Welcome to the February edition of Not a Newsletter, a monthly, semi-comprehensive, Google Doc-based guide to sending better emails! I’m Dan, and I’m the Director of Newsletters at The New Yorker. Every month, I update this doc with email news, tips, and ideas. You can sign up here to be notified when a new edition is live — or you can bookmark notanewsletter.com for later!
When I launched the January edition, I had no idea how many of you would reach out with stories about the power of email. Not a Newsletter readers now include a Brazilian comic book writer who uses a personal newsletter to connect with fans; a circus-themed nightclub that uses marketing emails to bring in business; and news organizations, ad agencies, and design firms, in places like D.C., Toronto, and Milan. There are so many of us who work with email — I’m going to try to make something that’s useful for all of us!
One of the advantages of a Google Doc is that it makes it easy to read and search through older editions of Not a Newsletter. As this project rolls along, you’ll be able to find all of the previous Not a Newsletters at this link.
Now, onto this month’s edition! Inside, you’ll find free Google Analytics dashboards for tracking your newsletters, five simple rules for sending a great email, the worst MLK Day marketing email of 2019, dystopian strategies for email engagement, and more! Have something else you think should be featured in Not a Newsletter? Email me at dan@inboxcollective.com.
-Dan
This Month in Email News
- Campaign Monitor acquires enterprise services Sailthru and Liveclicker (TechCrunch)
- Twilio Completes Purchase Of SendGrid, Deal Valued At $3 Billion (MediaPost)
- In related news: How A Surprise Breakfast Burrito Helped Twilio Acquire SendGrid (Forbes)
- The Hot New Channel for Reaching Real People: Email (The Wall Street Journal)
- ‘Don’t let the fox in the chicken coop’: Confessions of a publishing exec on post-GDPR data leakage (Digiday)
- Graydon Carter Joins the Newsletter Brigade (The New York Times)
- Inside.com had $1.1 million in revenue last year and just raised $2.6 million more (via the Nieman Lab newsletter)
- Axios Is Celebrating Its Second Anniversary—And Virtual Profitability (Vanity Fair)
- Email’s Next Act: It’s Still About ‘The List’ (Folio:)
- Only 6% Of News Organizations Use Tech To Ensure Authentic Emails (MediaPost)
Two Free Analytics Resources (a Not a Newsletter Exclusive!)
- So many of you wrote in with questions about how to track success in newsletters, so I wanted to share two Google Analytics dashboards that I use every day at work. They’re a great way to keep track of which newsletters are driving traffic to your site.
- First things first: You’re going to need to have GA set up on your site. If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re way past that step 🙂
- Make sure you’ve supplied your email service provider with UTM parameters (those tracking tags). In particular, you’re going want to supply unique parameters for Source, Campaign, and Medium (although you may want to customize it beyond that!)
- There are two different dashboards here:
- Top-Line Newsletter Stats — a dashboard so you can see traffic for the previous day/week/month/year (however you want to customize it)
- Real-Time Newsletter Stats — a dashboard for the previous 30 minutes of traffic
- Open up the Top-Line dashboard first. Choose the “view” for the dashboard (basically, just select your site from the dropdown).
- It’ll open the dashboard. There won’t be any data in there yet, but we’re going to fix that! Mouse over each section of the dashboard, and click on the pencil in the top right corner of the box (GA refers to these as “widgets”).
- Go down to the “Filter this data” section. I’ve set it up so that it’s filtering by “Source” — those tend to get you more accurate data. Where I’ve written “Source Goes Here,” replace that with your UTM source parameter! Then save.
- Your data should appear! Now adjust the source for the other widgets on the page.
- Go ahead and bookmark your dashboard for easy reference. (Or you can find it later by using the menu on the left side and going to Customization —> Dashboards.)
- And then repeat the process for the Real-Time dashboard!
For Your Reading List
- I really enjoyed these seven lessons from Ann Handley about writing a good newsletter. This one was particularly great: “The most important part of a newsletter is not the ‘news,’ but the ‘letter.'”
- Last month, I wrote about my theory that the inbox is like a living room. Then I got an email from loyal Not a Newsletter reader Val Geisler, who has a similar theory around email that she calls The Dinner Party Strategy. I love this — it’s a great way to think about building out a newsletter strategy!
- On a related note: A former BuzzFeed colleague of mine, Kelly Oakes, wrote a really interesting piece for the BBC: Why it pays to declutter your digital life. It’s about digital hoarders — that one person in your family who never deletes an email, or the friend who keeps all of their emails marked as unread. When you’re sending a newsletter, keep these readers in mind. Their inboxes are cluttered, so you need to find ways to cut through that.
