A Simple Monthly Newsletter Customers Open

Somewhere in your email account is a list of a few hundred people who already bought from you. Most of them have not heard from you since the receipt. They would open an email from you. You just have not sent one, because every time you sit down to write a newsletter it turns into a project.

The fix is not more effort. It is less. A newsletter people open is short, arrives on a predictable day, and follows the same shape every month, so writing it takes an hour instead of a weekend. Here is a format that works for almost any local business.

Why monthly

Weekly is too much for most owners to sustain, and the first missed week tends to become a missed quarter. Quarterly is too rare for anyone to remember who you are. Monthly is the rhythm you can actually keep, and keeping it is the whole game. A list that hears from you on the second Tuesday of every month starts to expect you.

Pick the day now, on a week that is usually quiet for you, and put it in the calendar for the next twelve months.

The four-part format

Every issue has the same four parts, in the same order. Readers learn where to look, and you never start from a blank page.

1. One useful thing. A tip, an answer or a heads-up your customers can use this month whether or not they buy anything. A landscaper explains when to stop mowing for the season. A dentist explains what a night guard actually does. An accountant lists the three documents to start gathering now. It is the reason people open the next one, so put it first.

2. What is new here. One or two things that changed at your business: a new service, a new team member, new hours, a project you finished. Two or three sentences each, with a photo if you have a good one. This is news, not an ad.

3. One offer or ask. A single clear thing you want readers to do: book the winter tune-up, reserve a table for the holiday, refer a neighbor. One ask, one button. If you put four offers in an email, readers pick none of them.

4. A short sign-off from a person. Two lines from you or whoever the customers know, signed with a real name. “Thanks for a busy fall. See you at the counter.” This is the part people reply to, and replies are worth more than clicks.

That is it. No list of every product, no stock photo banner. If an issue runs longer than a phone screen or two, cut it.

Where the content comes from

The useful thing is the hardest part. Keep a running note of the questions customers ask, on the phone, at the counter and in email. If one person asked, others wondered.

If you already keep an idea bank for social, as in our guide to what to post when you run out of ideas, the newsletter can take the best answer of the month and give it more room.

Get the basics right before the first send

A few things decide whether the email arrives at all, and whether anyone opens it:

• Send from a person at your domain, like a name at your business address, not a no-reply address and not a free email account.
• Make sure your domain is set up to send. If your email settings do not say who is allowed to send as you, your newsletter can land in spam. Our plain-English guide to DMARC covers what to check.
• Write a subject line that says what is inside. “November: when to stop mowing, and our new fall hours” beats “Our November Newsletter” every time.
• Write the first line for the preview. Most inboxes show it next to the subject line. Make it the start of your useful thing, not “View this email in your browser.”
• Read it on your phone before you send it. That is where most of your list will see it.
• Only email people who asked to hear from you, and make the unsubscribe link easy to find. A smaller list of people who want the email beats a big list of people who mark it as spam.

What to check each month

You do not need a dashboard. Look at four things after each send, and compare them with the last few issues rather than with anyone else’s numbers:

1. Opens, as a rough trend. They are not precise anymore, because some email apps report them oddly, so watch the direction rather than the number.
2. Clicks on the one ask. This is the clearest sign the offer worked.
3. Replies. Read every one.
4. Unsubscribes. A few each month is normal. A sudden jump means something in that issue missed.

Then ask the only question that matters: did anything happen in the business that week that would not have happened otherwise? A booking, a call, a returning customer who mentioned the email. Our guide to measuring what your marketing actually does covers how to tie that back to real results.

Questions to answer this week

• Where does our customer email list live today, and who can get to it?
• Which day of the month will the newsletter go out?
• What question have customers asked most in the last month?
• What is the one thing we want readers to do in the first issue?
• Who signs it?

If your list is still small, start building it before you worry about the newsletter. Our guide to email marketing for Long Island businesses covers where to collect addresses, and a welcome email series gives new subscribers something to read before the next issue arrives.

How we help

Our content creation team plans email and newsletters alongside everything else a brand publishes. They come from the same content pillars and editorial calendar as your social and your blog, written and designed in house, and measured against the goals set at the start.

Want to see where your email and the rest of your marketing stand? Take the free marketing audit.