Author: Franz Malten Buemann

2021 has been a strange year. But one effect of the COVID-19 pandemic has been increased engagement with email newsletters. 
According to Kabir Seth, COO and VP of Product Strategy at the Wall Street Journal, subscribers are clicking and reading through email newsletters now more than before.
Many media and news organizations are shifting their focus to email newsletters as a result. Here are a few examples:

The New York Times has over 71 email newsletters, with an open rate up 150% from 2019, as well as many brand-new newsletters dedicated to unique topics such as COVID briefings, science, and parenting.

Many media outlets are experimenting with format and writing styles, such as Vox’s Sentences, which curates the news in short, digestible bullet points.

Journalists have turned to email newsletters as a direct channel to write to their readers, like Dave Pell’s NextDraft

With so much content being created, the role of email has evolved to focus more on curation and filtering through the noise. Brands have to figure out how to differentiate themselves from the crowd by providing a unique value to their readers.
So, how can ensure your content is noticed in crowded inboxes and that your readers are, well, reading?
There’s no magic formula, but here are some of the best newsletter tips, trends, and formats that will keep your audience reading, clicking, and subscribing.
1. Be personable and friendly
Our inboxes today are flooded with marketing promotions, work updates, and other impersonal messages. So an email from a real human being written like it’s from a friend or family member sticks out.
When you’re curating your content, it’s a great idea to keep this thought at the forefront. Try kicking off each email with a personal introduction. This makes the email seem less like a marketing message and more like a thoughtful note from a friend. It’s an up-front reminder that a real person is behind the screen.

Source: The New Yorker
I’ve personally never met Jiayang Fan of The New Yorker Sunday, or James Palmer of Foreign Policy, but reading the personal introductions in their regular newsletters almost makes them feel like an old friend. Keeping a friendly, pleasant tone will work wonders in establishing a solid readership.
How to do it: An intro can be a short and sweet teaser of what’s in the email, or it could be long and personal. Choose one person to write the intro to maintain consistency and establish a rapport with your readers. Or, you can switch things up with a rotating intro from different writers and editors each week who have their own unique voices, opinions, and takes.
2. Share your links
Don’t spend all of your time talking about yourself. 
Being a content curator means more than just sharing the articles published on your blog this week. One great example is Monocle. Instead of just focusing on their work, they dedicate half of each newsletter to sharing great content they’ve found online.
While a traditional strategy might tell you to keep readers on your domain, when it comes to curating, sharing is a sure-fire way to initiate trust with subscribers. 

Source: Monocle
The Verge, which has bulleted sections called “On the Verge” for articles they’ve written, and “Off the Verge” for articles published elsewhere. Really Good Emails, the email about emails, includes a section of related links from top stories in other publications.
Using an email template can be a great way to build different sections for your newsletter while maintaining a clean, consistent look.

How to do it: The great thing about this approach is that it’s easy, so long as you plan ahead. Start compiling links throughout the week. Add links from your Slack groups into a running document. That way, you have a list that’s prepped and ready to publish come send time.
3. Make your emails short and sweet
Email newsletters are a visual medium. There’s a lot of potential for imagery, fancy formatting, and eye-catching colors. But sometimes, simple is better.
A header, a button, and a clear call-to-action (CTA) is a good formula for an effective email. Especially if it’s used as a break from your usual format. An attention-grabbing headline, a snippet of concise copy, and a CTA can do the trick.

Source: Really Good Emails
How to do it: Don’t overthink it—especially when you have a clear action to highlight. Include a headline, button, and an image with a description. The example above by Rapha shows this strategy off perfectly. Not every email needs to be a four-page epic.
4. Personalize each email
When you’re preparing content for your subscribers and designing your email, you’ll want to consider how to personalize your newsletters. When we spoke with Kabir Seth, he had a lot to say on the subject.
Kabir mentioned how important it is to personalize newsletters to your subscribers’ preferences. “Are they looking for tech? Specific news about a company like TESLA or Goldman Sachs? Then give them the option to subscribe to something that’s a niche for them,” says Seth.
He went on to explain how integrating fresh, unique angles into your content is a great way to keep your readers engaged. “A lot of our subscribers are up to date on the markets,” says Seth. “So now we have emails with live market data that refreshes, we’re not serving them something cold.” 
A significant part of personalization includes sending a welcome message to new subscribers. This kind of email is designed to get people used to hearing from you and opening your messages. People are often overwhelmed in their inboxes, so you have to show and tell why your email newsletter is worth their time. 