- A few years ago, I created five simple rules for sending a great newsletter and cutting through the clutter:
- Be actionable — Readers should know exactly what you want them to do (click, buy, share, read, etc.) when they get your email.
- Be useful — Before you send, ask yourself, “Is a reader actually going to be able to use this? Will it help them?” If not: Why are you sending it?
- Be timely — Reach your readers at the right time.
- Be personal — Like Ann Handley said above: The “letter” matters.
- Be delightful — Make sure you’re giving them something great every time you send a newsletter.
- Do those five things with every newsletter, and you’ll always send good email. 💌
- A bunch of wonderful email folks launched newsletterguide.org. If you work at a news organization, and you’re launching a newsletter, you’ll get a ton from their guide.
- Litmus launched their 2019 State of Email report. It’s more than 50 pages of data around new email clients (including a deeper look at Outlook 2019), GDPR, and challenges for email marketers. As always, it’s a fantastic read.
- Return Path launched their 2019 State of Email Engagement report. Lots to learn in here about deliverability and how others are maintaining their lists.
- Tim Watson at Zettasphere dives deep into consumer behavior around unsubscribing, and offers nine excellent rules for emailers to follow:
1) Make the unsubscribe prominent at the bottom of the email.
2) Use the word unsubscribe for the link text. It’s what consumers look for.
3) Consider an unsubscribe at the top as well as the bottom. Particularly if deliverability is a concern.
4) Don’t wrap the unsubscribe link in a long line of copy.
5) Avoid more dominant links in the footer that sound related to unsubscribe.
6) Use a large font for unsubscribe link. Minimum size as the email body.
7) Put plenty of whitespace around the unsubscribe link to help it stand out.
8) Use an unsubscribe page to confirm unsubscribe rather than one click unsubscribe.
9) Provide alternative options on the unsubscribe page to keep people subscribed, but don’t overload, ideally 2 or 3 options only.
- If you oversee several big lists, I highly recommend reading Tim’s entire piece. Ever wonder why you have so many inactive subscribers? Part of the reason: There are readers who want to unsubscribe but can’t figure out how to! Everyone loses a percentage of their readers to the unsubscribe button, so you might as well make it easy for them to go. As Litmus wisely said back in 2016: an unsubscribe is far better than being marked as spam.
- I found this, from Ray Schultz at MediaPost, fascinating: These were the ten most-clicked-on phishing subject lines of 2018. (My sincerest apologies to everyone who got phished trying to retrieve those two new faxes from Microsoft SharePoint.)
- Over on the Emma blog, they looked at the best CTAs from newsletters from 2018.
- David Pogue discussed the danger of the reply all button. (And if you want a fun historical read, here’s a piece about one of the first reply-all apocalypses, which took place in 1997 at Microsoft.)
- Here’s a story from The Wall Street Journal that didn’t sit well with me: Colleges Mine Data on Their Applicants.
Enrollment officers at schools including Seton Hall University, Quinnipiac University and Dickinson College know down to the second when prospective students opened an email from the school, how long they spent reading it and whether they clicked through to any links…
Mary Ethington, an independent college counselor outside of Chicago, tells students to relax, assume their web traffic with the school is being monitored and to open every email from a college as if it were homework.
- We’re just a few months away from an obsessive parent blaming their child’s college rejection on an inbox deliverability problem. (“Timmy wanted to go to Stanford, but their emails kept landing in the spam folder!”) On the other hand: “We’re Watching You At All Times!” is, I suppose, an effective way to guarantee stronger email engagement. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Dave Pell (of the great NextDraft newsletter), explained why newsletters are immortal.
A Marketing Email That Made Me Yell “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” So Loudly That My Wife Thought Something Was Actually Wrong
- A friend forwarded me this one, from retailer SHEIN, that they sent out on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. The subject line is “In Honor of the King… Final Hours For Free Shipping!” Using a civil rights leader to sell evening wear isn’t a particularly good look — but it somehow gets worse! Here’s your call to action (terrible green highlighting mine): “Join us, find your forever styles, and help keep the dream alive.”
- So what did we learn here? There are few things you can count on in life: Death, taxes, and brands making unforgivable email mistakes involving civil rights leaders. Check back in this space next year to see what brands will do next!
Legitimately Helpful YouTube Video of the Month
- A friend just started grad school at NYU, and in her orientation sessions, they made all students watch this video, which explains how to send a good email. And I have to say: It’s fantastic, useful, and covers email etiquette in two minutes. I highly recommend it.
- And if watching videos about email isn’t your thing: Back in 2015, I wrote a guide to sending better email at work. These rules still very much apply.
That’s all for this edition! Want to be notified when next month’s edition of Not a Newsletter is live? Sign up here:
