Use our free guide to design and launch a newsletter that engages your target audience.
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Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your blog or business. If you already have a blog, it doesn’t take much further effort to create an email newsletter. Many of the tools that you use to build and maintain your blog can also be used to create newsletters, from the template for designing it to analytics for tracking its success. There are even plenty of blog email examples to inspire you.
A newsletter can help increase traffic to your blog because it alerts your subscribers that new content exists and directs them to your blog to read it. Since your email subscribers have to opt into your mailing list, they tend to represent the most loyal segment of your target audience, making it more likely they’ll be interested in your newsletter and blog content.
Read on for guidelines that will help you build your mailing list, design an engaging newsletter, and track the success of your efforts.
Creating a mailing list
Before you can launch a newsletter, you’ll need to build a mailing list. You can import any customer emails that you have already collected, but there are a variety of ways to collect more email addresses on your blog site.
Collect email addresses using these tools:
Promotional pop-up. A small window that appears on your blog at a designated time and asks readers to sign up for your newsletter by entering their email. This pop-up can appear after a set time—for example, after 30 seconds of visiting your page—or when a reader scrolls and reaches a certain point on the page.
Newsletter block. Add a block to your blog that promotes your newsletter and asks for email addresses. A common spot for that block is in a sidebar or footer.
Post-transaction opt-in. If you sell a product or service on your blog’s website, you could ask a customer to provide their email to subscribe to your newsletter at checkout.
If you’re monetizing your blog with a Member Site, then you already have the makings of a mailing list. Squarespace Member Sites connects with Squarespace Email Campaigns, which lets you manage your list and emails from the same spot.
Designing an email newsletter
Squarespace has email newsletter templates that give a polished and professional look to your email campaign, and you can easily apply the same style of your blog site to your emails. Maintaining the same visual branding in your newsletter is important for building a consistent brand.
The subject line is the most important piece of newsletter copywriting because it needs to encourage your subscribers to open it. Your subject line has to grab the attention of the recipient who likely has a crowded email inbox. For example, a subject like “Chicken Taco Recipe” will likely get less attention than “Best No-Fuss Cilantro-Lime Chicken Tacos.” Not only does the second subject line tell readers this is the best recipe you’ve tried for this dish, it also tells them a bit about the ingredients, flavors, and that it’s easy to make.
To catch your subscribers’ eyes and stay out of their spam folders you’ll need to define your sender details, using your blog or business name and an email address associated with your domain. This is what will appear in the “From:” field in your subscribers’ inboxes. Without this piece of information, a subscriber’s email service may not recognize you as the sender and will filter your carefully crafted newsletter into the spam folder. To make sure all of your emails reach your audience, take a look at Squarespace’s email marketing checklist.
For the newsletter itself, follow these quick tips:
Choose a clean, easy-to-read layout that’s divided into manageable sections.
Use clear and catchy headlines to engage recipients.
Test your newsletter’s appearance on different devices before sending to make sure it can be read just as easily on large computer displays as on small phone screens.
Tracking newsletter success
Your newsletter campaign isn’t complete after collecting emails and designing an effective newsletter—far from it. A successful email marketing campaign also relies on tracking and reviewing your newsletter’s performance, and periodically making updates based on those insights.
Email analytics will show you who is opening, reading, and clicking through each of your newsletters. This feedback is invaluable to helping you learn which approaches and subjects are resonating with your readers and which topics are getting ignored. With these insights, you’ll be able to more carefully craft your message in future newsletters.