When writing your newsletter, it’s important to take into account the variety of extraneous circumstances that surround a person when they read their mail. The unfortunate truth is that  prior to getting to your newsletter, your subscribers may have spent 30 minutes wading through junk mail. As the amount of spam increases, it is more important than ever for you to get your message across quickly and efficiently.  And this is where a strong synopsis can help.  

Ideally, your readers should be able to quickly scan the cover page of your newsletter, read short, intriguing synopses, and immediately have a good sense of the information you want to convey to them.  They’ll quickly be able to identify which topics or articles appeal to them and this will draw them further into your newsletter. Without effective synopses, you hinder your reader’s ability to scan and they may stop reading before they’ve seen all you have to offer.

To write an effective synopsis, you can make use of a writing style known as the inverted pyramid – a style you’ve likely seen in newspapers and on web sites.  The inverted pyramid creates a content structure that begins with a broad, encompassing summary (or synopsis) and works down to the specifics. In this manner, your readers can scan the title and synopsis of an article and know if that topic is pertinent to them.  

IMN allows you to take full advantage of the inverted pyramid structure.  As you build your newsletter, there is a place to enter copy for a synopsis (that will show up on the cover page of your newsletter) and a separate place to insert the full body of the article (which shows up on a microsite).  You can take advantage of the article synopsis field to write a strong and succinct yet informative summary of your article.  We recommend using no more than 3 or 4 sentences in order to facilitate quick scanning.  This leaves the longer, more detailed material for the full body section. 

If you’re not using synopses now, you may find it hard at first to convey the meaning of your message in a sentence or two, but it’s worth the effort.  You’ll soon see a boost in open rates and your relationship with your readers will be strengthened as they recognize your email to be of high value and worth reading.