This isn't a click-baity headline sneakily chosen to attract random SEO attention, I promise you. Instead, today I share five things that I have personally AND recently been frustrated by; failures in the execution of other peoples' email newsletters. Missing features and choices that made it difficult for me to celebrate and share your content. And I want to share your content. Many people send many great email newsletters; they're such a great mechanism for connection and communication. I am, in short, a newsletter fan.
But I get really annoyed by a newsletter that lacks one or more of these vital bits of functionality. Allow me to explain what each bit is and why I think it is important to include these features and functions in your email newsletter.
Am I a master of email newsletters? Hardly. I happily cede that others (like the amazing and wise Dan Oshinsky of Inbox Collective) know more. But I'll share what little I do know.
Number One: View online link
The primary must have for me? A "view online" or "view as a webpage" (VAWP) link for your email newsletter. Here's why. Last week, a particular newsletter, on a topic relevant to my day job, but a topic that I don't know much about, had such compelling content that I really wanted to share it with two coworkers on Slack. Except there was no "share this" or "view online" link for me to drop into the Slack chat. I could forward the email, yeah, but without a link to share, I'm denied the easy opportunity to share content in the forum where a relevant discussion is actually happening at this very second. This is a huge missed opportunity for the newsletter publisher! (I ended up sharing a screen shot instead and it didn't look so hot.)
Fun fact: I used to think that "VAWP" links were useless cruft, a pointless feature included by email marketing platforms for no valuable reason. I now realize how I wrong I was, and how important they can be to out-of-band sharing.
Number Two: Online newsletter archive
Similarly, an up-to-date online archive, a home page where I can go find current or past newsletter editions to cite and/or share. In a very recent example, when I hunted for the newsletter archive, I found it, but it was 3-4 issues behind. Looks like perhaps it gets updated manually, and keeping it updated isn't a priority. I sympathize; it's work. But again, opportunity lost. I wanted to share your expertise, tell people about how great you are and how great your content is, but I gave up because it was too hard.
Do I even have my own online newsletter archive? Not really; so maybe I'm being a bit "do as I say, not as I do" here. But unlike most email newsletters, mine is literally a summary and export of the last week's posts from my blog. Go to my website, they're all right there. Easy to find and share. (So if your newsletter is 100% links to your blog articles, like mine is, maybe you're already covered here.)
Number Three: Newsletter homepage or website
Please create a homepage or simple website for your newsletter, if you don't already have one. I'm looking for an easy place to link to, a single page that explains what kind of content you send, how often you send it, and who you are – a clear description of who the person or brand is behind the newsletter. (Not everybody is as broadly known as CNN or Buzzfeed.)
Why? Again, because I want to tell my friends about you. But you make it so difficult, sometimes! Don't make it so tough to share and love!
Every email newsletter should contain a "Were you forwarded this email? Click to subscribe" link in every email message. Just exactly what it says. People forward me emails. Sometimes I want to subscribe to those emails. Make it easy for me to do so. Please! Lead me to the signup page and I'll subscribe. I promise! So many newsletters lack this obvious and simple feature and it is such a missed opportunity to invite in new subscribers.
This is yet another feature that I initially thought was silly, because I didn't understand the value. How wrong I was!
Number Five: Consistent branding, recognizable names
Your newsletter needs consistent branding with (usually) both the person's name AND brand name. Help me remember who you are and why I signed up. There are two different ways to handle this, depending on what/who you are and how big you are.
First, if you're a consultant or strategist, you're probably a solo act, running the whole thing yourself. I get that. That's how I live my life over here in Spam Resource land. But you'll note that I generally brand things as Al Iverson's Spam Resource, or though my newsletter is primarily Spam Resource-branded, I open most newsletters by introducing myself by name. I do that with two goals in mind: First, to remind people that I am Al Iverson, and second, to build the brand of Spam Resource.
Which one did you sign up for? Doesn't matter; I'm covering it from both angles. People on Linkedin and in various online communities tend to know this as Al Iverson's content. People finding me via Google and AI tend to know the brand as Spam Resource.
There are multiple consultants or strategic experts who, after I sign up after following them personally from Linkedin (meaning I'm aware of them by name), I start getting email newsletters from Company X. It turns out that Company X is the business name for the solo act. That's OK. But I don't always remember, and if I don't remember, it's hard for me to remember YOU or connect with you. Help me out here. Remind me who you are.
The flip side of that is when big brands or organizations send me emails with a from address (and friendly from) of an individual. Most who signed up for emails from Coca Cola have no idea who James Quincy is. (He's their CEO, by the way, and they don't seem to fall prey to this branding mistake; it's just a very easy example to make.) If I don't recognize the sender, I'm less likely to open the email, and even more likely to report it as spam. Marketing and fundraising emails absolutely can include personal messages from individuals; but off-brand from/friendly from (and variability) is something I find so confusing and frustrating.
I'm sure some people will argue that I'm wrong about this one. It's something I've felt very strongly about for years, to the point that I can remember debating it with one of ExactTarget's founders many years ago. Who am I, some random guy who wanders in off the street with his strong opinions about email best practices and deliverability? My ego will survive, even if you don't agree. If you've found a different path and it works well for you … great! Not that I have any way to stop you. But if you ever planned to ask my opinion about it… well, now you know.
