TL;DR:

Pull out the red pen and start crossing out whats no longer working. Do not go into 2021 with the mentality of this is how weve always done it. This year has shown us that we need to adjust how we serve our audiences.

Pull all the email data you can for the past three years. If the data is showing you that no ones reading your sports content in email, pandemic or not, then nix that newsletter. Find out what other channels resonate more with that audience, create a strategy around serving them there, and invite those newsletter subscribers to join you.

Do this for all your newsletters. Commit to developing a more intentional strategy around your newsletters that have high engagement, retention and loyalty rates.

If you think automating your daily and weekly newsletters will take work off your plate, youre wrong. Theyll make your job harder when your subscribers start tuning out and unsubscribing and youll have nothing to show for all your work at the end of the year.

The next time you think of automating a newsletter, instead think of how you can innovate. Innovation sometimes looks like subject-line testing, removing content from the lineup thats not performing, suppressing chronic non-openers for a few sends, developing segments, implementing re-engagement emails, and trusting your news judgment on what your subscribers need in the moment.

Less is always more. Modern designs are impersonal and they signal transactional relationships especially after the holiday onslaught of retail emails well all be drowning in soon enough.

Redefine your relationship with your subscriber via the more simple and intimate: plain text. Plain text is where its at, my friends. And if you insist on an image, go ahead and add a simple header to that email but thats it. Use your good old print-days typography and layout skills to weave a story via email.

Curation and engagement are now the bare minimum required to keep anyones attention past the welcome email. Think beyond the click and toward the share for increased retention and loyalty rates. You want your subscribers to rally their network toward your publication by sharing signup links on their socials, group chats, and the online communities theyve invested in. Nurture them toward these actions with carefully crafted retention journeys and loyalty programs.

Jacque Palmer is a senior content strategist focused on newsletters for Gannett.

Visit link:

The rise of the plain-text email newsletter - Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard