A newsletter can be an excellent way to get to get your message out to your audience—if you handle it correctly. With the right approach, a newsletter can be interesting and engaging, pulling your audience in and getting them excited about your message. If you take the wrong approach, you will end up with an audience that feels pestered or even views your communication as spam.

Important Elements of a Newsletter

While part of a successful newsletter is the content, much of its success comes down to the elements you include. Below are the most important elements to include in your newsletter if you want your audience to be receptive to your message.

Your Brand as the Sender and in the Subject Line of the Email

We all have found ourselves looking at an email in our inbox, unable to determine who sent it to us or what is it is about. The sender is Garret or Samantha, and the subject line is as vague as possible. Better safe than sorry, we delete it.

If you want your audience to open your email—and you do—you need to make sure you identify who you are and what company you represent. Without making this clear, you will not even get your foot in the door.

Create a Subject Line that will Inspire Curiosity

In addition to mentioning your company or brand, you need a subject line that will secure the click. Make sure it drives at the heart of what you are communicating in the newsletter and is phrased well. Not sure how to create a catchy subject line? Take the time to browse viral content, such as that on Buzzfeed; their headings are excellent examples.

A Good Template

One way you can inspire trust is making sure your newsletter looks nice and professional. Take the time to browse various professionally designed templates and pick the one that works best for you. Whatever template you select, make sure it is simple and mobile friendly; not too many pictures, simple fonts, and basic colors are features to look for.

A Call to Action

Every good newsletter should end with a call to actions. This might be to buy a product or watch a video or visit a website. One great call to action is to encourage your audience to share the newsletter with others via social media or email. However, the idea is that you should motivate them to take further action that will benefit your company or brand.