The 10 Laws of Great Newsletters

These stories are presented by InboxArmy, a full-service email and lifecycle marketing agency. Whenever there’s an email project that’s too complicated for me to take on alone, InboxArmy is the team I turn to for help. They’ve got experts to help you build automations, code email templates, and even send campaigns. Their team of email pros can help you get the job done right. Interested in learning more? Schedule a call with them today.

Prefer to listen to this story?

A few weeks ago, we published an interview with Alisha Ramos of the newsletter Downtime, and she offhandedly mentioned an idea that stuck with me:

Something that I actually have this written down on my newsletter checklist that I gut check myself on every time I write a newsletter, one of the questions is, “Is this too ’me’ centered? How can I recenter the reader? What are they getting out of it?” That’s helped me in my editing process, because it is hard when you’re writing by yourself to self-edit. Having guidelines like that in place is valuable.

I love the idea of that newsletter checklist, and it got me thinking: Are there other laws every newsletter operator should obey when building out their strategy? I’m not talking about the little stuff — don’t buy email lists, or make sure you’re using at least 16-point font (though those matter!). I’m thinking about the big picture things that guide a strategy.

I’ve been lucky to work with all sorts of newsletters over the years — some written by independent writers, some from non-profits, and many at newsrooms both big and small. There are certain best practices that work for some orgs but not all. The 10 laws below, however, I think are truly universal. If more newsletter writers followed them, I think we’d make the inbox a better place.

1.) Start with the resources you have

Most newsletter operators need to be scrappy. Rarely do I see cases where the writer or team behind a newsletter has everything they need at the very start.

But the mistake I see many newsletter operators — even experienced ones — make is that they overextend themselves. In an effort to do more with less, they end up trying to do way too much.

Let’s say you’re launching a newsletter as a side project, but you’ve got a full-time job and a family already. You want to publish your newsletter two or three times a week, but is that realistic with your schedule? My advice: Start with a weekly newsletter, then ramp up when you have the resources — in this case, time — to do more.

The same thing is often true for newsrooms. At the New Yorker, some of my bosses really wanted us to send our daily newsletter first thing in the morning, like many other newsrooms did. But they also wanted our newsletter to go through the same rigorous editing process — which involved multiple rounds of edits, plus a round of fact checking — before hitting send. I pushed back, reminding them that unless we planned to have multiple staffers start their day before dawn, a 6 a.m. send time was unrealistic for us. Plus: We tended to publish many of our newest stories between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Our resources — staffing, plus new content — aligned best with an afternoon newsletter send time, so that’s what we did, and it worked great for our audience.

One more example: I encourage every client to try to send a curated newsletter, written and edited by a human, instead of automating a newsletter using an RSS feed. But there are plenty of cases where a team just doesn’t have the staff to produce a curated product. When that’s the case, an RSS-to-email strategy is perfectly fine as a starting place. Use that to get the newsletter off the ground and start building your audience. Focus on the other stuff — growth, revenue, collecting audience feedback — and as soon as you have the resources, shift to a more curated product. 

2.) Keep listening to your audience

Keep asking your readers questions and truly listening to what they have to say — otherwise, how will you build a newsletter that truly meets their needs?

Maybe that means asking readers a question in one of your welcome emails. Maybe it means incorporating a poll into your newsletter, like the Financial Times does. Maybe it means regularly running surveys of your audience. Maybe it means setting up 1-1 chats over Zoom or in person with your readers.

The more you make time to listen to your audience, the more you’ll understand what they need from you in your newsletter. Plus, if you listen closely, you’ll start to notice trends that you can use to build products or services to sell in your newsletter. When I first launched Inbox Collective, I talked with more than 75 readers — at the time, that was nearly four percent of my entire list! — and started hearing from small teams who didn’t have a ton of budget but still wanted outside help. Those calls led to the launch of a coaching program that’s been one of the most reliable revenue streams for my business.

3.) Focus first on your flagship product, then grow from there

If you’re a large brand, there’s the chance that one day, you’ll have dozens of newsletters, each written by staff writers or topic experts. But instead of launching lots of products at once, here’s my recommendation: Focus first on building your flagship newsletter. That’s usually a daily email, though it could also be a Destination newsletter written by a senior staffer.

Use that flagship product as a way to build a loyal audience and help you set up the workflow for building your newsletter. Once you’ve done that, you can start to launch and promote other newsletters. Ask a reader to sign up for that main newsletter, and then use your welcome series, in-newsletter ads, or even dedicated emails to drive readers to sign up for a second or third newsletter. Looking for inspiration? The Toronto Star also does a great job of newsletter cross-promotion.

If you’re an independent writer, you may be thinking that you only plan on writing a single newsletter. But it may make sense to launch a Course — an automated series of emails where you teach readers a new skill, habit, or lesson — and use that to funnel readers onto your main list. The important thing is to build up that main newsletter list, and then focus on secondary products like Courses later on as a way to continue to expand or segment your list.

4.) Don’t pick a silver bullet metric

So many newsletters pick a single metric and make it their “silver bullet” — the one thing that tells you whether or not things are working. That’s a mistake.

For many years, that metric was open rate. That started to change in 2021 after the rollout of Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, which inflated open rates for most senders. I’m not going to tell you that open rate isn’t valuable at all — despite its current flaws, I still think it can be useful as a basic indicator of reader engagement — but it certainly shouldn’t be your core metric. 

If there’s one metric I see newsletter operators obsess over these days, it’s list size. But list size has flaws, too. It doesn’t matter how many readers you have if the list isn’t active. A newsletter with 10,000 subscribers who regularly open, click, and pay to support your work may be more valuable than a less-engaged list with 100,000 subscribers.

And even click metrics, thanks to the rise of security bots, have their own flaws.

My recommendation: Pick a handful of metrics around engagement, growth, revenue, and reader feedback. By using multiple metrics, you’ve got a better chance to really understand your audience and what they want from your newsletter.

5.) Keep diversifying your growth strategy

Too many newsletters only focus on Owned growth tactics — converting readers from their website, podcast, or events. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the fastest-growing newsletters tend to look beyond Owned tactics to try:

• Partnerships, guest posting, or other Earned growth strategies.
• How to create Algorithmic growth opportunities from search or social.
• Spending money through ads, referral programs, or giveaways to leverage Paid growth.

If you haven’t expanded your growth strategy, I’ve got a few suggestions here for how to get started.

The Four Newsletter Growth Quadrants

6.) Lean into your voice with everything you do

Here’s a common mistake: A writer has a great voice that they use throughout their newsletter, but when it comes time to promote a subscription or a product, the copy suddenly sounds like it was written by ChatGPT. (Maybe it was, or maybe you just need a little copywriting advice.)

Here’s a little trick I like to use with clients. Take a recent marketing email and delete every mention of your name or brand. Then share it with a friend or colleague and ask them: Can you figure out who sent this email? If they can’t, it means you’ve written something generic, and generic emails rarely lead to revenue. Your goal is to infuse your voice into everything you do.

Tangle is a wonderful example of this. They’ve even added voice and personality to their transactional messages, which help keep their readers paying year after year for a subscription.

7.) When you A/B test, focus on the big stuff 

There are tons of things you can A/B test — I’ve got a massive list here to pick from — but my recommendation is to focus your A/B testing on the most impactful tests. Sure, you can run an A/B test on your subject lines, and that might make a small impact on that day’s open rate, but I’d rather see you test around growth or revenue instead.

Let’s say you’re testing a new landing page for your newsletter. If you can get 45 percent of visitors to that page to sign up for the newsletter, that would be a huge success. But if you can test different messages or formats for the page and improve the conversion rate to 50 percent, that could mean thousands of additional sign-ups for your list. The same thing is true for pop-ups on your site or paid ads — small tweaks can lead to significant improvements, and you’ll only know what works if you keep testing.

