The newsletter inquisition

This afternoon, I participated in a Smartocto webinar about emerging trends for 2025, alongside four other experts. My particular beat was newsletters, and so I did a short (for me, at least) 10 minute talk on some of the key things I think publishers need to be focusing on to make their newsletters stand out in an increasingly crowded market.

We only had time for one of the questions the attendees asked, so I promised to answer any I saw in the chat right here on my blog/newsletter.

So, let’s get into it…

Newsletter Metrics

Aleksandr Amzin:

Goodhart's law states: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” What good metrics would you propose to use and monitor in the first place, given for instance open rate heavily depends on technicalities and delivery platform?

Well, the simple answer is “try to avoid making them targets”. Later on in the webinar, Smartocto CEO Erik van Heeswijk likened use of metrics to the dashboard in a car. They’re there to help you do something else (get somewhere safely and in a timely manner), not as a goal in themselves. I don’t aim to drive at 70mph or to get the maximum mileage out of one charge of my car. I aim to get to work, or to a nature reserve, or to the preview of a play…

It’s the same with newsletters. Their aim is to deepen relationships with readers, to drive traffic to key stories, to build loyalty, to build a community. Metrics are the tools you use to spot when there’s a problem, and to adjust your driving. So, if my open rates are dropping, I need to consider some changes. If clickthroughs are clustered near the top of the newsletter, I ay have a structure or length problem. But clickthroughs or open rates are not my target: reader engagement is.

As I often say: metrics are the beginning of wisdom, not the end of it.

Newsletter Tech

Jeremy Walters:

What newsletter tech is currently impressing you?

Oh, hello, can of worms, my old friend.

The facetious answer to this is Ghost, as it’s the platform I’m using to publish this right now. It’s simple, powerful and open source. It has great, robust APIs, so you can connect it to other systems. And they’re doing some really interesting stuff with ActivityPub that, I think, will be really important in a few years.

More generally, though, I think the new breed of newsletter platforms are worth paying attention too. Beehiiv, Substack and their ilk are all progressing rapidly, but all in slightly different directions. And more importantly, they all support the idea of a newsletter as a social object around which a community ecosystem can develop, something I think publisher underestimate as part of the power of newsletters.

Unless you have the in-house resources to build your own newsletter platform integrated with your other systems, it’s difficult to argue against going with one of these for editorial newsletters. And even if you do have those resources, you should be watching these platforms carefully for features you might want to co… take inspiration from.

Me Me Me Newsletters

Rob Taylor:

Me, me, me newsletters are hugely successful. Not sure what your criticism is of them.

I wasn’t criticising them! If nothing else, it would be the height of hypocrisy, given that this is a “me me me” blog and newsletters…

I merely mentioned them as an example of the industry’s tendency to think more about the supply side than the demand side of newsletters. I divided publisher newsletters into three main camps:

• Desk newsletters — the latest stories and insights from a desk.
• Bucket newsletters — everything we’ve done in the last period of time (or a selection of same)
• Me Me Me Me newsletters — newsletters centred around a personality or individual

These are all supply side definitions, rather than demand side. Me Me Me Newsletters can be incredibly successful when the supply side — the individual expert or journalist — knows and understands the demand side — what readers care about — deeply.

Or, as Dana Harris-Bridson put it in the comments:

I love my 'me me' newsletters, but so much depends on the “me”.

Bingo.

Piet Penninx:

It can also work the other way around. Wouter van Noort (Dutch Journalist) had a personal email with a big fanbase. NRC ‘claimed’ his newsletter which means he is now publishing not from his own name but for NRC.

A comment more than a question, but a good one. The emergence of the newsletter celebrity is just an evolution of the journalist as personal brand we saw in the 2000s, particularly through journalist bloggers (think: Ezra Klein, Andrew Sullivan). The current discussion around “news influencers” on social platforms is another example of that.

In some ways, big publishing brands become meta brands, which aggregate value from individual journalist brands within their structure. Ezra Klein’s move from Vox to the NYT, only enchanted his personal brand, but transferred its benefit from one publication to the next. Or look at the way the FT has benefitted with Stephen Bush transferring to them from the New Statesman. They’ve created a newsletter within the FT brand that you can pay for separately.

There’s probably a football metaphor about star players and transfers I could use here, but I know very little about football, so…

Any more questions for me?