Just Monkeying Around: Newsletters So Easy ANY Monkey Can Do It!

Okay, here's the deal.

I love visualizing what my newsletter will look like.

I love having done a newsletter.

But mostly I don't like creating a newsletter. That's because it takes a lot of work to make it pretty and eye-catching. And deciding what to put in a newsletter is a pain. No wait...deciding what to leave OUT is the hard part.

Personally, a newsletter needs the following five things to catch my attention.

1) It needs to reflect the personal style or the brand of the sender
2) It needs to point people to the product (i.e. our books)
3) It needs to be short and simple
4) It needs to be visually appealing
5) It needs to be easy

The first three items on the list (personal style, product and short) are easy enough to achieve. And for some of us, if you like longer newsletters, that's okay. But people are busy, and I don't want to bore them with too much in a newsletter.

Way back before newsletter software like ConstantContact, MailChimp, and SendBlaster, I attempted to send newsletters via email. It was really hard to design something attractive quickly and easily and dump it into an email program and it would come out on the other end looking like a newsletter. It generally looked like what it was ... an email.

So, when I made the jump to MailChimp (newsletter software providor) last year, I thought all my problems were solved. I thought I'd have a gorgeous newsletter with great photos and content, and it would meet my most pressing needs: visually appealing and easy to create.

Even though MailChimp seemed to have all the bells and whistles I needed, the results felt bland...cookie cutter...and I felt like I was coloring within the lines. And it still took hours to create something that even when I was done, I just wasn't satisfied with how my newsletter looked.

After studying a couple of my favorite newsletters, I had an aha moment, and my latest newsletter was fairly quick and easy compared to previous ones. And I loved how it turned out.

The Key....

All the prep work was done BEFORE I opened my newsletter software. Yes, that's right. Instead of dumping a few pictures and book covers into MailChimp and writing content in the newsletter software around the pictures, I created my entire newsletter in PicMonkey in FOUR images (or sections), then uploaded the images to MailChimp. I linked the images to wherever I wanted each to go, and after checking things for accuracy, I was done with my newsletter.

Quickly, for those who might not know what it is, PicMonkey is a free online graphics design program. There are other more advanced programs, but PicMonkey does the job for me. I've blogged about PicMonkey before so for a quick tutorial on how to use PicMonkey to your advantage, check out Memes, Monkeys, and Me. The learning curve is not that steep and for me, I can visualize what I want a lot quicker than in MailChimp, and I have a lot more control over my layout, backgrounds, fonts, and style.

Now, here comes the fun part, some photos and instructions to explain all this. :)

I wanted the top of my newsletter to look like a 2:1 column, and I will probably stick with the same basic layout for a while. So, visualizing that, I started with my website header at the top and some cute borders and boxes for my content. Here's a template I created in PicMonkey. By saving the template, I'm already ahead of the game for the next newsletter. Or, I can create another template if I want to change things up. But I still need to stay on brand by using this color scheme, especially my header.

See the texture in the background templates in the empty text boxes? I worked up that parchment look in PicMonkey about a year ago and I've used it over and over again. That's not a background look I could get if I tried to design this directly in MailChimp.

Part A: Newsletter Template for Header Section
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Now, this next part is what takes my newsletter from blah to wow. Or at least wow to me! :)

Think about any newsletter software you've ever worked with. Anything and everything in any given column or "block" is SEPARATE and contained, correct? In addition, the above layout isn't really even an option in MailChimp that I know of. You can do 1 column, 2 column, 2:1, 1:2, 3 column, etc, but not a combination like I've done above. That's because even though the layout above looks like three parts, it's not. It's one photo/jpg/image.

Below, you see the result of Part A of my December newsletter using the template above. Again, I wanted simple but gorgeous, with just a bit of content for the readers. I didn't want to bombard them with too much information, especially during Christmas. So, ignore the prettiness :) for a moment, and let's look at the content of this section...

