When it comes to digital marketing, less is more. In today’s age of content oversaturation, people are understandably selective about the space in their inbox. If newsletters are too frequent or too promotional, email recipients won’t hesitate to ignore them—or worse, unsubscribe or mark them as spam.
In response, brands are increasingly opting for quality over quantity. In fact, a 2022 survey found that 83% of marketers believe it’s more effective to create higher quality content less often.
What does this mean for your email marketing campaigns? It may be time to declutter your content calendar and consider monthly newsletters. Whether you’re reevaluating your digital marketing strategy or creating a newsletter for the first time, here’s what you need to know about writing a newsletter that engages your readers without overwhelming them.
What is a monthly newsletter?
A monthly newsletter is a written publication shared once a month by email that provides subscribers with news, upcoming events, discounts and promos, updates, and other information about your company to your target audience.
The purpose of a newsletter is to drive sales by building and maintaining a relationship with subscribers. That’s why many companies send newsletters on a consistent basis, such as weekly or monthly. While one-off emails—such as a holiday gift guide or seasonal Valentine’s Day promotion—can have a short-term impact, monthly newsletters are designed to generate sales over the long term. If email subscribers find value in your content, they’ll look forward to seeing it in their inboxes, and are more likely to become loyal, engaged customers over time.
4 benefits of a monthly newsletter
Monthly newsletters can play an important role in your larger digital marketing strategy. The unique benefits of creating a newsletter include:
- Building a brand
- Communicating directly with email subscribers
- Nurturing customers
- Driving traffic to other platforms
1. Building a brand
Today, 82% of consumers want to support brands that align with their values. Monthly newsletters can build trust and credibility by giving consumers a sense of your brand identity, team culture, and company mission, rather than just pushing sales.
2. Communicating directly with email subscribers
Unlike many other forms of digital marketing, such as banner ads or social media posts, newsletters reach people directly in their inbox. Depending on your subscriber data, you can also personalize the content to individual recipients—for example, automatically including the subscriber’s first name.
3. Nurturing customers
Newsletters are a valuable tool for moving people through your marketing funnel. For example, you can send discounts to a segment of your email subscribers that you know is highly engaged to help convert them into customers.
4. Driving traffic to other platforms
While a monthly newsletter should provide subscribers with valuable content in the email body itself, it ideally also includes opportunities to dive deeper on other platforms. For example, you can include a call to action (CTA) that leads your email subscribers to click through to a blog post on your website or follow your social media account.
5 elements of a monthly newsletter
The best monthly newsletters include these five common elements:
- A clear and compelling subject line
- An interesting preheader
- A beautiful newsletter design
- Relevant content for your audience
- A call to action (CTA)
1. A clear and compelling subject line
A clear and compelling subject line conveys the topic of the newsletter. The most effective copy is brief yet engaging, previews the newsletter’s content, and includes language that spurs action. For example, you might use “FInal hours” to promote a sale or “Trending” to highlight your most popular items.
2. An interesting preheader
A preheader is the short text that appears after the sender name and the subject line that introduces the content of the newsletter in a subscriber’s inbox. Like the subject line, it can help build anticipation and encourage email recipients to open your newsletter.
3. A beautiful newsletter design
Newsletter design is the layout and visual style of the newsletter. An aesthetically pleasing newsletter design can make the difference between recipients engaging with the newsletter and deleting it altogether. Your email newsletter design should include white space, a simple, easy-to-read layout, and responsive design, so it looks beautiful whether viewed on a smartphone, computer, or another device.
4. Relevant content for your audience
This is the content that your target audience is interested in reading or viewing, and aligns with your business goals. Delivering relatable, useful information that can impact subscribers’ personal or business lives can help grow your customer base.
5. A call to action (CTA)
A CTA urges readers to act with the goal of converting potential customers into customers. Call-to-action examples are “Learn more” or “Buy now.” These actions often include click-throughs to product pages or other assets via a text link, button, or image.
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5 steps to producing a monthly newsletter
Here’s a step-by-step guide to writing a newsletter:
- Identify your target audience
- Choose a design
- Craft a compelling subject line
- Decide what type of content to include
- Send, measure, and test
1. Identify your target audience
Who are you trying to reach with your monthly newsletters? You can analyze your existing customer base, conduct market research, or analyze competitors to define the unique characteristics, demographics, and interests of your ideal customer. That way, you can create relevant newsletter content that speaks specifically to their interests, wants, or needs.
