Do you want to learn how to create an email newsletter for your business? Are you looking for a quick and simple way?
Email newsletters are useful for all types of businesses, be it a blog or an eCommerce store. It helps you stay in contact with your visitors, build relationships, and make them remember your website.
That said, many people find creating a newsletter too technical. So, to help you out, we’ll show you how to create an email newsletter in 5 easy steps.
What are Email Newsletters?
An email newsletter is a way of communicating with your subscribers. Newsletters contain the latest information about your products, deliver news and updates, provide details about upcoming events, and offer discounts and deals.
That said, your subscribers are people who signed up for your email list and agreed to receive marketing communication messages. This means that they want the latest information about your brand, which makes newsletters a useful promotional channel.
There are many benefits of sending an email newsletter, as we’ll explain below.
Why Do You Need an Email Newsletter?
Email newsletters are important for businesses of all shapes and sizes. If you have a blog, eCommerce store, small business, non-profit organization, or educational institution, newsletters help to keep your audience engaged and connected with your business.
Here’s why you need an email newsletter:
- Increase Returning Visitors to Your Site – One way of bringing visitors back to your website is through email newsletters.
- Make Your Brand Memorable – Did you know that more than 75% of the people won’t find your website again? That’s where newsletters come in handy, as they help in making your brand unforgettable.
- Boost Your Conversions – By sending out the latest deals, coupons, and product news, you can increase sales on your site through newsletter campaigns.
- Generate Traffic – If you’re struggling to attract visitors to a new blog you created, then sending newsletters is a useful strategy. You can get tons of traffic in no time by informing your email subscribers about your content piece.
- Build a Loyal Fanbase – Newsletters help you connect with your readers and build a relationship. Through newsletters, you can create a loyal following and turn them into a community.
Now that you know the importance of newsletters, let’s look at the tools you can use to create one.
What is the Best Program to Create a Newsletter?
There are many email marketing services that you can use to run a newsletter. But finding the right program can be tough.
You could use Gmail or Outlook. But that’s good if you only have a handful of subscribers or you’re sending out an email to your family members.
On the other hand, if you have many people on your email list, you should go for an email marketing service to send and create professional emails in bulk.
You can choose from different email newsletter tools like Brevo, Drip, and AWeber. But the best program to create a newsletter is Constant Contact.
Constant Contact – Best Program to Create a Newsletter
Constant Contact offers an easy to use drag and drop builder to create beautiful newsletters. It’s one of the most user-friendly email marketing services out there.
You can choose from pre-built templates to start building an email. And thanks to its automated emails feature, you can send personalized emails.
Other amazing features of Constant Contact include:
- Schedule and manage contacts
- Create a sales funnel
- 100+ email templates
- Send automated welcome emails
- Add your brand name to your email template
- Grow your email list through Facebook ads and Google ads
- Integration with other marketing platforms
So, are you ready to find out how to create an email newsletter? Let’s start.
How to Build an Email Newsletter?
For our tutorial, we’ll be using Constant Contact. Following these steps, you can create a newsletter within minutes.
Step 1: Sign Up for a Constant Contact Account
In the first step, you’ll have to sign up for a Constant Contact account. Constant Contact offers a 60-day free trial, and you don’t even need a credit card to sign up. But do note that you can send newsletters to up to 100 emails in the free trial.
Now, enter your details like email, name, and company name to sign up. Then click Get Started.
After filling out the details, you should receive a confirmation email. Click the link in the email to confirm.
Then you’ll be taken to the welcome page. You can scroll down and click Skip this step to move forward.
Next, you’ll see the Constant Contact dashboard. Here you can control everything, from managing email subscribers to creating different email campaigns, including newsletters.
But first, you’ll need to add your email subscribers before creating a newsletter. So, let’s see how you can create an email list in Constant Contact.
Step 2: Add an Email List
One of the key features of Constant Contact is that it helps you organize and manage the email addresses of your subscribers. Using the software, you can create your list and segment followers.
To add a new list, click Contacts from the top menu. Then click Email Lists from the menu on your left-hand side.
By default, Constant Contact will show a General Interest list. But you can add your list by clicking on Enter a New List option.
Next, give a name to your email list and click Add List.
Your new list will now appear in your Email Lists. To add a new contact, click Add Contacts. From the drop-down menu, select Type in one contact.
If you want, you can also upload contacts from a file or import them from Gmail, Outlook, and other apps.
Next, enter the details of your contact. Constant Contact offers multiple fields to add contact information, such as job title, company, and phone number.
But you can enter their name and email address, and then add them to your email list. Once you’ve entered the data, click Save.
As you hit Save, a popup will appear explaining details about consent from the contact and informing you about the anti-spam policy. Click Agree to continue.
Now that you have an email list, let’s create an email campaign for your newsletter.
Step 3: Create an Email Newsletter Campaign
Constant Contact offers amazing templates to create all types of emails. You can select anyone to start a newsletter.
To create a newsletter, go to Campaigns from the top menu and then click Create.
Now select Email to get started.
You will find over 100 different email templates to use, which could be overwhelming. But Constant Contact offers a search feature, so you can filter the templates you’re looking for.
And you can even create a custom brand template, import an existing PDF to turn it into an email, and use custom code.
