“How can I create my own newsletter?”
Many people have asked me this question.
I’ve responded with answers ranging from…
“Choose a niche you’re passionate about.”
…To
“Go on Beehiiv, create a landing page and tell everyone about your newsletter.”
Taken alone, this advice isn’t helpful. There is so much behind the scenes that involves building a newsletter.
So much so that I decided to make a (longer and more comprehensive) article on it.
This guide is my full answer to “How can I create my own newsletter?”
I’ll go over…
Who should start a newsletter?
Choosing a niche
Different newsletter types
Setting up your newsletter
Creating an email template
Getting subscribers
Creating a newsletter system
Monetizing your newsletter
And by the end, you will be prepared to start your own.
Newsletters aren’t for everyone.
People who have long-term success with a newsletter likely have these two qualities*.
A love of writing (or at the very least, you don’t dislike it)
Willingness to write about the same topic.
*There are exceptions to these two qualities. Some people hire a ghostwriter to create the newsletter for them. But this guide is written for people who write and manage their own newsletter, not for people who outsource it .
If you don’t have these qualities, you may be better off starting a podcast, creating short-form content, or starting a YouTube channel.
Also, if you don’t have the time or patience to write a new newsletter at least once a month, then newsletters may not be for you.
A newsletter is a long-term asset that grows in value the longer you keep it. If you are looking for quick money and don’t want to spend years building, a newsletter isn’t the right choice.
Ok. We know to start a newsletter, you have to like writing and be willing to write about the same topic.
But what are the benefits of newsletters?
A LOT. Here are the biggest pros of newsletters.
You own the audience. All of the subscribers are yours. There is no algorithm preventing you from reaching them, and you can communicate with them personally and on a direct level you can’t get on social media.
Your newsletter builds trust and “warms up” your audience to buy. Your newsletter not only sells the products you create but also builds a loyal fanbase.
You can automate sequences and create segments that do the selling for you. Once your newsletter is set up, you can create automations that sell your products to specific segments. This creates consistent revenue with no extra effort.
You can measure marketing success very easily. Email marketing platforms give deep insights into open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribes, specific URLs your customers clicked on, purchases, and more. You can use that data to create segments to target specific parts of your audience.
There are many more pros, but these are my favorite.
Another quality (but not a requirement) of successful newsletter writers is having expertise and experience in a specific topic.
The more knowledgeable you are, the more valuable newsletters you can make and the happier your subscribers will be.
If you have the qualities I mentioned, great!
Let’s get into choosing your newsletter niche.
Choosing your niche.
My first piece of advice is to choose a topic you can write about endlessly.
Something that you won’t get bored of or run out of ideas. Writing about something you’re passionate about breeds consistency and long-term success.
A newsletter is a long-term investment, and choosing something you can write about endlessly is a critical first step.
Now, moving on to the secondary considerations.
Easy-to-market customers
Your audience should be easy for you to market to. If you aren’t good at marketing on the platform your audience uses, it will be hard to grow.
You probably know certain social media platforms better than others. I’m good at writing and use Reddit for fun, so it’s easy for me to find online entrepreneurs (my target market) there.
But if I wanted to target CEOs and business professionals, I would have to market on LinkedIn, which is much harder because I have little experience using it.
High-paying customers
Every audience is worth different amounts. You want to choose a niche whose audience will click on ads, join your communities, and buy your products.
By niching down, you can target a specific segment of a market that is worth more. For example, if you wanted to create a newsletter on marketing, you could niche down to AI SEO professionals.
This creates a higher worth for your subscribers and leads to you earning more from ads and from your own products in the future.
Experience in the niche
The more experience you have, the more value you can give to your audience.
But you don’t have to be an expert. There are other ways you can give value to your audience, such as documenting your journey as a peer or compiling the best resources.
There are many different types of newsletters. Each of these types has a different post structure and sending schedule.
Roundup newsletter
This is an industry newsletter where you round up the latest news and information in a field.
You can send these out on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. The number of emails you send depends on the amount of new information in your industry.
Roundup newsletters require good research, compiling, and summarization skills.
You don’t need to be very experienced because you aren’t writing original content but rather getting the best information and saving your audience time.
Deconstructed: Morning Brew
Morning Brew is a popular daily newsletter that informs readers about global business news.
It compiles information on topics ranging from politics and IPOs to the stock market into one newsletter.
Deep dive newsletter
This is the type of newsletter I write.
It’s informational and uses case studies, examples, and descriptions. This newsletter works better on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.
Deconstructed: Demand Curve
Demand Curve is a weekly newsletter that discusses growth systems and tactics.
They write in-depth articles on business growth.
Personal letter
This is a personal message where you tell stories and share your experiences. You can give takeaways, but a personal letter isn’t as educational as a deep dive newsletter.
Deconstructed: the saturday essay
This is a weekly letter by Justin Welsh.
He discusses his personal experiences and lessons on business and life.
Many newsletters combine elements of these newsletter types. You don’t need to stick to one, and you can try different types when your audience is small.
One common mistake I see is people trying to write daily newsletters. Writing an article every day takes more time than people think, and I don’t recommend starting like this.
On the other hand, monthly newsletters are too spaced apart, and most people won’t remember your brand.
I believe one newsletter every few days, weekly, or bi-weekly newsletters are the best options.
Setting up your newsletter
There are many different newsletter platforms to choose from.
Beehiiv is my favorite and what I use to write this newsletter. Other popular platforms are Substack and Kit.
