The Super-Simple Newsletter Format That Actually Helps You Retain Paying Subscribers, Members, or Donors

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When I first started working with newsrooms that had a subscription, membership, or donation strategy, I thought that the moment at which a reader pulled out a credit card and chose to support our work was the end of the process.

But what I quickly learned is that when you convert a reader to a paying supporter, that’s actually just the next step of the journey.

If you’ve got a subscription or membership strategy, those readers are choosing to pay you on an ongoing basis, which means you need to find ways to retain them and make sure they keep paying to support your work. If you’ve got a donation strategy, you might be thinking about ways to make sure your annual or monthly donors keep supporting the work, but you also might need to think about ways to take one-time donors and convince them to increase their support.

There are a lot of ways to retain or upsell those supporters — I’ve got a big list of ideas here for you — but today, I want to talk about one of the simplest and most powerful tactics: creating a monthly, behind-the-scenes email to your supporters. 

(For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use the word “supporter” from here on out to refer to anyone who chooses to subscribe, become a member, or donate.)

These supporter-only emails have a number of advantages:

• They don’t take a ton of time to produce, which is a big win for teams that are already stretched thin.
• They’re sent just often enough to help build a reading habit, but not sent so much that readers get overwhelmed by them.
• They’re driven by specific voices within your org, which can be especially great if your newsletters are typically more focused on content, not voice.
• You can use them to both educate and engage your supporters.
• They work well for lots of different types of businesses, from indie newsletters to non-profit newsrooms.
• You can ask readers to take crucial next steps, like signing up for more newsletters or making an additional contribution.

And most importantly: Done right, they can have a meaningful impact on supporter retention.

Here’s how to create a great supporter-only email that helps you keep more of your paying audience.

Three Parts of a Supporter-Only Newsletter

There’s no “right” format for one of these newsletters, but I’ve found that a three-part newsletter is a great starting place for most newsrooms or orgs. First, you explain why you’re doing the work you’re doing; then you show them what you’re doing and who’s behind it; and then you tell them how to connect more deeply with you.

The first part (“why”) is a letter, usually from someone senior on your team. If you’re a newsroom, that might be an editor in chief or general manager, if you’re a non-profit, you might pick an executive director to write this email, if you run your own indie newsletter, the writer is, well, you!

The second part (“what” or “who”) is usually some sort of editorial feature, like a list of popular stories or a Q&A with someone on your staff.

The third part (“how”) is a call-to-action, or CTA, to take a next step — to donate, subscribe, download an app, attend an event, etc.

Part I: Why

This part usually takes the form of a letter, which gives you a chance to put a personal face on your brand. I find that a lot of teams still like to send daily or weekly newsletters that are focused on their content. You open the email, see a list of stories, and hopefully click on something. There’s nothing wrong with that, but those sorts of emails don’t give you the chance to get to know the people behind the brand. When it comes time for that support to renew their support, you want them to know who their money is going to support.

This letter often touches on whatever is happening with your business or org at that moment. Newsrooms will often use this to talk about a big story they’ve covered recently or to preview upcoming projects; non-profits might open with a letter about a recent event, or discuss how something in the news is affecting their work. In this letter, you should clearly explain why you’re doing the work that you’re doing — and the work that this audience has chosen to support. I find that for a newsroom, for instance, readers often don’t understand why editors make certain editorial choices. This letter gives you the chance to peel back the curtain and tell readers more about your process.

The letter doesn’t need to be long. Many of the teams I work with keep this part of the newsletter to anywhere from 150 to 400 words.

It really should feel like a letter, too. If you’re working on this and don’t see words like “you” and “I” or “we” in your first draft, go back through it and make some changes to make the writing a bit more human. The best versions of these letters feel like you’re writing to a specific person — the more personal, the better!

Part II: What or Who

The second piece of these newsletters are more interchangeable. You might have a handful of different things you can feature within this section, but no matter what you use that month, the goal is to make sure a supporter understands what you’re doing with their money and who their support is actually going towards.

This section usually takes the form of an editorial feature, like:

• A list of stories curated around a theme. (If you go this route, you probably talked a bit about the theme in the letter at the start of the email.)
• An interview with a staff member about their recent work.
• An introduction to a new hire.
• An update on a story you published recently and what impactful changes have come since you published it.
• A list of recent wins, like awards your staff has won or anniversaries for longtime staffers.
• A few recommendations — stuff to read, watch, or listen to — from a member of your team.

