with the best-performing hook.
Choose the right From address for extra impact. Are you more likely to open an email from a real person, or from ‘Hospital News’?
Content needs to be relevant to the business goal – think twice about issuing a re-hash of your latest press releases.
Keep it brief.
Make it easy to browse. If there are multiple articles, include a contents list that will be the first thing people see when they open the email.
Follow normal writing for the web best practice. Chunk text using headings and bullet points and write meaningful hyperlink text.
Proofread.
Set a sustainable schedule if you’re aiming for regular mailings, especially if you need to get others to contribute or sign off content.

Where did you get your mailing list? People need to agree to you using their information for this specific purpose.
Include a privacy statement saying how you will use and store personal details.
Make it clear how to subscribe and unsubscribe.
BCC. Don’t share your mailing list with everyone on it.

Branding should be consistent with your corporate identity and ideally with your website – especially if you’re linking from your email to your site.
Use HTML email for designed elements. Styles needs to be applied in-line rather than using something like a stylesheet.
Make sure the email can be read as ‘text-only’ – some email systems don’t allow graphics and HTML or give users the option to turn them off.
Don’t clog up inboxes with large emails.
Avoid attachments, because they can get your email caught in corporate spam filters.
If you’re using an third party system to send emails on your behalf, make sure the provider has whitelisting measures in place to ensure emails are not flagged as spam.
If you’re using a mailing system that is pretending to come from your corporate email domain (‘spoofing’), tell your network team to ensure your own colleagues can receive your emails.
Test on all different types of email – from Outlook and Hotmail, to how it appears on smartphones.

Keep evaluating against the business goals. Innovate, iterate, and enjoy.