LinkedIn newsletters have become an extremely popular way for brands and thought leaders to engage with their target audience. With over 722 million users on the platform, LinkedIn offers access to the world’s largest professional network. An effective LinkedIn newsletter allows you to nurture relationships, promote your brand, and drive website traffic. But what exactly makes for a good LinkedIn newsletter? Here are some key factors to consider.
Provide Value
First and foremost, your LinkedIn newsletter needs to provide value to subscribers. Don’t make the mistake of using your newsletter solely as a promotional vehicle for your company or products. While you can certainly include relevant offers and announcements, the newsletter should be educational and insightful first and foremost.
Your subscribers are looking for thought leadership content, career tips, industry analysis, actionable advice, and other useful information. Make it a priority to deliver consistent value through your newsletter content and subscribers will stay engaged. Some types of valuable content to include:
- Expert tips, guides, and how-to articles related to your industry
- Thought leadership content and business insights
- Career development advice
- Company/industry news and analysis
- Q&As with industry experts and executives
- Case studies and success stories
- Book/resource recommendations
The most effective LinkedIn newsletters strike a balance between promoting your brand and providing truly useful information to subscribers. Lead with value.
Focus on Relevance
Make sure your newsletter content aligns closely with your target audience’s interests and priorities. Really understand your subscribers’ key challenges, goals, and motivations. Then cater your content directly to those needs. The more relevant your content is, the more engaged your subscribers will be.
You can boost relevance in a few key ways:
- Only send content that is a natural fit for your audience.
- Personalize content using segmentation and groups.
- Survey subscribers to find out what topics they want covered.
- Pay attention to open and click-through rates to see what resonates.
- Include varied content types like articles, infographics, videos, podcasts.
Relevance also means keeping your content focused on your core areas of expertise. Don’t veer too far off-topic or delve into subjects your brand isn’t equipped to cover authoritatively. Stay in your lane to maintain relevance.
Keep it Visual
In your LinkedIn newsletter, don’t rely solely on blocks of text to engage your subscribers. People scroll quickly through their inboxes these days. Make your most important content digestible by highlighting key takeaways in short paragraphs, bullet points, captions, subheads, and visual assets.
Some highly effective visual elements to incorporate:
- Images and graphics related to article topics
- Stats presented as charts/graphs
- Quotes pulled out in text boxes
- Bulleted or numbered lists for key points
- Custom illustrations and animations
- Infographics and flowcharts
- Screenshots and product photos
Breaking up your newsletter with relevant visuals keeps things scannable and enjoyable for the reader while still delivering great information. But don’t go overboard with graphics – you still need substantive written analysis and insights. Find the right balance.
Write Strong Headlines
Your newsletter subscribers will decide whether to open and read your content based largely on the strength of your headlines. That’s why crafting compelling, clickable headlines is so crucial. Some tips for writing effective LinkedIn newsletter headlines:
- Keep headlines short, scannable and specific (no more than 60 characters).
- Use emotional triggers like numbers, controversy, humor, surprise.
- Focus headlines on providing value and solving problems.
- Incorporate power words that convey authority and expertise.
- Use bracketed subtitles to convey more context.
- Mention your audience specifically to catch their eye.
- Ask intriguing questions to spike curiosity.
- Test different headline options and track open rates.
Also take advantage of LinkedIn’s dynamic newsletter headlines feature, which lets you tailor the headline each subscriber sees based on their profile data and interests. Personalized headlines deliver dramatically higher open rates.
Establish Your Voice
Give your LinkedIn newsletter a consistent editorial voice that reflects your brand’s identity and values. All of the content you curate or create for your newsletter should align with the voice you establish.
Some tips for developing your newsletter voice:
- Study how your brand communicates across other channels.
- Determine the key messaging pillars and tone.
- Outline the ideal writer profile for your content.
- Establish guidelines for word choice, humor, formality etc.
- Make sure guest contributors understand your voice.
- Regularly sample subscriber feedback to ensure your voice resonates.
Your newsletter voice should be professional yet approachable, authoritative yet informal enough to forgeconnections. It should be consistent with your brand identity without seeming overly promotional. Refining your newsletter voice takes experimentation and attentiveness to subscriber response.
Curate Varied Content
Curating content from a diverse set of sources is a smart way to add value for LinkedIn newsletter subscribers. But don’t just share links randomly. Be selective and strategic with the third-party content you curate.
Some tips for curating effectively:
- Search broadly for insightful articles, data, news relevant to your audience.
- Vet sources thoroughly for credibility and accuracy.
- Scan headlines/decks to identify truly unique analysis.
- Select content that aligns with your audience’s interests.
- Balance broad industry perspectives with pieces related to your expertise.
- Mix long-form articles with quick-hit stats, news items and quotes.
- Credit sources fully and secure permissions as needed.
The best newsletters incorporate both original analysis/insights and the most meaningful content from across the web. Just make sure what you curate strongly supports your goals and provides value.