Again, this section might not be terribly long. If you’re doing a Q&A with a staffer, it might only be three or four questions long. If you’re highlighting recent work on a theme, you might pick five stories to feature. And this section can change every month. One month, you might have a few new hires to introduce to readers; the next, you could let someone on staff make a few picks. Change is okay — you’re trying lots of different things to help supporters understand the “what” or “who.”

Part III: How

The last section of the newsletter is built around a CTA. What do you want readers to do next?

An increase in touchpoints with a brand typically leads to higher retention, so the more ways that supporters can connect with you, the more likely they are to continue to support your work. Getting them to subscribe to one newsletter is great, but getting them to subscribe to a second or a third — or to engage with you on multiple platforms (newsletters and podcasts) is even better.

For some teams, that means using this third section to promote a new product that will drive deeper reader engagement. That could mean announcing a new newsletter, encouraging readers to download your app, or telling them about the new games you’ve rolled out. You could also promote your events, or nudge readers to join your digital community.

The other thing that works incredibly well for any non-profit with a donation strategy: Adding a simple CTA to donate. I’ve found, over and over again, that just by adding a few sentences and a donate button at the bottom of these emails, my clients will see a boost in donations immediately after these newsletters go out — even from readers who are already recurring donors. Why would someone who’s already giving money choose to give more? The feedback has been clear: These donors open the newsletter, learn more about why, what, and who is behind the work, and say, “I like what you’re doing with my money, and I’d love to support this in a bigger way.”

Best practices for supporter-only newsletters

The structure of these newsletters usually stays the same — three sections every time. You can add in more if you need to, but there’s going to be another newsletter next month, so you don’t need to squeeze too much content into each edition. Aim to create something that a reader can scroll through quickly while still learning more about you and your brand.

In helping lots of clients launch these, I’ve learned a few other best practices that you should know before you launch yours:

1.) Pick a specific day to send this newsletter — Often, teams will send one or two of these newsletters, see good engagement, and then never send one again. Why not? Because unlike their editorial newsletters, which go out at a specific day and time, there’s no deadline for these supporter-only emails. (“We’ll get to it next week,” someone says, and next week becomes never pretty quickly.) I’d recommend picking a day on the calendar and sticking with it like you would any other newsletter. When I was helping the Tribune launch the “A Letter From the Editor” newsletter 5+ years ago, we talked about picking a date (i.e., the 1st of the month), but didn’t want to have to change the send date if it fell on a weekend or holiday. The compromise was to always send it on the last Thursday of the month, which helped the team stay on schedule. It also meant that the team could start planning out the content strategy well in advance of the next edition.

2.) Try to stick to a monthly format — Some teams try to send these once a quarter or twice a year, but that’s not really enough for a reader to build a habit around the newsletter, and the impact on retention isn’t quite as powerful with a less frequent send. Monthly tends to be a good cadence for these — it’s a bonus email that readers like, but you’re not annoying readers by giving them lots of extra content they didn’t ask for..

3.) Give the newsletter a name — By giving this product a name, you’re giving it the same treatment that you would any other newsletter — in a reader’s eyes, it makes it something more than just another email. At the New Yorker, we called our behind-the-scenes note “Inside the New Yorker.” At Searchlight New Mexico, they call theirs “High Beam,” which plays off their brand’s name. Naming the newsletter has another perk — you can clearly label it within your preference center, and readers may be more likely to stay subscribed if it doesn’t feel like a generic marketing update.

4.) Use segmentation within the newsletter — You may not want every reader to see the exact same version of the newsletter. For instance: Does a reader live outside your geographic area? Maybe hide the CTA in the third section to attend a local event and tell them about a new podcast launch instead. Or if you know the reader is a one-time donor, adjust the CTA language to encourage them to increase their support.

5.) Think about ways to repurpose this content for non-supporters — Since you’ve gone through the work of creating the content, there might be ways for you to use it in other ways. That letter from your publisher? You could take the copy, adjust it slightly, add a CTA, and turn that into a note to non-supporters encouraging them to pay to support your work. (It could also work nicely as an article on your site.) Or maybe you’ll want to email your entire list the newsletter — supporters get one version with their CTAs, and non-supporters get another. Other teams will take elements of the letter, like a Q&A with a staffer, and republish it in a slightly different format on social media. Don’t be afraid to get a little more out of whatever work you’re creating.

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