How to Make an Email Newsletter Your Customers Love [FAKE]

Did you know email marketing drives a reported 4,400% ROI? Believe it. Email is low-cost and direct. If people are on your email list, it’s because they want to hear from you. So, give them what they want with an irresistible email newsletter. Aarron Walter's Hierarchy of User Needs

Source: Nielsen Norman Group With strategic planning, a consistent schedule, and sharp curatorial and copywriting skills, any marketer can create one that drives results. Follow along with this step-by-step process to get started.

How to Make an Email Newsletter Your Customers Love by @Ben_CoSchedule via @CoSchedule

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What Are Email Marketing Newsletters?

For our purposes, they’re informative emails sharing your latest news and announcements. That could include blog articles, curated content, events, sales, or anything else you have to share. We’ll further define these as emails delivered on a set schedule that your audience can expect.

How Are Email Newsletters Typically Built?

Generally, in one of three ways:

Using an Email Service Provider: Platforms like MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, and others typically have WYSIWYG email template editors.
Using Email Building Tools: There are also tools that allow you to build emails and then send them with the ESP of your choice. Taxi for Email is an example.
Custom-Coded HTML: Some companies prefer to code email newsletters by hand. This allows more flexibility.

Where Can I Find Free Email Newsletter Templates?

No matter how you prefer to build your emails, there’s no shortage of them on the Web. Here’s a roundup of places where you can find free templates:

Downloadable HTML Email Templates

The Litmus community offers tons of free email templates, which they are built by some of the best designers around.
Zurb has several downloadable responsive email designs (that even work in Outlook). They’re created using their Ink framework.
Themezy provides 16 free templates here.
You can get tons of Retina-ready email templates from CakeMail here.

Email Templates for Popular ESPs

Here’s info on free templates for some popular ESPs:

If your business uses any of the above ESPs, too, there's some great news. You can plan and schedule all your marketing newsletters in CoSchedule. With Email Marketing from CoSchedule, you can:

Seamlessly integrate with your *favorite* email marketing platform. You already have a kick-a$$ email platform you know and love, so why give it up? With Email Marketing, you can easily connect your preferred email platform to CoSchedule with just a couple clicks.
Write click-worthy email subject lines...every time. With Email Marketing, you can use CoSchedule’s *exclusive* Email Subject Line Tester to optimize and perfect every subject line to drive more opens, more clicks, and more conversions.
Get full visibility into your ENTIRE marketing strategy. Say “buh-bye” to disjointed marketing content (and constantly jumping from screen to screen). With Email Marketing, it’s easy to see how your email campaigns relate to the rest of your marketing strategy and quickly make adjustments if necessary.

Can You Show Me Some Examples of Email Newsletters?

We certainly can. Let’s take a look at a few.

Lifehacker

Lifehacker regularly sends an excellent newsletter rounding up their latest how-to guides and advice:

Each newsletter leads off with a primary story that’s typically tied in directly to the email’s subject line. Then, they include smaller content blocks broken up with an ad on the right side:

Next, there’s a sponsored story (which makes sense given Lifehacker’s propensity to feature products):

Planning this email would require:

One lead story.
Three supporting stories.
One sponsored story.

This email newsletter is also sent one per day. That makes sense too given their high daily publishing frequency.

Emerging Prairie

Emerging Prairie is a local tech and entrepreneurship organization located in Fargo, ND (one of two cities CoSchedule calls home). Their email newsletter is straightforward, once again leading with an article that’s teased by the subject line:

Notice they also have three sharing links in the upper right, plus an upcoming events list in a right-hand navigation bar. Then, the layout of this email continues with a simple format, listing more articles discussing events and news from the area:

Planning this newsletter would require:

Rounding up seven recent blog articles.
Maintaining an updated list of events.

You’ll now be able to see your scheduled email alongside all your other content and campaigns on your CoSchedule marketing calendar. As a reminder, you can also plan out and schedule email newsletters with the free email calendar we’ve included in this post: