Key Findings from Nielsen’s email newsletter report

Nielsen Norman Group has recently posted its Email Newsletter Usability Report. In the report they note several key findings, of which a summary is posted below:

  • Newsletter subscribers are prone to reacting more emotionally then website visitors, who take more intereset in functionality
  • The receiving of newsletters has become part of an online routine
  • The actual receiving of a newsletter is looked forward to by subscribers
  • One interesting find is that of the usage of mobile: people tend to spend more time reading newsletters on mobile compared to when they are on desktops
  • Average time allocated to reading newsletter after opening: just 51 seconds
  • Email newsletters still rile over social media (Twitter, Facebook) in terms of how consumers want to receive updates from companies

The people over at Campaign Monitor have also looked into the report and focused on the usability of an email newsletter. Below is a heatmap depicting where people look when viewing a newsletter:

Campaign Monitor notes that to get maximum effect a newsletter should be short and sweet: however not everyone agrees. A discussion emerged on Twitter in which some participants noted that short and sweet is nice, but that quality and completeness of an email newsletter should not be neglected. Otherwise a newsletter might look awfully short and ‘fast foodish’.
The summary of the report can be found here.

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