2. Choose a design
Your newsletter design should reflect your brand aesthetic with a careful balance of visuals, copy, and calls to action. Many platforms—including Shopify—offer built-in email newsletter templates, so you can design a template from scratch or customize an array of pre-made templates.
3. Craft a compelling subject line
As the first item email recipients see, your subject line is often the deciding factor for whether someone opens your email or not. The ideal length for a newsletter subject line is three to six words (or less than 50 characters) to ensure it’s visible to a reader skimming their inbox on a mobile device.
4. Decide what type of content to include
There are many different types of content you can include in monthly newsletters. Since you’re only sending it out once a month, you may want to include a few different sections. Common types of content include a letter from the founder, blog post, customer success story, product announcement or how-to guide, or upcoming event section. You might also want to share photos or an inspirational quote.
5. Send, measure, and test
Once you send a newsletter, you can measure its effectiveness based on key email metrics like open rate, click-through rates, unsubscribes, and conversion rates. As you gather this data, test different times, subject lines, and formats to determine what works best for your audience.
Measuring the success of your monthly newsletters
The definition of a “successful” monthly newsletter varies from company to company, but there are some standard metrics an email marketer may use to measure effectiveness, including:
- List growth rate. This is the percentage of net-new email subscribers who join your email over a given period of time (new subscribers minus unsubscribers, divided by total number of subscribers and multiplied by 100). For monthly newsletters, look at this metric quarterly or annually.
- Open rate. This is the percentage of subscribers who open your monthly newsletter (the number of people who open the email, divided by the number of people who received the email, multiplied by 100). Open rate is valuable when used comparatively—such as comparing this month’s email newsletter to last month’s email newsletter—for insight into which subject lines, send times, topics, or other elements resonate with subscribers.
- Click-through rate (CTR). This is the percentage of email subscribers who click on a call to action in your email newsletter after opening it (the number of total clicks or unique clicks divided by the number of delivered emails, then multiplied by 100). CTR is a valuable way to track engagement with your newsletter.
- Unsubscribes. This is the percentage of subscribers who opt out of receiving your email newsletter after opening it (the number of unsubscribed users divided by the number of emails delivered, multiplied by 100). Unsubscribes are a helpful metric for understanding whether recipients find your emails valuable.
- Conversion rate. This is the percentage of email subscribers who become customers by purchasing products and services from your company (usually measured by the number of people who completed a desired action divided by the number of emails delivered and multiplied by 100). Conversion rate is one of the most important metrics to track, as it measures how successful your newsletter is at turning subscribers into customers.
What are good benchmark metrics?
The standard rates differ by industry, but there are some general benchmarks for email marketing campaigns when it comes to measuring the success of your monthly newsletters:
- The average open rate in the US is 21%
- The average click-through rate is 2.2%
- The average unsubscribe rate is 0.1%
If you aren’t getting the results you want, you can always test different newsletter ideas. The benefit of a monthly newsletter is you have the flexibility and time to experiment with content, newsletter design, and other aspects.
Most importantly, you can also ask your email recipients what they want. Since you have a direct line of communication with your readers, you can ask them to fill out surveys or respond to you with feedback.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when creating a monthly newsletter?
Several common mistakes to avoid when writing monthly newsletters are:
- Failing to define your target audience
- Using a poor email newsletter design or generic newsletter templates
- Writing a lengthy or confusing subject line
- Sharing overly promotional or irrelevant content
- Not including a clear call to action (CTA) to drive traffic to your website
Monthly newsletters FAQ
How often should I send my newsletter?
The recommended frequency for newsletters is at least once a month. Following a consistent schedule is part of establishing trust with your target audience.
How can I ensure that my monthly newsletter is effective in reaching my target audience?
The best way to reach your target audience is by sharing valuable and relevant content. As most people’s inboxes are full of unread emails, your monthly newsletters should aim to cut through the clutter with an engaging subject line, well-designed newsletter templates, and information your email subscribers care about.
What are some common mistakes to avoid when creating a monthly newsletter?
Several common mistakes to avoid when writing monthly newsletters are:
- Failing to define your target audience
- Using a poor email newsletter design or generic newsletter templates
- Writing a lengthy or confusing subject line
- Sharing overly promotional or irrelevant content
- Not including a clear call to action (CTA) to drive traffic to your website
How do I manage my email list for my monthly newsletter?
First, build a list of email subscribers by gathering contact information from customers and adding newsletter sign-up forms to your website. Once you have contact information, you can use a platform like Shopify Email to import, track, and segment your email list.