Promote Interaction
Simply blasting content out to subscribers isn’t enough – you want them to engage with your newsletter. Promote two-way interaction by incorporating:
- Questions that encourage replies
- Calls to action for content sharing, surveys, events etc.
- Requests for input on topics, case studies, guest posts
- Links to your social media accounts
- Tools like live polls or quizzes
- Collaborative documents for feedback
- Reply links to contact your team directly
The more you integrate interactive elements into your newsletter, the more subscriber data you can collect and the deeper your connections will be. Just don’t ask for too much too often or subscribers may disengage.
Segment and Personalize
One-size-fits-all newsletters are a thing of the past. To maximize engagement, you need to segment your list and personalize content for each subset of subscribers. Send targeted content tailored to their needs.
Ways to segment your list include:
- Industry
- Job role
- Company size
- Location
- Engagement level
- Social media links
- Team/department
Then use dynamic content and personalized subject lines in each segment based on subscriber data. Personalized newsletters have much higher open, click and conversion rates. Put in the work to target content to each subscriber’s interests and context.
Design for Scanning
Given inbox overload, most subscribers will quickly scan your newsletter content to determine if they want to read further. Make key information jump out through design:
- Highlight important text in bold, headers, pull quotes.
- Divide content into short paragraphs with line spacing.
- Use bullet points and numbered lists for quick scanning.
- Left align text – avoid justified text.
- Make sure font styles and colors contrast nicely.
- Ensure effective use of white space on the page.
- Break up sections clearly with images and dividers.
Many email platforms provide newsletter templates that incorporate best practices for scannable design. Take advantage of those or work with a designer to optimize formatting.
Get the Subject Line Right
Your newsletter subject line is often the first and only factor determining whether a subscriber opens your email. Subject lines can make or break open rates.
Tips for irresistible subject lines:
- Keep them short, clear and compelling.
- Communicate value – what’s in it for subscribers.
- Use specificity – dates, numbers, names.
- Leverage urgency and exclusivity when appropriate.
- Try starting with words like “Discover,” “Don’t Miss” etc.
- Pose intriguing questions.
- Test options to see which generate more opens.
Always avoid spam trigger words in subject lines or phrases that seem overly promotional. Subject lines personalized for each recipient also deliver major lifts in open rates.
Drive to Your Website
A key benefit of LinkedIn newsletters is their ability to drive website traffic by featuring your new blog posts, resources, and other site content. Give subscribers clear calls-to-action within your newsletter to click through to your website.
Some ways to promote your site content:
- Link to your latest blog posts or articles.
- Share new guides, tip sheets, or reports.
- Promote upcoming webinars, events and offers.
- Spotlight new products or features.
- Link to relevant videos or podcasts.
But don’t make every newsletter story a self-promotional clickbait link. Focus on providing strong value first and sprinkle in website links selectively in a balanced way. Track website referral traffic to see which newsletter content gives your site the biggest lift.
Make Signup Easy
The more subscribers you have for your LinkedIn newsletter, the wider your potential reach and impact. That’s why you need to make it quick and easy for people to sign up right from your LinkedIn Company Page.
Tips for boosting subscriptions:
- Prominently promote the newsletter in your Page header.
- Share signup links on other social platforms.
- Give a taste of content in signup confirmation emails.
- Run occasional contests for new subscribers.
- Offer an exclusive piece of “members only” content.
- Suggest relevant groups for new subscribers to join.
The easier and more appealing you make the signup process, the faster your subscriber base will grow. Just ensure you have the content and resources to meet any surge in demand.
Analyze Performance
It’s crucial to closely monitor the performance of each newsletter edition so you can continually refine your approach. Look at key metrics like:
- Open rate
- Click-through rate
- Bounce/unsubscribes
- Top performing headlines
- Most clicked links
- Website referral traffic
Dig into the data to see which types of content resonate most with your subscribers. Identify any trends across metrics and tweak your strategy accordingly. Email analytics will point the way toward maximizing subscriber engagement over time.
Test and Optimize
Don’t get stuck in a newsletter rut. Consistently test out new approaches and ideas to optimize your performance.
Ways to experiment:
- Send different subject lines/content to A/B test groups.
- Test sending on different days and at different times.
- Try different newsletter formats like text vs. HTML.
- Experiment with new types of content and visuals.
- Change up newsletter length, sections, design layout.
- Personalize content using different segmentation models.
Keep testing variations and you’ll discover what works best for engaging your subscribers. Optimize over time as you expand your list.
Conclusion
Producing a highly effective LinkedIn newsletter requires an investment of time and strategic thought, but the returns can be tremendous in terms of brand visibility, lead generation, and website traffic. Focus on delivering subscriber value above all else. Curate irresistible content. Make signup seamless. Personalize and segment your messaging. Analyze performance diligently. With a stellar newsletter that engages your professional target audience, you can build lasting brand affinity and loyalty on LinkedIn.