Email and newsletter

Before you write a word, finish this sentence: "Every week I send [who] one [what] so they can [result]." If you cannot complete it, your newsletter has no job yet. A narrow promise is easier to write and easier to forgive when you miss a week.

Write the sentence on the signup form, in the welcome email and at the top of your planning doc. If the reader is still vague, start with Write to one person.

Use the method from Distil to one message. Write the idea in one sentence: what the reader should think, feel or do after reading. If it needs "and" twice, you have two emails.

A newsletter with five topics gets skimmed and forgotten. One idea told well gets remembered and gets a reply.

The subject line is the headline of the medium, so give it the work that The headline carries the click describes. Write five versions. Make one a plain statement of the benefit, one a question, one a specific number, one a curiosity gap and one the shortest you can manage.

Then pick the one you could defend to the reader after they open the email. If the body does not deliver on the subject, you teach people to stop opening you. Keep subject lines under about 50 characters so they survive a phone screen.

A fixed shape saves you from a blank page. This is the one I would start with:

1. Opening line: one sentence that earns the second line, as in The first line earns the second.
2. The idea in a short story, example or number.
3. What to do with it: two or three steps or a rule of thumb.
4. The single call to action.
5. A P.S. that repeats the ask or adds the one link.

Keep paragraphs to two or three lines. Email is read fast and often on a phone, so white space does half the work.

Decide the action before you draft: reply with an answer, click one link, book a call or forward the email. Everything in the email points at that action. If you ask for three things, you get none.

My preferred ask for a small list is a reply to a direct question. Replies tell you what readers care about, and they help your messages reach the inbox.

Pick one tool and one day. Kit, Mailchimp, Brevo and Loops all handle a simple weekly send. Choose the one your team will actually open. Draft on a fixed day, send on a fixed day and keep the time block to about 45 minutes.

If you use Claude for drafts, feed it your promise sentence, your idea and two of your past emails so the voice stays yours. Always rewrite the first line and the P.S. by hand. For a rhythm you can hold, use Consistency beats brilliance.

Opens are a noisy number because mail apps can load images automatically. Watch replies first, clicks second and unsubscribes third. After four sends, compare the subject lines and the asks, and keep what worked.

• Using the subject line to promise something the body does not give.
• Putting three topics and three links in one email.
• Writing to "subscribers" instead of one person.
• Sending only when you feel inspired, so the list forgets you.
• Hiding the ask in the middle of a paragraph.
• Skipping the plain-text check on a phone before you send.

• Your sending day is fixed and you have missed fewer than one in ten.
• At least a few subscribers reply to each email.
• Unsubscribes stay low and steady after each send.
• Clicks on your single link rise over the first ten sends.
• People mention a specific email when they get in touch, which means the list is doing its job for the business. To keep the list growing, read Build owned distribution before the rented kind betrays you.