Part A: Final Newsletter Header for December 2014 Newsletter
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My newsletter header matches the header on my website, so that keeps my brand consistent. I incorporated a cute picture from my own Christmas decorations (didn't hurt that the colors were very complimentary!) and a short Christmas message. Then on the right, I gave thumbnail sketches of what I would be doing in December, January, and February.

Next, notice my name and the gold/tan swirls? Since this is all ONE image, I can "tie" what looks like three blocks of images/text together because I'm creating it all in my design software as one image. I originally planned to use a Christmas wreath, but ended up with the signature and the garnish. Finally, when I uploaded the above image to MailChimp, I linked it to my website. So, when subscribers received this newsletter, they could click anywhere on the above image to go directly to my website.

Again, remember I wanted to keep the newsletter simple, so now that I've wished my readers a Merry Christmas and told them what I'll be up to in the next couple of months, I wanted to tell them about my current release. Well, I could use the same 2:1 column layout, or I could use a square, but instead, I thought a banner style block would catch the eye more...

Part B: Announcement of Current Release
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I used the same color scheme for this section to keep the flow, but as a long, narrow banner. I used the gold and tan background image, flipped it on its edge in PicMonkey, added The Evergreen Bride cover, and worked a bit of magic with the snow globe :) and this was the result. Notice how the cover bleeds out of the square just a bit, and the snow beneath the snow globe falls out of the image? Those were my attempts to give the newsletter more personality and less of a cookie-cutter feel. Since The Evergreen Bride was an ebook only, the link for this banner ad sent readers to Amazon. On various newsletter campaigns, I'll rotate links to CBD, B&N, Lifeway, etc. to spread the love just a bit.

Next, I wanted to give readers a sneak peak at what's coming up in 2015, but I wanted the visual to be different, so I chose a 2 column layout with two pictures side-by-side. But what else to put with the 2015 releases? I had blogged about my family's Burlap and Bows Country Christmas last year, so I decided that would be perfect for the Christmas newsletter. And I already had a postcard-sized image with the covers for 2015, all I had to do was resize it and pop it in.

Part C: December 2014 Newsletter
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Part D: December 2014 Newsletter
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Now, I could have combined Parts B, C, and D into one huge image, but I needed them to be separate so that I could add the links that I wanted. Because you can only add one link to an image/jpg.

So, to recap. I ended up with FOUR jpgs (images) in my newsletter. The entire newsletter was made up of images, not text. I linked each image to a specific spot on the web.

Part A linked to my home page on my website.

Part B linked to The Evergreen Bride on Amazon.

Part C linked to the Burlap and Bows Country Christmas. (the most clicked on link, btw)

Part D linked to my Books page on my website.

For those who are interested, I included the pixels in the captions above on each picture. You'll notice that the width across of both A & B are 990 px. That was about the right length to fit well with MailChimp.

As always, there are pros and cons to anything. Pros for doing a newsletter on this format is that you have more control of the visual appeal of your newsletter. Maybe that's not that important to my readers, but I personally like a pretty newsletter. I hope my readers do, too. And from the open and click-through rate, I think I'm on the right track. :)

One con is that you can only link ONCE to each image you upload. But, even though I didn't add any simple text in MailChimp, I could have, and I could have had links all over the text if needed. Another con would be that since you're typing your text directly onto your pictures and saving them, if you make a mistake, then you'll have to go back to your graphics design software to fix your jpg, then re-upload your graphics.

Here's a small screenshot of the finished product, but to see the REAL thing with the links, click here to see Pam Hillman's December 2014 newsletter. And, I'd love for you to Subscribe to Pam's Newsletter in order to receive future newsletters. Who knows what tricks I'll have up my monkey-sleeve next month? :)

Screenshot of Pam's December 2014 Newsletter

A couple of things I didn't mention before. I intentionally left a small white border around my graphics for extra eye-appeal, and then added the deep red background in MailChimp along with the narrow tool lines separating the sections.

So, there you have it. Newsletters so easy this monkey can do it! I hope today's post jumpstarts your creativity and ideas for a newsletter that reflects your personality and the image you want to present to your readers. Feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to explain or clarify.

God bless and Merry Christmas!! :)