Interested in starting a newsletter, or hoping to snag more subscribers? Newsletters are definitely in vogue at the moment and the BSME recently held an event focusing on what makes a successful newsletter, from keeping things consistent, getting feedback, and what encourages people to pay. Berkok Yüksel, senior content strategist at National Geographic Traveller, Jenni Allen, content director at Which?, Maire Bonheim, head of newsletters at The Telegraph, and J.T Levin, VP of sales at beehiiv, made up the panel.

Getting started and the immediate benefits

Before you get started with writing a newsletter, J.T Levin advised ‘figuring out what your value proposition is going to be, and – assuming it’s about trying to make a living – what your monetisation model is.’ 

This is especially relevant if you’re an individual without publisher backing. Once you do start writing ask for feedback early on from readers. This can be done by building polls and surveys and asking questions directly to your audience in your newsletters.

If you’re already an established magazine or publisher, there are some immediate benefits to launching a newsletter. Jenni Allen, who wanted to make the most of the ‘footfall’ the Which? Website was racking up five years ago, soon discovered how a free newsletter could help:

‘It’s a fantastic way to diversify the audience. There’s a dual purpose to it, where essentially we are building out across our topic areas which are many and varied, and also really experimenting with that personalisation, tone of voice and content. We’ve grown now to having 1.4 million unique newsletter subscribers’.

Berkok Yüksel added that due to social media and search platform traffic becoming such a challenging space due to Google and the impact of AI, ‘owning your audience becomes so much more important, and also having direct communication with them where they are expecting a value’. The benefits differ from publisher to publisher, with JT Levin saying that’s why they ‘try to create as much optionality as possible’.

Consistency vs Experimentation

Once you get a newsletter going, it can be difficult to decide whether to stay consistent and keep things as they are, or vary it up and experiment with the format, tone etc. If you’re just starting out, Jenni believes ‘experimentation is what gets you to the right format that you then want to be consistent about’. However, Maire Bonheim takes a different view:

‘You still have to keep experimenting, because what worked six months will very likely change in another six months.’

At National Geographic, Berkok said that they essentially try something new every week; varying one week from news that is very heavy on photography, to engaging the audience for the next with more interactive elements like a quiz. However, he did explain that ‘on the value side, you have to be consistent. People have to know what they will be getting out of your newsletter’.

The best way to track if the audience is preferring consistency or experimentation in your newsletter is by getting feedback from them. Which have a simple feedback button which gives an overall rating while at the Telegraph, Maire explained it’s a bit more detailed:

‘We do regular surveys in our newsletters which has a rating system and then it goes through to ask various questions about length, content, tone and their favourite sections, so they’re quite specific. Also, what I think works really well is having prominent feedback addresses in the newsletters’.

Growing the audience and metrics to measure

Once you’ve got the newsletter off the ground and have subscribers, it’s time to keep growing it. Jenni shared that while site-wide sign up has worked well at Which?, the team has become more contextual in terms of offering a newsletter in relation to the section readers are browsing. She added ‘what’s really worked well is when somebody has signed up to a newsletter, offering a simple click for “we think you might also like this one”’.

JT Levin expanded on this by speaking about how a referral programme can help bring in more subscribers:

‘The people that are reading these newsletters are your biggest fans. They are the most excited about what you’re doing. Generally, they tend to know like minded people, so if they like to travel then they tend to hang out with people that like to travel. You want to turn that into a way to bring in subscribers – provide incentives for them to share that newsletter with others’.

Getting subscribers in and growing that audience is essential, but its also vital to decide what metrics to measure. For Jenni and Berkok, it’s about understanding who the audience are. Jenni mentioned having an ‘active known audience’, while Berkok said the team ‘try to create a persona for the audience and understand the niche interests’. For Maire at the Telegraph, which  works on a subscription model, the focus is on tenure:

‘All subscribers, we look at the tenure of their subscription – how often they’re opening our newsletter and based on that, does that increase the length of their subscription? We know that if a reader subscribes from a newsletter then they are twice as likely to be a subscriber a year later’.

A penchant to pay and to personalise or not?

People are often reluctant to pay, especially when it comes to media and the news if they know they can get it for free online or on social media. However, Berkok feels that ‘niche interests are something that people are excited to pay money for’ because it’s information they probably can’t get elsewhere. This tied in with Jenni’s feelings that a newsletter should be distinctive with  ‘value in and of itself in that newsletter’. Maire added two more reasons why people are willing to pay:

‘I think it can be utility and indispensability. For example, a news roundup newsletter, that’s habit forming for people and provides a kind of utility for them. Also, identity and connection. If you start to identify as a reader of a particular brand, and you start to feel part of the community then you are more likely to pay’.

That identity and connection to a newsletter can often stem from it being more personal in tone. Maire said that this is a good way to ‘compete with AI slop’ by making it something people can truly identify with. Berkok agreed, adding that ‘many newsletters now use the name of the editor or the person who’s sending to users, and that makes it feel a lot more approachable’.

If you want to find out more about creating a newsletter on Substack and the advantages that can bring then check out this post. Or if you have an idea for one but need some experts to share their knowledge then try the Journalist Enquiry Service to get the comments you need.