I LOVE talking about newsletters. They’re my favorite of all the marketing content that gets put out there. 

Newsletters are a great way to have a little fun with your voice, organically promote your content, and keep readers interested and informed of what’s going with you or your business.

If you’re just getting started on developing a newsletter—either for yourself or for your company—it can be daunting knowing where to start. As a marketing writer, here are a few pieces of hard-earned wisdom you can use to get your own newsletter up and running.

1. Subscribe to a bunch of newsletters and learn what you, as a reader, like.

Subscribing to a bunch of newsletters is a good place to start if you’ve been thrown into getting web content together to put out a newsletter.

Research companies or professionals in the same industry as you to see what type or content, tone, and style of newsletters they’re putting out. But you should also branch out into totally different industries and subscribe to their newsletters as well. You never know where inspiration will come from, so it’s good to diversify the newsletter styles you’re researching.

It’s always good to see what other people are doing, and how you can incorporate that into your own newsletter to get started.

Looking at the type of content others in the same industry put out can help you get started until you understand your audience better. And, in the meantime, you’re putting out content and collecting data on what users are clicking on.

2. Start small and concentrated.

Putting out small newsletters can help you start getting your message out there and learning about your audience. I would say, for me, personally, that’s the hardest thing about sending out a newsletter in the early days—I even wrote a paper about it—you don’t know who’s out there reading and what they want to read. 

Dipping your toes in the water with a small newsletter is a good place to start — and most people don’t have the attention span to read anything too long anyway. Stick with one message (versus, for example, promoting three different messages at once) and build up from there.

3. Don’t be afraid to be genuine/honest with your audience.

Don’t be afraid to tell your audience you’re just getting started with the newsletter. You can even directly ask them for feedback. I actually just saw even the NY Times do this (more below) after reformatting their newsletters.

It takes a while to figure out what content will resonate most with your audience. For brand storytelling / mission-oriented / non-profit stuff — people want to feel good about where their money is going/who they’re supporting, see faces, and connect with the work while reading their newsletter. It’s okay to get more genuine in those types of content newsletters. 

4. Basically, you’re gonna be testing content CONSTANTLY. But it’s low-key fun.

For web content, what works best with your audience is will be different for every brand.

And nobody is really going to say what actually happens when you’re developing newsletter content: Your numbers are gonna suck for months while you test different content, formats, frequency and sending times. And just when you figure out something that works, your numbers will dip again. 

And, legit, sometimes it’s just the weather: Was it rainy last Wednesday at 2pm when you sent your newsletter and got 53% opens? Well, guess what! Now, it’s Wednesday at 2pm again, only this time it’s sunny and your opens are 17%.

But testing can be fun! Try out a text vs image-based newsletter and track which gets more clicks. You can A/B test headlines, play around with the format, etc. Start building best practices and seeing what type of content works.

5. Gimme a little gimmick.

I usually recommend developing a “gimmick” that builds reader anticipation and expectation. This can be done in several different ways and is totally dependent on the style of newsletter you’d like to create. It can be funny, technical, heartfelt, informative—whatever your preference.

For example, in one newsletter, I always included a joke/story/question for the reader in the footer that started with “Thanks for sticking with me through this week’s newsletter! If you made it this far…”.

As another example, there are YouTubers I follow who always include a “fun fact” in their video description. That, more often than whatever their video is, will get me to click on the video so I can read the fact.

Some people (mission-oriented brands especially) will highlight a “volunteer of the week”, “mission spotlight”, “charity of the month”, etc. This helps form connections with the audience: they see a face, hear a story, they feel good.  Or, showcase how money helped or supported the people it was donated to to help build transparency, trust, and a sense of accomplishment.

6. Make sure it’s something you can do every. single. week.

This will be especially important if you have other responsibilities on top of creating a dedicated newsletter. It’s difficult to find newsletter advdice on scalability because it’s easy to forget how much effort actually goes into creating a newsletter. But make sure whatever you’re doing is scalable week-over-week (or however often you’re sending it).

When I started doing the newsletter at a former job, I started out really image-heavy. It looked pretty, but ultimately it wasn’t scalable for me as the sole newsletter writer who was also in charge of developing out the program. Every time I wanted to make an edit to the image, I had to go back in on my design site, change the graphic, redownload, and then reupload to Mailchimp. 

So, sometimes simple is better. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t do fun/visually complex stuff!

Once, I created an international mystery game for October that included a weekly serial story with a stunning iMovie produced finale. Another time, I created a “25 Days of Resources Calendar” for December (like an advent calendar) that had graphics hyperlinked to 25 individual lesson plans.

It’s fun to create some type of “month-long challenge” in your newsletter and it makes for really engaging content. But it’s not sustainable for yourself (or your audience) to do something huge like that every month.

7. Always, and I can’t stress this enough, send yourself a test newsletter. And then check it out on both desktop AND mobile.

Regardless of whether you’re creating a text- or image-styled newsletter, it is critical to check your formatting on desktop and mobile.

Formatting changes depending on where readers are consuming your content, so check your test newsletter on both. Bonus points if you check it out in dark mode too.

Another perk to switching from mobile/desktop is that it also helps you catch errors—so 10/10 would recommend.

8. You’ll never get it ‘right’. 

Don’t worry about getting it “right”, right away. As I mentioned above, the NY Times just revamped their morning newsletter and they’re…how old?

But, that just demonstrates that even institutions like the NY Times have re-adjust how they disperse content from time to time.

Developing newsletter content is a continuously evolving project because your audience is continuously evolving. As you develop and grow your business, you may find what worked initially doesn’t work anymore. Or you may undergo a brand redesign.

It’s okay if you don’t get the perfect newsletter written right away. Test your content, headlines, and sending times while making adjustments as you go.