First Newsletter almost ready to go?

[PeterS8199]

looking for comments. This is my first e-mail newsletter and I am planning to send it out shortly. I would appreciate constructive comments. It is going out to existing and potential customers. 

Link to Newsletter

[William_A]

Hi @PeterS8199 ,

It looks like the link you provided is the URL for your particular account's view of the email - likely the editing or reporting page? Unless we're logged into your account, we won't be able to view the link you've provided. 

Since you're going to be sending this email out, you likely haven't sent it in any capacity. I'd advise sending it to yourself (i.e. as a standalone contact in a list on your own), so that our system can generate a shareable URL for it. You can then copy the email, and make any suggested edits prior to sending that copy to your customers.

Otherwise, if you're not worried about us proofreading some content (e.g. the links), then another option is to provide a high-resolution screenshot of the email from your Preview mode or as a test-sent version to yourself.

[PeterS8199]

Here is a proper link to a .pdf file of my newsletter for comments. Click Here

[William_A]

Thank you for providing that. Let's go over the positives, and the areas for improvement. 

The things I liked:

• Simple, clean layout and coloration that makes for easy conversions to mobile views and dark mode. The design team gave you a solid foundation to build off of, and you maintained that well with this first iteration of your own template. 
• The use of the emojis in the "Cybersecurity That Goes..." section help highlight your services in a simple, effective way, and provide your email with a little extra flair.
• The content, based on my surface-level overview, seems informative and straightforward. Keeping your information in your emails short, sweet, and simple, ensures that your emails don't become novellas that scare off or lose your audience's attention spans.
  • In the future, you may want to consider incorporating short blurbs of your clients' success stories and positive reviews when soliciting your services. Just remember not to fill your emails with too much content! Pushing off the minutia and technical details onto your site and sign-up forms can go a long way toward making newsletters more engaging, and less info-dumping. 

Some improvements that could be made are:

• Linking the telephone number at the bottom. It's a simple quality-of-life addition for any email, especially if you anticipate the email being viewed on mobile devices by a good portion of your contacts.
• Consider changing the gray background of the footer area (with your logo, socials, and phone number) to the same blue coloration of the "Cybersecurity That Goes..." section.
• Consider changing the wording of the buttons for your "Our Best May Offer Yet," "Up Your Calibration Game..." and "Sharpen Your Skills..." sections. Since those links redirect to what are predominantly just sign-up forms, rather than fuller articles, there's not much to "Learn More" about. Some wording you may consider could be "Sign up here," "Claim your discount," or "Request a callback."
• Inconsistent font in the "Sharpen Your Skills..." section causes it to stand out against the rest of the email design, especially since it's a serif (little tails on the letters) font compared to the sans serif font throughout the email. The "Why Red Team Penetration Testing..." section also has a noticeably different style for its section. Keeping consistent font styles and formats helps make emails more readable, and improves engagement.