For our tutorial, we’ll be using the Basic Newsletter template offered by the email marketing service.
Once you’ve selected the template, it’s time for customization. Let’s see what options Constant Contact provides.
Step 4: Customize Your Email Newsletter Template
Thanks to Constant Contact’s drag and drop builder, you can create a stunning email newsletter. There are tons of options you can use to customize your newsletter design and make it look the way you want.
You can start by renaming your newsletter campaign. This will help you keep track of the campaigns you create.
Next, you can add images, text, buttons, calls to action, videos, divide your content, add spacers, link your social networks, and more. Simply drag the item where you want to place it in the newsletter and then customize it.
Constant Contact offers stock images as well. So, you don’t have to worry about copyrights when using any image in your newsletter.
Another cool customization feature offered by Constant Contact is that you can add your products from Shopify or WooCommerce store. It even lets you add polls, coupons, donations, and RSVPs. And if you scroll down, you can also change the layout of your newsletter.
In the Design tab, you can change the background color, add patterns, and change the font in the body of your newsletter.
After you’re done customizing your newsletter, click Save at the top. You can then preview your newsletter by clicking Check & Preview to see how it looks on desktop and mobile.
Next, click Continue to change the settings for sending your email newsletters.
Step 5: Send Your Email Newsletters
The last step in creating your email newsletter is to send them to your subscribers. Constant Contact lets you change the settings so that you can deliver the newsletter to your desired subscribers.
For instance, you can select the email list you created in this tutorial to send your newsletter. You can add a subject line to your email.
And the best part, you can create personalized subject lines by adding personal details of your subscribers, like their name or company.
The tool even lets you A/B test your emails, so you know which subject line, content, or layout gets the most open rate.
Once you’re done changing the settings, you can now send your email newsletter to your subscribers. Just click Send Now, and your newsletter will be in the inbox of your email list participants.
Congratulations! You now know how to create an email newsletter.
But we aren’t leaving you just yet.
Do you know how your email campaigns are performing? We’ve put together a short tutorial to help you track your newsletter performance in WordPress.
How to Track Email Newsletter Conversions in WordPress?
Tracking emails help you discover what type of newsletter you should be sending more often to your subscribers. It provides valuable insights about the subject lines, copy, images, and format you should be using.
To track your email newsletters in WordPress, you’ll need MonsterInsights. It’s the best WordPress plugin for Google Analytics. Using the plugin, you can see how well your email campaigns are doing by tracking their conversions.
The first step is to install the MonsterInsights plugin and activate its eCommerce addon, which is available in its Pro plan. Once you’ve activated the plugin, you’ll need to create a custom URL with a UTM code for tracking.
Thanks to MonsterInsights URL builder, you can generate a custom URL within seconds. To create a custom URL, go Insights » Tools. Now enter the parameters of your campaign.
For instance, you can enter the following details to create a custom URL for tracking your newsletters:
- Website – enter your website URL.
- Campaign Source – you can enter newsletter in this field.
- Campaign Medium – let’s name this email since it’s a newsletter.
- Campaign Name – you can give it any name like spring_sale if you’re running a discount or promoting a product in your newsletter.
- Campaign Term – this field is for running paid ads, so you can leave this field as it is for now.
- Campaign Content – if you’re A/B testing your email newsletters, you can enter a keyword that differentiates between the emails.
- Use Fragments – you can break your URL into smaller pieces, but you can also let this setting be as it’s not recommended.
After entering these details, you should have a custom URL that should like this:
Now copy the URL and paste the link in your email newsletters. To get more clicks, place it in a call to action button with bright color and an attractive copy, so that is prominent to your readers.
Whenever your subscribers click on the link or make a purchase, you can track your newsletters conversions in MonsterInsights eCommerce reports.
You can also read our complete in-depth guide on how to set up email tracking in Google Analytics for more information.
BONUS: How to Get More Email Subscribers?
As you start sending out your email newsletters, you’ll notice that you need more subscribers. That’s because most email users become inactive over time, or they unsubscribe to your emails.
To overcome this issue, you need to keep on growing your email list. As a bonus, here are 3 amazing tips to help you out:
1. Add a Sign-Up Form in Your Website Sidebar
To attract more subscribers to your email list, you can add a sign-up form to your website’s sidebar. And to grab the user’s attention, you can be creative with the copy you use. For instance, you can add the number of email subscribers who have already joined your newsletter.
2. Offer Gated Content to Visitors
Gated content is locking a useful piece of content like eBooks, videos, PDF reports, or articles, behind a sign-up form. To download or view the content, visitors must enter their email address and subscribe to your newsletter. It’s a quick and easy way of getting more email subscribers.
3. Use an Exit-Intent Popup to Capture Emails
As your visitors are about to leave your website, use an exit-intent popup to get their emails. It helps you convert your abandoning visitors into leads. And it also increases the number of subscribers in your email list.
And that’s it.
Using Constant Contact, you can create gorgeous newsletters in a matter of minutes. With the help of its drag and drop builder, you can customize your email newsletters the way you want and integrate it with other marketing services.
We hope that you like our article on how to create an email newsletter. You can also check out our article on the best Mailchimp alternatives and how to track user engagement in WordPress.
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Thanks for all the clearly explained information!