Source: Wall Street Journal
How to do it: Keep it simple. This email serves as a quick note thanking them for subscribing. It’s meant to get them used to opening emails from you and seeing your name pop up in their inbox. You don’t want it to drag on for six or seven paragraphs. 
Here’s a simple formula for a welcome email: 

Say hello and introduce yourself
Have a quick link out to your site or a CTA
Sign off

It’s as simple as that.
Wrap up
These are just some of the ways you can improve your email newsletters. Remember, you want to provide readers value in every email, so focusing on quality is essential. Once you understand what your readers are interested in, it’ll get easier to provide content that resonates. 
If you’re interested in taking your content curation strategy to the next level, Campaign Monitor offers email marketing software that makes automating and segmenting your content a breeze.
The post A Publishers’ Blueprint for Curating Content Subscribers Will Read appeared first on Campaign Monitor.

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The post Getting Started with Salesforce Flow – Part 66 (Auto Unfollow Records Based on Criteria) appeared first on Automation Champion.

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It’s no secret that poor user experience (UX) isn’t going to keep your customers and target audience coming back to your website. Poor UX also negatively impacts your ability to rank on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).

To ensure your website has delightful UX for your visitors as well as one that meets Google’s standards for ranking, you’ll want to focus on Core Web Vitals.
Core Web Vitals
At a high level, Google’s Core Web Vitals exist to fix poor user experiences on your website — Google knows that poor UX leads to higher bounce rates and that’s why they take page performance into consideration when determining your page’s ranking.
Core Web Vitals are meant to be applied by all site owners on each of their web pages to ensure all three Vitals — which we’ll talk more about below — are measured.
HubSpot Core Web Vitals
HubSpot’s SEO audit tool reviews all three of Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics for you. Below, we’ll cover the ways in which HubSpot can help you prepare for Core Web Vitals.
How HubSpot Helps Users Prep for Core Web Vitals
Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics are part of the search engine’s page ranking algorithm. HubSpot’s SEO audit tool flags pages with unsatisfactory scores based on Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics. Specifically, HubSpot uses Google Lighthouse to automatically scan all pages that make up a website. The tool then flags pages that fail any of these metrics.

Three Core Web Vitals that HubSpot’s SEO audit tool flags:
Source
1. Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

LCP is perceived page load speed. It refers to how quickly a page can load and render all of its visual elements to the screen.
2. Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
CLS is visual stability. It refers to how often users experience unexpected layout shifts on a web page.
3. First Input Delay (FID)
FID is load responsiveness. It’s a quantifiable measurement of how users feel when a page is unresponsive.
An alternative measurement for FID is Total Blocking Time (TBT). TBT is the quantifiable measurement of how much a non-interactive page is before becoming interactive. In other words, TBT measures the total amount of time that a page is blocked from responding to user input. HubSpot scans and flags web pages that have a TBT of over 300 milliseconds for you (because Google believes a good TBT is anything less than 300 milliseconds).
Who benefits from HubSpot’s SEO audit tool?
HubSpot can help you prepare for Core Web Vitals whether or not you’re a CMS Hub user — in fact, it’s available to those who are CMS Hub Professional and Enterprise users as well as Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise users. You can use HubSpot’s SEO audit tool whether you’re on a HubSpot-hosted website or a website hosted by another platform.
Pro Tip: Get HubSpot CMS Hub or Marketing Hub to begin measuring your web pages’ UX against Google’s Core Web Vitals. 
Start Prepping For Core Web Vitals With HubSpot
With HubSpot, you’ll know if your web pages meet Google Core Web Vitals. As a result, you’ll be able to ensure your web pages are offering your visitors delightful UX. Additionally, you’ll know that your web pages have a significantly better chance at ranking for your keywords and phrases than they would if they didn’t meet Google’s criteria.

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Getting one of those coveted top spots on the search results page requires more than just a dose of good luck. In addition to high-quality content, you’ll need a targeted keyword strategy that’s specifically geared to connect with your audience. The better job you do choosing your keywords, the better chance you’ll have of popping…
The post How to Perform Effective Keyword Research appeared first on Benchmark Email.