There are a few reasons why I like Beehiiv:
There is a free plan. You can try Beehiiv’s free plan to see if you like it and then upgrade. That’s how I started Business Deconstructed.
They have advertisers within their platform. When you upgrade to their paid plan, you get access to their Ad network, which has various advertisers for your niche. You get paid per ad click and get offers right from the start.
They have many useful tools. Beehiiv has automations, segments, digital products, analytics, and many other useful tools. Other newsletter platforms have some of these, but they aren’t as powerful as Beehiiv’s.
If you want a free trial and 20% off Beehiiv’s paid plan, you can use this link.
Setting up your newsletter is similar across platforms, so I’ll cover the basics that stay the same for each article.
Landing page
Keep your landing page simple. Don’t overcomplicate it.
A clear promise with a call to action to sign up is all you need.
Having only an option to sign up and no distractions leaves the viewer with the option to subscribe or to click away.
Here’s a good example:
Branding
Once again, keep it simple and don’t spend too much time on your branding.
Create a logo on Canva or another free tool. Pick one main color you like.
Keeping a minimalist brand at the start is best. The faster you can get to marketing and producing the articles, the better you will understand your audience.
Here, Pat Flynn uses red, along with white and black, to maintain a clean brand look.
Creating a reusable email template
Making a reusable template for emails saves time, clearly structures your content, and creates a consistent feel for your audience.
Pro Tip: Subscribe to the best newsletters with the same type as your newsletter (roundup, deep dive, personal letter).
Look at what they do, and take the best parts of their newsletter to build your email template.
Your newsletter template depends on your niche, but here is some general advice.
Use one main color along with white and black. I've found that one color along with white and black keeps the newsletter minimalistic but still interesting.
Have distinct headings. Your headings should clearly separate the content and provide visual relief.
Write in shorter paragraphs. Most emails are read on phones, and people get overwhelmed by dense paragraphs. So write in short paragraphs.
Once you create your newsletter template, you can write the email within the structure and reuse it every time.
Jay Yang, in his newsletter The Spark, follows the same structure of three thoughts, two quotes, and one game-changing idea.
He uses the same email template across all of his emails.
Getting your first subscribers
Now, you need to tell the world that your newsletter exists.
Start by reaching out to people within your network. This builds momentum and gets your skin in the game to continue growing the newsletter.
Test free social media platforms where your target market is, and if you are running paid ads, do them in small amounts at first.
Once you market on different platforms, you will see which perform well and which ones don’t work for you.
Then, focus your efforts on one platform.
Newsletter platforms have tools such as segments and automations that categorize your audience into groups and allow you to send automated email sequences.
You can use these to welcome subscribers, create sales sequences, or reengage inactive subscribers.
I recommend creating segments and automations a few months after starting your newsletter.
When you start, you only need a welcome email. Segments and automations are useful when your newsletter is growing, and you want a system to save time and market to specific customers.
These are the 3 most important automations:
1/ Welcome sequence
This sequence exists to welcome and build trust with new subscribers. Inside, you tell them what your newsletter is about and share your best resources.
You can send past emails to new subscribers. This increases familiarity and brand trust.
2/ Re-engagement sequence
This sequence is for inactive subscribers and can be triggered based on how many days the subscriber has not opened or clicked on your emails.
Having a re-engagement sequence cleans your list and keeps the deliverability and open rates high. If your subscribers want to read your emails, they can remain in the newsletter list, but if they don’t want to or don’t open the emails, they will be automatically removed.
I recommend setting a re-engagement at around 90 days of inactivity. Shorter than this, and some people who might read your newsletter will unsubscribe. You can make it longer than this, but your open rates and deliverability might drop.
3/ Sales sequence
You can create sales sequences for subscribers who click on a certain link, purchase a certain product, hit a milestone (90 days of being subscribed), or use another trigger.
You can make sales sequences for subscribers with high intent to buy, and these automations make money without having to write any new emails.
Some newsletter platforms, such as Beehiiv and Kit, have automation templates that you can use. These are very helpful and provide the structure and technical side behind the automations.
You can create segments for subscribers who are in certain automations. You can also make segments to group more active subscribers so you can write personalized emails to them.
These are the most common segments you can create for your newsletter.
Welcome sequence segment. This allows you to exclude subscribers who are in your welcome sequence from your regular emails.
Re-engagement sequence segment. This allows you to exclude subscribers who are in your re-engagement sequence from your regular emails.
Sales sequence segment. This allows you to exclude subscribers who are in your sales sequence from your regular emails.
Most engaged segment. You can create a segment of subscribers with the most opens and clicks to target a smaller and more active part of your audience.
Product segments. You can create a segment based on people who have bought your products. You can use this to ask for testimonials, to buy other products, or for any other reason.
Abandoned cart. These are subscribers who didn’t buy. This lets you retarget the non-buyers.
Source-based segments. You can segment subscribers based on what marketing channel they came from to see which ones are giving you the highest-quality subscribers.
There are many other segments, but those are the main ones.
Monetizing your newsletter
There are many ways to monetize your newsletter: in-email ads, digital products, services, or affiliate links.
The easiest way to monetize your newsletter is using the ad network in Beehiiv. They have advertisers that pay you per qualified person who clicks on their ad within your email.
How you monetize depends on the newsletter size and your experience.
For smaller newsletters, using in-email ads, affiliate links, or selling your own service is an easy way to start.
Talk soon,
- Warren
PS: If you want to see Business Deconstructed’s past newsletters, you can go here: Business Deconstructed's Archive. The articles aren’t as long as this guide, but still valuable.