With August flying by, at BlueLena we’re thinking about — dare I type it — the end of summer. The upcoming Labor Day weekend is a great time to promote a sale or trial, and we have three new campaign options you can choose from for your organization. See the gray box below for more info and links to the template mock-ups.
A new season is also a natural time to revisit your email products. To that tune, here are two ideas for newsletter products and a few of our newsletter best practices for subject lines and preview text:
The one about events: If your newsroom is planning to host or partner on events this fall — or if you offer events-related content like things to do articles and exhibit reviews — an events newsletter can be used to send that information to your readers, further engaging them not only via email, but potentially across event registrations. An events newsletter should include a forward to a friend option so readers can quickly share event details.
Seasons greetings: The opportunities for limited-run newsletters are endless. Right now, you could start a limited-run election newsletter, providing voting information and candidate guides to readers. Generally, election newsletters end after an election cycle, once you’ve reported the results and implications to your audience. When you launch a limited-run newsletter, be sure to let your audience know how long your newsletter will run and what they can expect from the newsletter. Conclude your limited-run newsletter with a survey to gather impressions from your subscribers.
What else? What other content does your newsroom cover that you want to send directly to your audience? Do you have an audio element like a streaming newscast, an app, or a podcast? Are you launching a new investigative series?
And now for a few newsletter best practices:
Subject lines: Subject lines should be concise and convincing. This is why people will open your newsletter — or why they’ll skim past it! For a regularly-sent newsletter, you can keep it simple: xxx Weekly Newsletter or xxx Weekly. Of course, you can get more creative if you want to. Keep your subject line consistent across all issues.
Use no more than 60 characters in your subject line — 40-50 is ideal. Most email clients will cut off after 60 characters (if not before).
Preview text: Think of this as the teaser for your email. Preview text can be longer than a subject line, highlighting what’s inside or sharing a quote quote from one of the articles.
Use 90-100 characters in your preview text. Mobile clients will pull in about 50 characters; desktop clients will include more characters.
Sender: Who will the newsletter send from: a reporter, editor or another member of your team? If the newsletter is not sending from a specific person, set up an email address for the newsletter: hello@xxx. Always send from an organizational email address so your reader can identify the sender immediately — and not send your email to spam!
Personalize: Use subscriber data to personalize your newsletter with a custom greeting. Perhaps include a note mentioning how long the subscriber has been reading your newsletter — this works particularly well if you’re asking for contributions. Use the data however you choose to customize your subscriber’s experience.
Emojis: Yes, use them. Show that a real person is writing the newsletter!
Want to talk more about newsletters? Don’t hesitate to reach out! Just hit reply on this email and send your questions my way.
Our new Labor Day campaigns focus on Labor Day weekend sales and promotions. If you’d like to use one of these templates, complete this Google form.
- Labor Day sale: For a Labor Day-specific sale, trial, or promotion.
- End of summer sale: For a sale, trial, or promotion that can run anytime over Labor Day weekend.
- All the news you need this fall: For a sale, trial, or promotion with an emphasis on upcoming election news.
An important note: we’re offering to import these emails directly into your ActiveCampaign account and send you links to edit. Your team can then schedule and send on its own, or you can rely on BlueLena’s support hours. The choice is yours!
Didn’t find a campaign to suit your needs? We’ll continue rolling out new campaigns on a monthly basis. Keep an eye on your inbox for the next round — and know that end-of-year campaigns are coming soon!