Your list is growing well. Your open rates are healthy. But your subscribers just aren’t making it to the end of your newsletter. What then? You might want to experiment with Read Magnets.
Poor scroll rates could be caused by a number of things. Your copy isn’t compelling enough. Your content isn’t relevant enough. Your template isn’t mobile friendly. The list goes on.
Each of these weak points is a variable that can be the basis of email marketing tests that can be run to improve performance.
Another thing you can do to get people scrolling further is to introduce “Read Magnets” to your newsletter template. A Read Magnets is an element in your template that’s specifically designed to prompt readers to scroll further than they usually would.
This is particularly useful for publishers that send out longer newsletters covering top content from the previous week, or a curated newsletter that’s more of a long-form design. It can also work well for ecommerce newsletters that need more readers to reach a CTA near the end of a template.
A Read Magnet Example
Imagine a publisher sends our a regular roundup of their most popular articles. 70% of clicks are recorded in the top 25% of the newsletter. The further down the template you get, the fewer clicks are recorded.
To improve performance, the email marketer wants more readers to scroll to the end of the template. This will allow more readers to find content that interests them. It’ll also have the extra benefit of increased ad impressions throughout the newsletter. Win win.
To meet this challenge, a Read Magnet is added toward the end of each campaign. In this case, a giveaway unit is introduced, promoting a different giveaway in each newsletter. Each giveaway is also mentioned at the start of the newsletter to inform subscribers about what they will find if they just scroll to the end.
Et voila, scroll rates will increase.
Over time, subscribers will get used to there always being something enticing at the end of each newsletter, and so scrolling to the end of your campaigns will gradually become second nature to them.
Types of Newsletter Read Magnets
There are plenty of different types of read magnets to try out. You’ll want to test a few to see which work well for your subscribers. You might also want change these up every so often to keep your content fresh. Here are a few ideas:
Question and Answer
Ask a relevant trivia question at the start of your newsletter, and provide the answer at the end.
Secret Prizes
Offer occasional secret prizes at the end of your newsletter. Announce the winners at the start of the next campaign. This will lead to FOMO, promoting more subscribers to scroll to the end of future campaigns.
Giveaways
Mention your giveaway prize at the start of your newsletter, but don’t include the instructions to enter the giveaway until the end of your template.
Exclusive Offers:
Use the space at the end of your newsletter to offer discount codes, flash sales, subscriber-only offers, etc.
Free Downloads
Produce free downloadable PDFs, whitepapers, cheat sheets, ebooks, courses, etc. that can easily be accessed from the end of your newsletter template.
Conversation Starter
At the end of your newsletter, ask your readers a question. Bring them into the fold. Ask them to reply to the email with their response, then talk about the responses in a future newsletter. Promoting genuine conversation like this can really help to build an affinity with your readers, and lead to more subscribers consistently making it to the end of your campaigns.
How Will You Use Read Magnets?
Read Magnets really are a simple way to improve newsletter scroll rates, yet they are massively underutilized.
But before jumping in and adding a Read Magnet to your own newsletters, carefully consider your audience, what they will find valuable, and what is most likely to work. From there, run some tests. Try out some different ideas to see what resonates with your own subscribers, and keep a close eye on your results.