My deeply held opinion on the fifth point notwithstanding, the others seem like no-brainers to me, things you should be adding now, or nudging your sending platforms to add support for if they don't already have these features. And don't get me started on other, additional things you could and should be doing, like making sure you've got permalinks to individual articles, an easy way to find those articles on your website or blog, that you're using mobile-friendly email templates that don't fumble and crumble in dark mode and that don't ignore modem accessibility standards. But this is already a very long article, so I'll leave it there for now.
This isn't a click-baity headline sneakily chosen to attract random SEO attention, I promise you. Instead, today I share five things that I have personally AND recently been frustrated by; failures in the execution of other peoples' email newsletters. Missing features and choices that made it difficult for me to celebrate and share your content. And I want to share your content. Many people send many great email newsletters; they're such a great mechanism for connection and communication. I am, in short, a newsletter fan.
But I get really annoyed by a newsletter that lacks one or more of these vital bits of functionality. Allow me to explain what each bit is and why I think it is important to include these features and functions in your email newsletter.
Am I a master of email newsletters? Hardly. I happily cede that others (like the amazing and wise Dan Oshinsky of Inbox Collective) know more. But I'll share what little I do know.
Number One: View online link
The primary must have for me? A "view online" or "view as a webpage" (VAWP) link for your email newsletter. Here's why. Last week, a particular newsletter, on a topic relevant to my day job, but a topic that I don't know much about, had such compelling content that I really wanted to share it with two coworkers on Slack. Except there was no "share this" or "view online" link for me to drop into the Slack chat. I could forward the email, yeah, but without a link to share, I'm denied the easy opportunity to share content in the forum where a relevant discussion is actually happening at this very second. This is a huge missed opportunity for the newsletter publisher! (I ended up sharing a screen shot instead and it didn't look so hot.)Number Two: Online newsletter archive
Similarly, an up-to-date online archive, a home page where I can go find current or past newsletter editions to cite and/or share. In a very recent example, when I hunted for the newsletter archive, I found it, but it was 3-4 issues behind. Looks like perhaps it gets updated manually, and keeping it updated isn't a priority. I sympathize; it's work. But again, opportunity lost. I wanted to share your expertise, tell people about how great you are and how great your content is, but I gave up because it was too hard.Number Three: Newsletter homepage or website
Please create a homepage or simple website for your newsletter, if you don't already have one. I'm looking for an easy place to link to, a single page that explains what kind of content you send, how often you send it, and who you are – a clear description of who the person or brand is behind the newsletter. (Not everybody is as broadly known as CNN or Buzzfeed.)Why? Again, because I want to tell my friends about you. But you make it so difficult, sometimes! Don't make it so tough to share and love!
Number Four: Were you forwarded this email?
Every email newsletter should contain a "Were you forwarded this email? Click to subscribe" link in every email message. Just exactly what it says. People forward me emails. Sometimes I want to subscribe to those emails. Make it easy for me to do so. Please! Lead me to the signup page and I'll subscribe. I promise! So many newsletters lack this obvious and simple feature and it is such a missed opportunity to invite in new subscribers.Number Five: Consistent branding, recognizable names
Your newsletter needs consistent branding with (usually) both the person's name AND brand name. Help me remember who you are and why I signed up. There are two different ways to handle this, depending on what/who you are and how big you are.First, if you're a consultant or strategist, you're probably a solo act, running the whole thing yourself. I get that. That's how I live my life over here in Spam Resource land. But you'll note that I generally brand things as Al Iverson's Spam Resource, or though my newsletter is primarily Spam Resource-branded, I open most newsletters by introducing myself by name. I do that with two goals in mind: First, to remind people that I am Al Iverson, and second, to build the brand of Spam Resource.
Which one did you sign up for? Doesn't matter; I'm covering it from both angles. People on Linkedin and in various online communities tend to know this as Al Iverson's content. People finding me via Google and AI tend to know the brand as Spam Resource.
There are multiple consultants or strategic experts who, after I sign up after following them personally from Linkedin (meaning I'm aware of them by name), I start getting email newsletters from Company X. It turns out that Company X is the business name for the solo act. That's OK. But I don't always remember, and if I don't remember, it's hard for me to remember YOU or connect with you. Help me out here. Remind me who you are.
The flip side of that is when big brands or organizations send me emails with a from address (and friendly from) of an individual. Most who signed up for emails from Coca Cola have no idea who James Quincy is. (He's their CEO, by the way, and they don't seem to fall prey to this branding mistake; it's just a very easy example to make.) If I don't recognize the sender, I'm less likely to open the email, and even more likely to report it as spam. Marketing and fundraising emails absolutely can include personal messages from individuals; but off-brand from/friendly from (and variability) is something I find so confusing and frustrating.
I'm sure some people will argue that I'm wrong about this one. It's something I've felt very strongly about for years, to the point that I can remember debating it with one of ExactTarget's founders many years ago. Who am I, some random guy who wanders in off the street with his strong opinions about email best practices and deliverability? My ego will survive, even if you don't agree. If you've found a different path and it works well for you … great! Not that I have any way to stop you. But if you ever planned to ask my opinion about it… well, now you know.
My deeply held opinion on the fifth point notwithstanding, the others seem like no-brainers to me, things you should be adding now, or nudging your sending platforms to add support for if they don't already have these features. And don't get me started on other, additional things you could and should be doing, like making sure you've got permalinks to individual articles, an easy way to find those articles on your website or blog, that you're using mobile-friendly email templates that don't fumble and crumble in dark mode and that don't ignore modem accessibility standards. But this is already a very long article, so I'll leave it there for now.
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