Newsletters are blowing up again.
In this age of content overload, people are looking for content that feels personal and relevant. They want stories they can connect with, and newsletters are the perfect medium for this. The growth of successful newsletters like the Skimm and Morning Brew is the perfect example of their appeal.
You might be thinking, “I should start a newsletter!”
That is a great idea. To help you, I asked several top email marketing experts for their best newsletter-writing tips. These insights will help you take advantage of the newsletter boom and create impactful content that engages and converts.
Here are expert-backed strategies for writing a newsletter in 2024. Feel free to share your own favorite tips in the comments..
Bio: Jeanne Jennings is a recognized expert in the email marketing world. She is the Founder and Chief Strategist for Email Optimization Shop, a boutique consultancy that helps medium- to enterprise-sized organizations make their online marketing more effective and profitable.
Tip: An email newsletter is an excellent way to keep your brand top of mind, showcase expertise, and drive leads. But remember, it is a newsletter, not a standalone promotion. At least 60% of your content should be editorial—providing reader value without requiring a purchase—while 40% or less can be promotional.
Editorial content examples include helpful resources like “Top Hiking Trails” if you sell outdoor gear, or “Pros and Cons of Agile Marketing” if your audience includes marketing professionals. Avoid content that focuses solely on your company or products, as it provides little standalone value. When your focus shifts to helping rather than selling, your newsletter will succeed.
The editorial topics should
(a) be of interest to your target audience
(b) have some relation to the product or service you provide, e.g. a changelog with the most important updates, created in a changelog tool.
Writing an email newsletter with an ‘all about our company/products’ focus is the number one mistake I see organizations making. When you get in the mindset of providing value without a purchase, you set your email newsletter program up for success.
Bio: Matt Helbig is a Chicago-based digital marketing expert specializing in conversion-centered projects that blend data, technology, and creativity
Tip: Think of your newsletter as a service to your subscribers. Ask yourself: does this email serve my audience’s needs? If not, pause and rethink. Serving your audience builds loyalty. When you really serve a customer and their actual needs, they're going to keep coming back.
Think of your newsletter as a service to your subscribers. Ask yourself: does this email serve my audience’s needs? If not, pause and rethink. Serving your audience builds loyalty.
Bio: Adam Holden-Bache is the Director of Email Marketing at Enventys Partners. He oversees email strategy, production, execution, and analytics to help brands exceed their marketing goals.
Tip: Do not value the newsletter more than the recipient.
Your newsletter should be informative, educational, and relevant. Avoid excessive self-promotion. When possible, segment your audience—by customer status, purchase history, or sales stage—to deliver personalized messages. Recipients want to learn about your industry, products, and services, and if you don't deliver that, subscribers will tune out over time. If you have the opportunity, segment your subscribers (by customer/non-customer, by product or service purchased, or by stage in the sales cycle, etc.) and deliver customized newsletter content to each. The more relevant the content you deliver, the better your results will be.
Email newsletters are a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate thought leadership and industry expertise, and to educate your recipients through features, advantages, and benefits analysis of your products and services. They can help convert leads to customers and increase customer retention. Those that put in the effort to create informative and educational newsletter content often find they are rewarded with higher conversion rates and improved customer loyalty.
Bio: Karen Talavera is President of Synchronicity Marketing, a consulting firm providing digital and email marketing strategy, program development and professional education.
Tip: Leverage automation. Content production can be time-consuming, but modern tools like Rasa.io or Paper.li make it easy to build newsletters using automated feeds and personalized content modules. Writing and developing content can be a full-time job, but today, with tools like Rasa.io or Paper.li email newsletters can be assembled in minutes via automated feeds, plus include customized, personalized modules. Chances are you already have a lot of great content - like blogs, videos, and infographics - which can be re-purposed within a newsletter, so use your own assets but don’t be shy about curating items from other great sources too!
Bio: Kate Barrett is the founder of eFocus Marketing and The Email Marketing Academy, providing specialist email marketing consultancy, management, and training services to companies around the world.
Tip :Understand your audience and deliver what they need, when they need it.
To get results, send the right message to the right person at the right time — whether it is a newsletter, an automated campaign, or a promotional email. Personalized content is no longer optional; it is essential for maximizing engagement and impact.
By truly understanding where your audience is in their journey with you and who they are, you can better target your content to connect with them and deliver information when they need it. Personalized content isn’t a ‘nice to have’ anymore – it’s crucial if you want to maximize your impact and results.
Bio: Jay Oram is a coder at Action Rocket - email agency based in Farringdon. Developing, designing and working on emails from a range of clients.
Tip: Always put the recipient at the center of your communication. Ask yourself: will this email provide value or actionable advice? Ensure your message is relevant, concise, and accessible. Sending emails just for the sake of it rarely works. Focus on what the reader needs most.
Bio: Beata is a senior marketer in the brand, digital and email marketing fields.
She worked for Nike EMEA for 10 years, and grew the email channel to be a substantial brand and content marketing tool while driving sales. Beyond emails she also lead x-channel brand campaigns from planning to execution and is at home in the digital marketing world.
Tip: With the coronavirus, there's a shift in marketing as well. Being personalised was already important, now being empathetic is even more crucial. Look at the situation, how the target audience might be affected and (re)do your messaging accordingly. Pushing emails out just for the sake of selling was already an old-school approach. Now it's even more important to be useful and meaningful beyond sales.
Bio: Nir Eyal is an Israeli-born American author, lecturer and investor known for his bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.
Tip: Write the kind of content you would want to read. Answer your own questions and challenges. This ensures authenticity—your writing stays genuine, and readers sense that honesty. Even if only a few people read it, you will have created something valuable.
Bio: Tomi Mester is the author of Data36. He creates in-depth, practical, true-to-life online tutorials (and video courses) to help people learn Data Science.
Tip: Write honest emails that respect your audience’s needs.
I try to interact with them and understand what would help them. (In my online course, for instance, I often do 1-on-1 Skype sessions, too. In newsletters, I encourage them to reply.) Once the conversation starts, it's much easier to write those newsletters, too -- because it's more like writing an email to a friend who needs help. Only that it goes out for thousands of other people.
Another rule I follow is that the format of the newsletter has to reflect on the things I want to say.
So when I publish a new article, I keep the email about it short and sweet. "Here's a new article, it's about XY, you'll learn this and this, LINK."
And when I have an announcement (e.g. a new course) or when I try to write something to motivate people, it gets longer (with more stories and details, etc.)
Bio: Talia Wolf is a Conversion optimization specialist & speaker. She helps businesses grow and fix their funnels with emotional targeting & customer-driven optimization.
Tip: The most high-converting emails are personal, relatable and show the reader you understand them.
Lead with empathy. Enquire about your subscribers situation, share your own challenges and situations. This doesn't mean you have to offer discounts, gifts or free solutions, it means you need to be attentive to their needs and the current global situation. No matter the situation (in good times or in bad ones), people mostly appreciate when you show them that you understand them. That you make it about them. This is the key to writing emails that make people smile and increase your ROI. The simplest way to do this is by connecting with beyond email. Join the communities they're in, Facebook groups and others, read the questions people are posting on Quora, Amazon, identify the requests they're making to your customer service team and most importantly - listen. Look for common themes and common concerns people mention and, address those in your email. When you show your readers you've done your research and you know how they're feeling and what they need right now, you'll not only get the results you need right now, but build the relationships your business needs for lifetime customers.
