Let’s be real—email newsletters have a bad reputation. Too many businesses send out boring, salesy, or just plain forgettable emails that land straight in the trash (or worse, the spam folder). But when done right, a good newsletter can build relationships, boost sales, and keep your audience coming back for more. 

So how do you write an email newsletter that people actually want to read? One that doesn’t feel like a desperate sales pitch or a waste of inbox space? In this post, we’ll break down the key ingredients of a really good email newsletter—one that engages your readers, adds value, and (yes) even makes you money. 

We’ll cover:

• Coming up with subject lines for your email newsletters
• Writing more engaging email newsletters
• How to stay consistent with an email newsletter

1. Hook Them With a Strong Subject Line

So much content goes into a newsletter, but the most important copy is the subject line. You have 6-8 words to hook your audience and entice them enough to click (no pressure!). 

Our top two recommendations are to keep it short and make it intriguing. Most importantly, you want the full subject line to show up. If it’s too long and cut off at the end, your point won’t get across. 

Secondly, try tapping into your audience’s curiosity. Make them think “Ooo, what’s this about?”. You can try these types of subject line ideas to hook your audience: 

• Use a sense of urgency
• Add a personal touch 
• Ask a question
• Add an emoji

Here is a sample of subject lines from one of our nurture sequences along with their open rates:

• 👀Watch this to create your marketing strategy 63%
• Do your own marketing? OPEN UP 56%
• The unsexy secret to marketing 51%
• 🧭Getting lost with your marketing sucks 60%
• 🤓Like having a consultant in your pocket 54%
• 🏆Why simplicity wins marketing 54%
• 🥵Doing your own marketing is really hard 50%
• You’ll thank yourself later…61%

If your email platform allows, consider A/B testing email subject lines too! That means you can choose a couple, send both to a segment of your email list, and then the top-performing subject gets sent to the rest! 

For the rest of this article, we’re going to talk about how to write a really good email newsletter but none of that matters if your emails don’t get opened! Have fun playing with different formulas and styles and see what works for you.

2. Keep It Personal & Conversational

When it comes to your newsletter content, you need to write as though you’re sending your email to one person—picture a single client or someone you want to work with. Otherwise, it can feel like you’re just sending content into a void, making your newsletter feel less personable (and it will sound that way to your reader too).

If you’re writing to one person, you’ll probably address them often and share some anecdotes that are relevant to them. Personal stories, behind-the-scenes moments, and humor go a long way, even if you think what you’re saying isn’t related to your business. Building that connection will go much further than trying to push your business from the start. 

3. Provide Value (Not Just Promotions)

Speaking of building a connection, make sure your newsletter is focused on providing value, not just pushing promotions. Consider the education and information you can give your audience that’s unique to your expertise. 

For example, if you’re a designer, sharing quick design tips that other business owners can use in their day-to-day is way more engaging and helpful than trying to get them to buy a package of designs week after week. 

Don’t get us wrong, that doesn’t mean you can’t promote your business at all. In fact, a great newsletter can help you grow your sales. As a good rule of thumb, just make sure your newsletter is 80% value, 20% promotion. 

Another great example: Let’s say you’re a stationery store and you want to announce a new planner you’re selling. Instead of creating an entire email about the new product, share a tip about time management that then leads into your planners. 

4. Make It Skimmable

We’ve just talked about writing great content, but most people still won’t read it.

Let’s be honest: have you read every single word in this blog post? Probably not, and that’s ok! We’re all so busy that we’re used to skimming everything we read (it’s why ChatGPT and other AI tools often pull up their answers in bullet form!). 

Keep this in mind when you’re creating your newsletters so you can make them easy to read. The bottom line–no one wants to read a wall of text. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, bolding, and even emojis to highlight key points. 

5. Always Include a Clear CTA (Call to Action)

When you’re putting out great content on your newsletter weekly, you still want your audience to do more than read. Ideally, your readers will love what you have to say and want even more—that’s your opportunity to lead them to the next step (or an action they should take). 

Keep in mind that your audience? Can’t read your mind! You need to guide them forward and tell them exactly what to do next. That might be prompting them to reply to your newsletter, check out a free guide, or schedule a consultation with you. Most email software lets you add buttons to your emails—use them!

6. Use the Right Email Tool (We Recommend Flodesk!)

Can you imagine if you had to use Gmail or another email provider to manually send your newsletters? Thank goodness we have tools to automate it all!

We recommend using Flodesk to build and automate your email newsletter. It’s easy to use, beautifully designed, and perfect for small businesses. You can create stunning emails that your audience wants to engage with. Plus, their automation features make it easy to send welcome sequences, sales emails, and regular newsletters without extra work. 

7. Stay Consistent (Even If It’s Just Once a Month)

To keep your audience engaged, your newsletter needs to be consistent, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to write an email newsletter every week. Choose a schedule you can stick to based on your workload, whether it’s weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. 

And btw—sometimes less is more! You might feel pressured to create and send more content, but it’s so easy to get overwhelmed and feel like you’re falling short. The best cadence for your newsletter is the one that you can stick to. 

As long as you’re consistent, you can build trust with your audience and get more out of your newsletter over time. 

8. Encourage Replies

This is a big one (and we get our best data from this!). One of the benefits of being a small business owner is that you can create more genuine interactions with your audience. With your newsletter, you can ask people to reply as a way to increase engagement.

It’s a win-win-win: your audience feels seen, you can get a lot of great insight from them, and it helps increase your email deliverability! By responding, they’re signaling that they trust your email and want to keep receiving them, which makes sure your emails stay out of the spam folder.  

Create Your Email Marketing Strategy in Minutes

The hardest part of creating a newsletter is just getting started! Once it becomes part of your marketing routine, you’ll be creating consistent content that you can measure and adjust. 

To make it easier for you, try Enji’s marketing strategy generator to create a strategy that includes the time you have as well as all of the channels you should be using, including email. We can’t wait to read your future newsletters!