By: Elizabeth Coffey, Marketing G2 Digital Marketing Specialist

Just because you were able to get people to sign up for your e-mail newsletter, doesn’t mean that they’re fully engaged with you and your brand. People are more strapped for time than ever before and are being sent more and more e-mail marketing messages than they can reasonably read or respond to in a day.

This is why it’s critical to capture the attention of your e-mail newsletter subscribers, creating audience engagement that ultimately leads your newsletter readers to your website to sign up for a subscription to your online digital publication. Cultivating a relationship between your brand and your e-mail recipients is how you are going to achieve your goals.

Use the tips and tricks below to stand out from the crowd and capture your audience’s attention directly from their inbox.

1. Make use of video – Embed short videos into your e-mails when appropriate. People are visual creatures and respond better to video than text. With videos, you can accomplish a couple of key objectives: explain your value proposition, showcase any new products you may have, and give your subscribers a sneak peak behind the scenes of your publication.


2. Make your e-mail content easy to digest – Long, detailed paragraphs are visually overwhelming to your readers. They only have so much mental bandwidth to go around. Break your content up into bite-sized bits of information and bullet points whenever possible. You want your readers to be able to skim your e-mails. If you need to add a “read more” button for a longer piece, do so but try to keep your e-mails easy to read.


3. Personalize your newsletter – A little personalization goes a long way to increase engagement. Address your newsletter subscribers by name, customize your subject lines to appeal to different subsets of your audience, etc. Get creative and speak your readers’ language.


4. Emphasize social proof – Do 9 out of 10 college-educated area residents read your publication? Do you have a lot of happy readers who’ve given you high praise? Use social proof to encourage subscriptions and engagement with your brand. Some examples of social proof include awards won, testimonials, press mentions, etc.

How does your publication plan to increase its newsletter e-mail engagement?