Nine steps to the perfect email newsletter

Tamsin-Fox Davies, small business evangelist at Constant Contact, shares nine tips for creating email newsletters that engage your customers.

Tamsin will offer more in-depth email marketing advice alongside content expert Kris Tait and social media trainer Jennifer Begg at our Digital Marketing for Small Businesses event in London on 30 June. Buy your ticket here.

The first two words of an email subject line are the most important.

Keep email marketing messages as short as possible as more to read means more people will skip over what you have to say.

Have only one call to action in each email. Fewer choices increase the amount of take-up you'll get from your readers.

Constant Contact studies show that if an email includes more than three images, it is less likely to get click-throughs.

Make all of your images clickable links. People click on images to see what happens, so make something happen and take them where you want them to go online!

People love to see their own names so personalise your email campaigns by starting them with the reader's names.

Include links to your main social networks on every email so that your subscribers can find you online (they won't search themselves).

Opt-in is vital. Don't bother buying a list and ALWAYS ask before you add someone to your mailing list. To do otherwise is just rude.

Always tell people what they're going to get for opting-in to your mailing list, and then stick to what you've said you'll give them, e.g. 'Free weekly tips'.

Tamsin will offer more in-depth email marketing advice alongside content expert Kris Tait and social media trainer Jennifer Begg at our Digital Marketing for Small Businesses event in London on 30 June. Buy your ticket below.