A newsletter should always surprise its readers.

Email newsletters: everyone knows them, but hardly anyone reads them. This is at least true if some of the basics of good newsletters are violated. In the following five points, we will show you why these messages are often ignored and how you can avoid mistakes.

If you don't know how to convey any news worth mentioning, you shouldn't send out newsletters. Simply ask yourself whether you would be interested in the content of your email if you were your own customer. If this is not the case, you can do without the newsletter. So don't stubbornly follow a certain publication cycle, but only address your customers when you have really interesting news to share.

Short and snappy: This is how the introduction to a newsletter should be. Avoid statements that are too general and don't start with references to the good weather. Do you want to tell your customer about a groundbreaking development in your company? Then let the cat out of the bag in the very first sentence.

Remember that we no longer live in the age of desktop computers. Your email should always remain legible on smartphones and tablets too. Incorrect line breaks, huge graphics that only look good on desktop monitors or fonts that are too small will significantly dampen the customer's anticipation of your newsletter. Therefore, use tools to determine in advance how your email will look on all relevant end devices.

Personalize your emails. If you send the same newsletter to customers from different industries, perhaps 15% of recipients will feel addressed by it - and the remaining 85% will not be interested in the content of your newsletter at all. Therefore, try to respond to each individual customer as well as possible, even if this means additional work.

Remember that you always need a target. If you jump back and forth randomly between different topics in your newsletter, the customer will lose the thread and thus also their interest. Always report on one or two topics at a time - you can then cover the rest in just as much detail the next time.

We hope you will read the next Langmeier Backup or aBusiness newsletter with interest and if it violates the above rules, please let us know immediately!