Without a doubt, e-newsletters are an effective vehicle for driving traffic to your organization’s website. They’re also a great way to repurpose content, share announcements, and get feedback from your audience.

But for many of us, e-newsletters overwhelm our inboxes on a daily basis. They sit unread for days (or even weeks)—and make us feel swallowed by a deluge of information. No, email isn’t dead—but how can you strategically and effectively get your audience to engage with your email content?

Here are three ways to make your e-newsletter stand out from the crowd:

1. Make subject lines great again. According to Optinmonster, 47 percent of email recipients decide to open an email based on the subject line. There’s truly a science to writing the perfect subject line. On the one hand, you don’t want to rely too heavily on clichés, but you also want to entice your reader enough to open the message. To lure your reader, highlight an interesting fact from a story featured in your e-newsletter or get creative and add an emoji that will make your reader curious about the content that lies within.
2. Keep it balanced, simple and concise. E-newsletters that require a lot of scrolling or are full of too many gifs, images or words will disinterest. To avoid packing too much into one email, maintain enough white space to let the content breathe. Keep explanations of links short, and make sure that the font is large enough to read on a mobile device. Hubspot suggests balancing newsletter content at 90 percent educational and 10 percent promotional, so you’re not putting the focus on your organization the whole time. Share insightful articles, videos and news that your audience will find helpful.
3. Always include a call to action. You’ve gotten readers to open and (hopefully) read your e-newsletter … now what? Encourage them to do something. Whether it’s sharing with others, donating to a cause, reading related content, taking a survey or signing a petition, it is important to drive your reader to action that will keep them engaged. Place these assets on your company’s website to strengthen your thought leadership and credibility.