A decade ago this week, I started my first full-time job in email, as BuzzFeed’s new Newsletter Editor. BuzzFeed was all about telling stories that people wanted to share, and since email was one of those channels that’s tailor-made for sharing things with friends, it seemed like a great fit.
On my first day, Chris Johanesen, then our head of product, welcomed me and showed me to my desk. “You know what you’re supposed to do, right?” he asked. He was talking about the stuff I was supposed to do that first day — meeting with HR, filling out paperwork, setting up my new inbox.
I took his question a bit more existentially: Did I know what I was supposed to be doing? Did I have a clear vision for the next five years of my job? Did I have a grand strategy to take BuzzFeed’s email program from zero to 1 million subscribers?
I did not.
But I learned over time. I asked a lot of questions — many so basic that I feared BuzzFeed would fire me for clearly knowing nothing about the email industry. I got to learn from an amazing boss, Dao Nguyen, now BuzzFeed’s publisher, about how to properly set up an A/B test. I got to work with great writers and editors to launch new newsletters. I got to work with our product and data teams to learn how to scale the back end of the operation. I got to hire someone for my team, and then a second. (I ended up hiring five people in my time there.)
In year one, we added one hundred thousand subscribers. We hit a million subscribers in year two, and doubled that by the end of year three.
And from there, the learning never really stopped. Later on, moving to The New Yorker was an entirely new learning experience — new terminology, new challenges, new opportunities — and now, my work at Inbox Collective presents brand-new learning opportunities every single month. My clients are always asking me questions I’ve never been asked, and it’s my job to say, “I don’t know, but let me find out.” Ten years in, I feel as curious as I did back in 2012 — though I’m grateful my questions have gotten more sophisticated!
I’ve learned a lot from a decade of building email teams, running tests, and sending thousands of newsletters. Here are ten lessons that stand out:
1.) In the inbox, trust is hard to win and easy to lose.
The inbox is a reader’s digital living room. They decide who they let in and who they kick out. And your subscribers will absolutely kick you out — if you don’t deliver what they expect.
At BuzzFeed, I always told my team: Let’s set clear expectations for our newsletters from the moment someone signs up, and then try to exceed those expectations every time we send an email. When our name shows up in the inbox, let’s make sure a reader is excited to hear from us and knows they’ll be getting something great.
2.) When in doubt, be direct with your subject line.
Whenever I work with a client on an email designed to win back an inactive reader, I suggest a straightforward subject line: “Do you still want emails from us?” Why? Because a reader knows exactly what they’re supposed to do even before they open the email. (I’ve tested this one over and over, and it always wins.)
I’d encourage you to be clever with your subject lines, as long as it’s in your brand’s voice. But if you’re not sure what to say, be direct. Don’t try to trick a reader into opening your newsletter — it might lead to a short-term win (an open), but it’s also one of the fastest ways to get readers to unsubscribe en masse.
3.) Email is for action.
One reason I love email: It’s a great way to get a reader to do something.
Maybe that something is simple: I want you to read this newsletter.
Or maybe you’re looking for them to do something more: I want you to take a survey. I want you to attend an event. I want you to share something with a friend. I want you to buy a subscription.
If the action of the email is more of the latter — you’re trying to get them to do something specific — here’s a tip: First write the copy for your call-to-action button, and then build the rest of the email around that. The intro, the subject line, the preheader text — everything ties back to that CTA, so start there.
4.) A good test starts with a great question.
It took 3+ years of running Inbox Collective and 100+ clients to realize what I actually do for work. Turns out my job isn’t to have all the answers — it’s to help clients ask the right questions.
Testing is more than just experimenting with different subject lines or button colors. Ask yourself: What’s something I wish I knew? Start there, and then figure out the test you can run to find the answer.
And sometimes, things can get truly meta. I often work with clients on reader surveys, and then we’ll use that feedback to figure out what questions we still need to answer. That’s right: One set of questions often opens the door to further questions!
5.) Don’t make a big ask right away.
Before you ask a reader to buy something from you, first build a relationship with them. Think about the living room analogy: How would you feel if someone showed up in your living room and immediately asked you for money? You’d probably kick them out of your home before they could get another sentence in.
The same is true in the inbox. The newsletter that asks too aggressively and too early often misses their chance to make a sale.
So be patient. Use a welcome series to build that relationship, and wait until readers understand more about you before you ask them to pay for something.
6.) Be personable, shareable, and reliable.
Be personable. The inbox is full of emails from a reader’s family, friends, and co-workers. To earn your place alongside them, you’re going to need to establish your voice, too.
Be shareable. It’s easy to share something via email. Readers can find a newsletter or a link, and then send it along to someone else. Think about ways you can get readers to share your work, like a referral program or a prompt to share your newsletter with others.
Be reliable. Don’t believe what you might read elsewhere — there is no optimal time to send your emails. But it does help to be consistent with what you send and when you send it. I’ve learned that if a reader knows what and when to expect, they’re far more likely to make time for your newsletter.
7.) Email is a team sport.
It’s so hard to succeed alone — so find your team, and give them the chance to help you build a better email strategy. Maybe that means finding other people within your organization who can partner and support your work. Maybe that means finding another newsletter writer who you can meet with regularly to share ideas, and you can hold each other accountable as you grow your newsletters.
But no matter how big your newsletter, find others who can pitch in. Every email strategy could benefit from a support system.
8.) Beware the silver bullet metric.
Here’s something my old boss, Dao, used to say: If you optimize for just one data point, you’re going to have problems in the long run.
Instead, try to pick a few email metrics that work for you. I like to start with a metric in each of these four buckets: Growth, engagement, monetization, and reader feedback. Tracking each of these over time will give you a sense of how your newsletter is truly performing.
9.) Don’t double down on your mistakes.
When I got to The New Yorker, we had a newsletter called the Culture Review. It went out weekly, and the idea made a lot of sense: Once a week, one of our staff writers would review the week in culture.
Except that it wasn’t really working.
The list wasn’t growing, the opens and clicks were well below our averages, and the feedback from readers wasn’t all that enthusiastic.
We could’ve spent months testing out new designs or trying to find small tweaks to make it better. But the underlying metrics weren’t there. We knew the newsletter concept wasn’t working.
So we listened to our audience. Readers told us, again and again, that what they wanted was a product where they could find the best stuff to listen to, read, and watch. And what we came up with was a brand new newsletter: The New Yorker Recommends. Every week, our writers would recommend their favorite new shows, movies, books, and podcasts. We told our Culture Review readers that we’d renamed the newsletter and changed the format, and then relaunched the updated newsletter to our audience.
Within weeks, we’d seen a complete turnaround with the list. Engagement jumped right away, and the list quickly started growing. Reader feedback was super positive. The New Yorker Recommends became our fastest-growing newsletter that year, and it had some of the best open and click rates of any of our newsletters.
Keep testing and trying new ideas — but if something’s not working, be willing to move on (even if you really liked the idea in the first place!). The only mistake you can make is failing to pivot away from your failures.
10.) Curious people make the best email marketers.
Ask lots of questions, especially among your readers. Meet with your peers in the newsletter space and ask them what’s working and what isn’t. Keep asking yourself: What’s something I don’t know? What else haven’t I tried?
Your next newsletter test, your next experiment, your next product launch — they’re going to come when you’re at your most curious.
Ten years in, I find I’m learning new things every single month, and I still get excited when I discover new opportunities or ideas. Curiosity’s served me well over the past decade — I hope your own curiosity leads you to fascinating new opportunities in the years ahead.
An abbreviated version of this story was first written for attendees at Denmark’s 2021 Email Summit.
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