3 Ways You’re Sabotaging Your Newsletter
Published 18 Jun 2013
There are often little things we do to our newsletters that make us look more unprofessional than we mean to. Whether we are trying to convey emphasis or enthusiasm, some of our tried and true (read: 1990s) methods for doing so are no longer relevant. Here are three common saboteurs:
Exclamation points. Don’t use exclamation points! 90% of the time they are unnecessary and simply create an unprofessional feel to the email. Using a lot of exclamation points in a newsletter can cause eyes to roll – and using any exclamation points in the subject line can land you in the spam folder. Make the content exciting and you won’t need to add further excitement with the exclamation point.
Large Fonts. Using a font size over 10 points for the body of your message can come across looking sloppy and amateur. Most readers expect an email newsletter to look professional with a 10-point standard font.
Overuse of capital letters. Capital letters should be reserved for titles and proper nouns. Using all caps anywhere is akin to yelling. Even using them for emphasis looks unpolished. Apply italics or bold lettering for emphasis and leave the all-caps out.
If you’re after emphasis, use bold or italics. If you feel like the emphasis is lost, even after using bold or italics, then you likely have too much text. Email marketing campaigns should be short, sweet and to the point. If your point is lost, large font will not be your redeemer. Using less text makes your point more obvious and makes for happier readers.