Newsletters come in all shapes and sizes, but perhaps you’re not totally sure what you should include in yours. Some (older) newsletters are often more free-flowing and centered around a single idea.
However, most of the popular newsletters that have launched in recent years follow a similar content strategy. While you can go plenty of directions, this article will cover the most common elements we’re seeing in today’s popular newsletters—along with a few notable exceptions.
But first, let’s define what we’re talking about here.
Old Newsletters vs New Newsletters
For most of email’s existence, the word “newsletter” has generally been used to define anything email-related a company sent out. If you sent an email to your list, that was a newsletter.
Often, they were emails that were salesy, talked up the company, or informed about products.
But now? The word newsletter has shifted in meaning. They’re emails that provide self-contained value, meaning there aren’t usually calls to action to click elsewhere. There are often links, but a newsletter typically provides enough commentary that clicking isn’t necessary unless you want a deep dive on a topic.
Usually, newsletters aren’t promotional or self-serving—they focus on pure, unfiltered value.
Many newsletters are started by individuals without a preexisting company, and their business model is to monetize the newsletter itself.
Others are created by existing companies who want to draw attention to their brand. Many companies still send out old-school emails, but then they may have a purely informational newsletter that they send out regularly.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s dive into what goes into a newsletter.
What to Include in a Newsletter
There are several basic components that are found in nearly all newsletters.
1. Header
The top image that you put into your newsletter is the first impression given to your readers. With any luck, that header will be something they come to greet as an old friend, putting them in a good mood because they’re about to read your newsletter.
For that reason, it’s a good idea to:
- Have one.
- Make it fit your brand!
Yes, #1 is obvious, but even slapping something together before sending out for the first time is important. The easiest way to do this is to just write out the name of your newsletter in a font that fits your newsletter’s personality.
This is literally what 1440 does, even though they have over 3.8 million subscribers:
That’s it. That’s the header.
Of course, this actually fits their brand as they’re meant to be a boring, non-partisan portrayal of the news.
However, your newsletter will likely have more personality, and you can choose a font that fits your brand.
Eventually, you’ll likely want to look into a professionally designed header. You can hire a designer on Fiverr or Upwork to get you a logo and a header for under $100.
If you’ve got decent design chops, try Canva. Even the free version has plenty of pre-built options and an easy interface.
2. Intro to Newsletter
When crafting your intro, be especially mindful of your brand. This short chunk immediately sets the tone for the email.
For some, it’s a simple and straightforward summary of what’s to come in the newsletter, like the New York Times’s newsletter:
Of course, that fits their brand, but it is unlikely to fit yours. Here’s a great example of how Katie from Money With Katie injects her personality right from the jump:
Some newsletter writers will create this content block last—especially if they’re giving a summary of what’s to come—while others find that it helps put them in the mindset to write the rest of the newsletter.
Either way, spend more time crafting this little section than you do on other parts. The goal is to hook people from the start!
3. Content Blocks
While newsletters can follow many different content strategies, many choose to format their content into discrete blocks of content.
Here are a few of the more common types of content:
Curated Content
Many newsletters are founded on the idea of providing the best round-up of curated content with insightful commentary. For the NextDraft newsletter, this is the only type of content that owner Dave Pell does.
Personal Insight
Seth Godin, perhaps the foremost marketing mind of our time, sends out a thoughtful message each day. Sometimes, it’s a sentence, and other times it’s blog-post length. But it’s always something that has been on his mind. Here’s an entire message he sent out one day:
Tips & Strategies
You'll often learn something from the author in more “how to” sorts of newsletters. For example, the Reedsy newsletter follows a more sporadic sending style and doesn’t really have content “blocks.” Ricardo (the author) typically teaches about marketing your books in a single, free-flowing message that’s always helpful and full of what’s-working-now type of advice.
Recommendations
Each week, Tim Ferris includes links to his popular podcast but also lets people in on what he’s reading, listening to, and watching:
Tim’s followers know that he’s relentless about testing and optimizing, well, everything in his life, so his recommendations carry a ton of weight.
4. Closing
You’ve got plenty of options for wrapping up your newsletter. Some just end with a quick sign-off, while others use that space to encourage promoting the newsletter.
1440 asks for referrals and pitches their ad-free newsletter:
The Enjoy Basketball newsletter asks for a rating of their newsletter in a way that basketball fans will enjoy:
In the early days of your newsletter, don’t sweat this part. Even if you just end with “Sincerely, [Your Name],” that’s fine.
5. Subject Line & Preheader
Let’s start by saying that having a great subject line is much less important than who the email is from! Subscribers open newsletters because they’re interested in the industry and love the newsletter’s brand. People will open your newsletter because it’s you, not because you wrote a clever headline.
Of course, our subject line still plays a (smaller) part, especially with new readers or casual subscribers who only open your emails occasionally.
Here’s an example from Morning Brew:
First, you see their name and then the subject line. The text beneath that is the preheader. Their strategy here is interesting because “New numbers” doesn’t mean much until you read the preheader. They combine those two into one coherent message.
James Clear actually starts each subject line the same (3-2-1 is the name of his newsletter), and then uses the same preheader each time, too:
He understands that people read his newsletter because he sends it. Rather than obsessing over a perfect subject and preheader, he spends 30 seconds on it.
Finding a Newsletter Platform
If you’re new to this whole newsletter thing, comparing platforms for sending your newsletter can be daunting. You need a service designed for newsletters—with clean design templates, automated revenue generation, pre-built landing pages to generate subscribers, and much more. Letterhead was built with your future business in mind and scales as you grow.
Schedule a free consult today with us, and we’ll help you get up and running with a roadmap that makes sense for your incredible newsletter.
