There are two types of people when it comes to email notifications. There’s the type of person who has thousands of unread emails in their inbox and the other type of person who immediately clears any notification they receive. While these two types of people are on the opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to managing their inboxes, they do have one thing in common: they do not tolerate junk mail.

Junk mail is exactly what it sounds like – GARBAGE! Content that nobody wants or asked for. As a marketer, the last thing you want is for your email newsletters to land themselves in the junk folder. However, unopened emails are just as bad, because either way, no one is consuming your content. To keep your email out of the junk folder, your newsletter must have engaging and/or useful content that your audience truly wants to read.

Be Fun and Have Some Fun

While it could be considered a feat of internet technology, the word “email” has such a generally negative tone. No one wants to think about opening their inbox when they're relaxing on a Sunday night. Some people might even actively dread it (Sunday scaries anyone?). Email has become a place of work, a place of bad (and hopefully good) news, a place of stress, and so much more. With 87% of marketers using email marketing in 2020, inboxes have become a burial ground for unwanted emails. That’s because, at the end of the day, consumers know that most of these newsletters are supposed to drive them to purchase something, making that “delete” button feel even more justified to click.

Studies have even found that people receive rushes of dopamine from clearing an inbox. So how do you compete with that? Give them that same rush of dopamine by making your newsletter pleasurable to read.

So the key rule for successfully crafting a newsletter, or any consumer-facing material for that matter, is to ask yourself what your target audience will get from reading what you sent. Will they get that ‘button clicking’ rush? If the answer is no, I wouldn’t recommend pressing send.

But what if you’re a new brand, or, harder yet, a brand that’s been around for a while whose newsletter content has gotten stale? Here are three tips to better engage your newsletter audience:

1 There’s No “I” in “Newsletter”

The magic of this new age of digital marketing is the capability of real human interaction. It has completely shifted and transformed the relationship between marketers and consumers. The potential for immediate response between one another is not just available, but it’s fast, and maybe even expected. If you send out something the consumer doesn’t like, you’re able to hear about it almost in real-time, and you will.

Receiving negative feedback might feel frustrating and disappointing at the time; however, it’s an incredibly productive and actionable customer response. Feedback from your audience can guide you in providing your core audience with a better brand experience. Typically, that’s exactly what they’re asking for with any type of negative response.

Email was originally intended to be a two-way street. Try to start or return to that model as a brand. The best way to find out what content your audience wants is by asking them. You’d be shocked at how many well-known brands come to our agency to answer these content questions and haven’t yet surveyed their audience in any way.

One way to elicit an actionable content response is through your newsletter. Ask your list a specific question and ask them to reply directly. One word of caution, make sure you’re not using a “no reply” email address which would create a bad user experience for your audience. It would be like asking for help and then responding with a jk don’t care. Not a good look for any brand. As a note, we have also tested no reply vs. personal email as the sender for the Elevate My Brand newsletter, and the open and click rates are almost always better than the latter. When you think about it, it makes sense, people connect with a person at a company especially if you’re a small business so a more personalized approach will almost always get a better response. Once you’ve figured out where you are sending your emails from, integrating a link to a survey, or even better, building a poll into your newsletter will help you satisfy even the most creative conversation and build brand loyalists who will now feel like they’re a part of your journey.

While A/B testing is great, finding out what your audience wants to see directly from their mouths (or keyboards), is pretty easy and effective. Once you find out what your audience wants, give it to them, and watch as your open and click-through rates soar.

2 Your Emails Shouldn’t Look Like a Bill

Emails have come a long way. Nowadays you can send virtually any attachment you’d like. A picture, a video, a verification code, etc… So use them! There are only 26 letters in the alphabet, so people see them a lot. But pictures and videos are unique. Give people a break from those mundane letters and numbers and show them something they’ve never seen before. People consume with their eyes so make your content delicious!

Incorporating new mediums into your newsletters is a great way to differentiate your emails and catch the eye of your readers driving them to read your content and engage with your brand. If you can squint and not tell the difference between your newsletters and the last bill in your inbox, I’d say it’s time to switch things up.

3 Give Them a Reason to Come Back

Another great way to engage your audience is to include your audience in the newsletters themselves. User-generated content or UGC is getting better, more organic traction than ever. Somewhere in your next newsletter, include a section that requests a quote or image from your audience. Then, in the following newsletters, create a section that showcases that UGC. Don’t just make your emails for your audience, but make it about them too.

Incorporating audience features in the body of your newsletter not only gets you a direct response but gives them a reason to stay on your subscriber list, and keep reading until they see themselves in your content.

Final Thoughts

These three tips are not the only strategies out there that can increase engagement rates from your newsletter audience, but they’re a great place to start. One more tip is to ensure that your newsletter has a cute or clever name. If your newsletter is called newsletter, it’s time to rename it. Consumers are smart so delivering something to them that is playful or at least clever will make them stop and read and not delete, unsubscribe or send you spam. At the end of the day, when you click send, you should feel that same dopamine rush that your audience should get because you know your content delivers. So get creative!

Creating a consistent newsletter is very time-consuming. If you’re looking for more support testing and crafting the most engaging newsletter for your audience, Elevate My Brand is currently offering Digital Mindmap sessions where we can come up with the best strategies for your audience.

About the author: With a J.D./M.B.A. from Rutgers University, Laurel Mintz has created an agency serving both startups and blue-chip global brands like Facebook, Verizon Digital Media Group, PAW Patrol, and Zendesk. Laurel sits on the Board of Directors for NFTE (Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship), the Women Founders Network, and the UCLA Restaurant Conference. She is a mentor for The Women’s Global Leaders Initiative and advises LAVA (Los Angeles Venture Association). Her published work can be found in Entrepreneur, USA Today, The American Marketing Association, and C-Suite Quarterly Magazine. Laurel and the agency have recently won the W3 Silver Award for the PAW Patrol Road Patrol Campaign, the 2017 Patrick Soon-Shiong Innovation Award, the LABJ Women in Business Award, Comerica, and LA Lakers’ Women’s Business Award, amongst others.