Email newsletters are a great way to stay in touch with your valuable customers and prospects so you can continue to build relationships and remind them of what you do and how hard you do it. Not only that, but email marketing is a cost effective way to market your small business.

The people on your mailing list will have self-selected into your list, i.e. they say, I want to hear from you. And having a regular email marketing campaign, like a monthly email newsletter, will help you grow your business, keep you top of mind, and increase your sales.

But to make the most of your email newsletters you need to make them readable and engaging, here 5 writing tips to help you improve your newsletters:

1. Use ‘you’ more than ‘we’

Speak directly to your readers by talking about them and not about you. By using the word “you” rather than “we” your newsletter will be more engaging and people will be more likely to read it.

Once you’ve written your email, check it contains the word “we” and when you find it, rephrase the sentence or paragraph so that it’s 100% focused on your reader.

2. Use the 80/20 rule

Chances are, your readers don’t want to read about your wonderful products or services. They are actually interested in how they can solve the problems they have, so keep your email newsletter educational and make 80% of your content useful and helpful to your audience and keep self-promotion to 20 %. Aggressive selling is dead. Too much self-promotion puts people off and people will just delete your emails without opening them or unsubscribe.

The only time you should deviate from this rule is if you have exciting news about your product, service, or business.

3. Stay focused

People don’t have the attention span to read long emails; so don’t cram too much information into the email. If you have a lot to tell people, write it in separate blog posts or news articles on your website and link to them with some teaser text.

You also don’t want too many different calls to action (CTA) in your newsletter. Choose a primary CTA and give it pride of place, then consider other CTAs just in case you have time. These secondary calls to action could include Send to a friend Where Share on social networks.

4. Make sure your images have alt text

Images in emails help engage your readers, but they can also be problematic because not everyone has images enabled. Alt text is the alt text that appears when images are not loaded in an email or on a web page and it tells your reader what the image is about (it is also useful for SEO).

Alt Text especially important if you use an i to damage as a CTA. You want to make sure people click even if the image doesn’t download, so make your alt text descriptive and tell people what you want them to do.

5. Remind people who you are

Don’t assume everyone will remember you, so always put a bit about what you do and your contact information at the bottom of every email.

Use these simple copywriting tips in your next email and you’ll have a better chance of people engaging with your newsletter, which will help you build relationships that lead to sales.

What works for you when you send your newsletters by e-mail? Share your tips with us in the comments below.