I’d also keep testing around revenue. Before you send that fundraising email to your entire list, A/B test it 10 or 20 percent of your list. There’s lots to test here, from the name of the sender to the call-to-action inside the email, and if you can find a winning combination, then feel free to send the email to the rest of your list. But you only get so many chances to convert readers into paying subscribers, members, donors, or customers, and you don’t want to waste your shot on an underperforming email.

I’m not saying to avoid A/B testing small stuff like subject lines — there’s absolutely value in that — but start your testing by focusing on the stuff that will lead to long-term growth or revenue. 

8.) Trust is hard to win and easy to lose

We’ve all had the experience of making a purchase and then getting inundated with emails from that brand afterwards. (I didn’t want eight emails a day, Old Navy — I just wanted to buy a pair of jeans!) Your job is to prove to your reader that you’re better than the average email marketer. Maybe that person didn’t respect the reader’s inbox, but you will.

That starts by establishing trust from the very start. When they first sign up, be clear about what they’ll get and when they’ll get it. Introduce yourself in your welcome series. If you’re going to ask them to share data with you, tell them why you need it. For instance: Let’s say you’re working on some events in a few different cities. Don’t just ask readers to share their location. Tell them about the local events you have planned, and that you need to know where they live so you can tell them when you’ll be in their city.

And most importantly: Set the bar high for the content in your newsletters, and work hard to try to clear it with every send. Remember that readers get to decide who they let into their inbox and who they kick out, and all it takes is one disappointing newsletter for them to go clicking on the unsubscribe button.

9.) Don’t be afraid to test new revenue streams

In a weird way, I feel a little bit lucky that my business was just a few months old when the pandemic took over our lives. I’d expected that most of my business would involve doing in-person work with clients. In a single week in mid-March of 2020, I traveled to three different states for work. And suddenly, everything shifted to Zoom.

But that ended up being a really good thing for the business in the long run. With the loss of revenue from in-person workshops and talks, I had to find new revenue streams, and that meant leaning into opportunities like advertising, affiliate revenue, and teaching. These days, I have six core revenue streams — a needed bit of stability in a profession where instability is the norm.

I’m not suggesting you need to have six different revenue streams, too. But if you only make money via ads, for instance, you may find yourself in trouble if the ad market goes south. Don’t be afraid to test out new ways to make money, from reader revenue opportunities (subscription, membership, donation) to selling products to hosting events.

You can even try to diversify within a category of revenue. For instance, you can sell ads within your newsletter, but you could also sell:

• Sponsored webinars
• Sponsored events
• Sponsored articles
• Sponsored case studies or white papers

Diversification offers safety during bad times — and opens up lots of new potential opportunities during good ones.

10.) Direction is more important than speed

The newsletter world doesn’t move very quickly, especially compared to what’s happening in the AI, search, or social media spaces. That’s generally been a good thing for anyone working in email. If you’re building out a strategy for the future, you’ve been able to do so knowing that the inbox would probably look pretty much the same in 12 or 24 months.

But many newsletter writers get frustrated by the pace of email. It takes a long time to build an audience, to build loyalty, to launch new products, to test new ways to monetize. Good work tends to happen in months and years, not days or weeks.

My advice: Remember that where you’re going is more important than how fast you get there. The best newsletters tend to take small steps in the right direction. If you’re lucky, you’ll go through stretches where you get to take big leaps, but there are also going to be periods where it feels like progress is slow. That’s OK. Take the little wins where you can — they all add up towards something bigger in the long run.

Thanks to our sponsor

The stories you’re reading on inboxcollective.com are brought to you by InboxArmy, a full-service email and lifecycle marketing agency. They work with businesses of all sizes to help you write, design, code, and send great email marketing campaigns. When you work with InboxArmy, you’re adding an entire network of email pros to your team — but at a price that works for your business. Interested in learning more? Get in touch here.