Questions to consider before choosing an email newsletter tool

Twitter recently announced that next year it's discontinuing its newsletter tool, Revue. Naturally, this has the Internet buzzing yet again.

Revue enabled users to receive newsletters from accounts they followed directly in their inboxes. If you're among those who will be affected by this and are exploring new avenues, here are a few basic questions you'll want to ask as you decide on a tool for sending newsletters.

In this article, we'll see how a writer named Sara explores what this process might look like and how she initiates and launches an email newsletter using Zoho Campaigns.

Is there an effective signup form builder?

First and foremost, Sara seeks ways to generate a list of readers she could contact. Zoho Campaigns offers embeddable signup forms, so she adds one to her website and social media handles so that interested visitors can fill it out to learn more about Sara and her writing.

Does it allow recipients to choose their preferred topics?

Zoho Campaigns enables Sara to create different topics that help her stay organized. She assigns it to the signup form she created so that all the visitors who are joining via the signup forms are mapped under the desired topic. This also helps her send relevant content to the right set of contacts. Moreover, her recipients can update their topic preferences using the Manage Preferences link that can be attached to the footer of the newsletter.

Can it segment contacts in order to target website visitors?

When Sara starts getting contact details from her website signup forms, social handles, and other platforms, she uses Zoho Campaigns to segment her list based on geography. She does this because readers in each region read for different purposes, and Sara wants to target them differently so she can send effective newsletters.

Do they have ready-made newsletter templates?

Sara has newsworthy and useful content that she's planning to send out to her contacts, but she doesn't have the time to design an email campaign from scratch. So she uses Campaigns' pre-designed templates and simply copies and pastes the content before fine tuning it to match her needs.

Are elements easy to fit in if templates require a redesign?

Before sending out the newsletter, Campaigns' drag-and-drop editor helps Sara perform finer adjustments to her newsletter design and content with ease. To add more visually appealing elements, all she has to do is click on any of the elements from the editor, drag it to the newsletter template, and drop it on the content.

Is there a way to personalize the newsletters?

Personalization elements in Zoho Campaigns like merge tags, dynamic content, and send-time optimization help Sara send personalized, tailor-made content to each of her contacts. This way, she can target her readers even more effectively.

Does it offer feedback and analysis of newsletters sent?

After sending out the newsletter, Sara checks Campaigns' reports to determine how it performed and if there's anything else she needs to include to make it better the next time around. As one of the most measurable marketing channels, email marketing insights helped her analyze and dig deep so that she can bring more readers into her audience.

Whether it's the number of opens and clicks a newsletter has received or the links each recipient clicked and their geographical locations, Zoho Campaigns guides Sara in tracking the progress of her newsletters.

Are testing criteria included?

Like every marketer, Sara needs better open and click-through rates for her newsletters, so she tries A/B testing to see what her recipients prefer. This helps her understand that small changes in her newsletters result in big differences with respect to the level of engagement she has been seeing so far. The subject line is one of the most prominent factors responsible for a newsletters' open rate, so she decides to try multiple versions to see the differences they make.

Will it help automate any requirements?

Not every process in sending newsletters can be done manually, as it requires a lot of time and energy. That's why automation is of great help; it enables Sara to schedule newsletters and other emails automatically. What you see in the screenshot below is how Sara uses automation in Zoho Campaigns to make welcome emails and a series of other emails to visitors who have signed up for her newsletters via her website.

Is it a privacy-committed tool?

Handling data comes with a lot of risk. So last but not least, Sara has to make sure that the tool she chooses prioritizes privacy. Zoho Campaigns values and honors users' data privacy right from the time a person sign ups to the tool. Sara is also interested in the ability to set email limits using Zoho Campaigns to define how many times is appropriate when contacting someone.

Hopefully, you're well on your way to kick-start your email newsletter with a new tool. If you require more help, please don't hesitate to reach out to us—we'd be happy to guide you throughout your newsletter journey.

Regards,

Team Zoho Campaigns

P.S. Here's an article to help you understand the different kinds of email newsletter content that you could try sending to your recipients.

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