You will be able to choose a newsletter format and frequency that match your time and what your readers want.
Plenty of business newsletters follow the same arc. The first issue goes out with great energy in January. The second is a week late. The third is skipped because of a busy month, and by June the list has heard nothing for so long that the next email gets reported as spam by people who forgot they signed up. Nobody decided to stop. The newsletter just asked for more time than the business had.
Your welcome sequence from module 4 runs on its own. The newsletter does not. This lesson is about picking a format and a rhythm that fit the hours you really have, so the newsletter is still going out a year from now.
Most small business newsletters fall into one of four shapes. Each takes a different amount of work.
One long idea is a single topic explored properly: a how-to, an opinion, a story with a lesson. It builds trust fast because it shows you know your subject, and it takes the most time to write. Priya's fortnightly maths tip is a short version of this, one problem type explained with a worked example.
A short tip is one useful thing in a few sentences, plus a link. It is quick to write and quick to read. It suits businesses with plenty of small, practical knowledge to share.
A curated list gathers links you found useful, with a line on each saying why. It can be fast if you already read widely in your field, but your selection and comments are the value, so it still needs your judgement.
News and offers from the business covers new products, dates, events and promotions. Shops lean on this, and it is what Mei Ling's monthly email mostly is: the dates still open for custom orders and one new design. It is the easiest to write and the easiest to ignore, so it works best when the news is genuinely useful to the reader.
Many newsletters mix two of these, such as a short tip followed by one piece of business news. Pick one main format so readers know what to expect.
It is tempting to promise a weekly newsletter. It sounds committed, and some advice online says more email means more sales. For a small business, the right frequency is the one you can keep up without fail.
A monthly email that always arrives in the first week builds a habit in your readers. They come to expect it. A weekly email that runs for six weeks and then goes silent for three months teaches them the opposite, and the long silence makes the next send riskier for delivery, as lesson 3.1 explained.
So start slower than you think you can manage. If monthly feels easy after six months, move to fortnightly. Going from monthly to fortnightly is a pleasant surprise for readers. Going from weekly to nothing is a broken promise.
Match the frequency to what your signup form promised in lesson 2.2. If the form said monthly, send monthly.
Each issue should contain at least one thing the reader could not easily get somewhere else. That might be your experience, a local detail, early access, or a straight answer to a question people ask you.
Priya's tips work because they come from what she sees in her own classroom: the specific mistakes P5 children in her centre make, with the fix she uses. A parent cannot find that in a general maths article. Mei Ling's monthly email works because it tells customers which dates are still free before they open the order form and find their party weekend is taken.
Before sending any issue, ask whether a subscriber would notice if it never arrived. If the honest answer is no, the issue needs something more, or it needs to wait.
The most reliable way to keep a rhythm is to write before you need to. Batch-write several issues in one sitting, then schedule them or keep them ready.
Priya writes her fortnightly tips during the school holidays, when the centre is quieter, and drafts enough for most of the following term. During exam season, when she has no spare hours at all, the newsletter keeps going from the drafts. Mei Ling writes her monthly email in the slow weeks after a festive rush, with the order dates left blank to fill in a few days before sending.
Keep a running list of topics as they come up: questions customers ask, mistakes you keep seeing, things you wish people knew. When you sit down to batch-write, you start from a list instead of a blank page. The course Content and copywriting that people read covers this kind of planning in lesson 9.2, Publish less, more consistently.
Pick one day and stick with it, so readers learn when to expect you. There is no universal best day. Think about when your readers have a moment and a reason to act. Parents planning the week might read on a Sunday evening. Customers planning a weekend celebration might want Mei Ling's email early in the month, well before they need to order.
Once you have sent a few issues, your own results will tell you more than any general rule, and module 8 shows you how to read them.
In the activity below you will set down your choices: your format, how often you will send, which day, and the topics for your next three issues.
Write down your newsletter format, frequency, send day and the three topics for your next three issues.
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