Why you may (or may not) need a newsletter
By Dorothy Pomerantz | Fitch Ink Managing Editor
If you’re anything like me, you probably start your day not by walking down the driveway a la Tony Soprano and picking up your local newspaper, but by opening your email and clicking on newsletters.
Courtesy of HBO
I absolutely love newsletters. For me, the internet has become an overwhelming firehose of information. While I once used social media to help narrow that deluge to a trickle, in the last few years sites like Facebook and X have just become toxic dumping grounds that I try to avoid as much as possible.
Enter the newsletter. The best newsletters offer stories in short, digestible bites with an option to read more elsewhere. Newsletters tend to be written in breezy, easy-to-read voices that make it simple for a reader to stay engaged. And they can be delightfully niche. While I read Axios and Morning Brew every morning for my daily dose of national stories, I also enjoy newsletters that dive deeper into specific subjects like LAist, which does a great job covering local issues in Los Angeles, and Data Sheet from Fortune to keep up on AI news.
I’m not alone in my passion for newsletters. According to a survey from Storydoc, 90% of Americans subscribe to at least one newsletter.
And newsletters aren’t only for news publications. More than half of respondents (55%) said they think newsletters are a good way for brands to communicate with customers.
So that raises the question: When it comes to content planning, should you have a newsletter?
The answer is ... it depends. While newsletters can be extremely effective, it’s also important that they’re done right. When someone agrees to open their inbox to you, they’re trusting that you’re going to give them content they want and find interesting. And that’s not always easy. So here’s a closer look at what factors to weigh when deciding whether to launch a newsletter.
Yes, you should have a newsletter!
Companies that want to reach their audiences directly and have established a strong, thought leadership voice and a newsroom full of content, should definitely consider a newsletter.
GE (a Fitch Ink client now split into three companies) has done a great job of creating a symbiotic relationship between newsroom and newsletter. The newsroom generates compelling content that can be highlighted and condensed for a sharp newsletter that can stand on its own. And the regular newsletter drives fresh additional traffic to the newsroom.
The best newsletters are a mix of your own content and some curated items. At GE, we have written a newsletter segment called “The 5 Coolest Things on Earth,” where we single out five interesting science stories from other publications, about topics as diverse as fruit flies producing antibiotics and flexible walking robots. This kind of mix helps keep your readers engaged and builds trust that your communication is about more than just promoting yourself.
Or maybe, proceed with caution
The most important consideration when starting a newsletter is: Can you keep it going? Ideas are one thing but execution is another. Plenty of people have gotten excited about the idea of a regular newsletter only to quickly realize that you have to write the thing again and again and again.
If you don’t have an existing body of work to pull from, a newsletter might not make sense because you’ll have to write each story from scratch every time. That can be more time-consuming than you think. Even creating a curated newsletter (where you’re just pointing people to other content) requires a dedicated staff member or an outside agency to make sure those stories are interesting and appropriate and that the newsletter copy is eye-catching.
And building an audience takes patience. Maybe you have an existing list of people you can send your pilot newsletter to, but from there, you want it to grow. That means you need to dedicate time to creating and distributing, on a schedule (that doesn’t overwhelm your reader), a newsletter that is enjoyable enough that people not only sign up for it, but they are also eager to share it with others.
Can’t AI help out here?
Sure! ChatGPT is a great way to get some words down so you’re not looking at a blank Mailchimp template. But today, artificial intelligence can only take you so far. You’re very likely to end up with flat prose that neither delights nor interests your reader unless you take that initial copy and really rework it.
Newsletters are a great way to connect directly with your audience but they require dedicated and consistent work. If you think a newsletter might be right for your company, why not reach out! At Fitch Ink, we’re newsletter pros ready to consult, manage and write your newsletter for you.
