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CJ Chilvers

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Go headless.

For years, I had a masthead my personal newsletter. That small step (which often took quite a while to decide on) was something I thought looked pretty good and made the newsletter more pleasant to read. I may have been wrong. I'm not a designer, but I do

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Put your best link forward.

Back in the days when bands sent demo tapes to record companies, they were told to forget about creating a "flow" between your songs. They were told to put their strongest song first, second-strongest second, and so on. If not, the listener would bail in the beginning of

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Add your newsletter link to all the things.

Add it to every social media profile you have. Add it to every email you write (maybe develop a good PS line or just link it to your name). Add it to every piece of content you create across any medium. Still use business cards? Sure, put it there too.

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Recommended: Newsletter Ninja

There are dozens of email marketing books, but they tend to either be too shallow (all feels, no tech) or too deep (all tech, no heart). But sometimes, there’s a book that bridges that gap, like Newsletter Ninja [https://amzn.to/3bAuoLu]. The book is meant for authors with

Recommended: Newsletter Ninja
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Be consistent.

I’ve been terrible in this department with my own newsletter, so I’ll let some others do the talking: > “Once people forget about you or forget to expect you, it can feel more like an intrusion when you reappear. Regularly delivering what people signed up for makes you

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Don't call it a newsletter. Don't ask readers to subscribe.

Over the years, unscrupulous businesses have given “subscriptions” and “newsletters” are bad name among many readers. A good way to combat newsletter fatigue and separate yourself from the crowd is to name your newsletter something more fun, honest, and relatable. You can own a day, like Sunday Dispatches [https://pjrvs.

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Attracting Subscribers to Your Newsletter: Lead Generators

How do you get more people to sign up for your newsletter? The best way is one of the oldest: offer the reader something useful, valuable, and closely related to the subject matter of newsletter for their subscription. Some call this a lead generator, although that term is only really

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Recommended: Chimp Essentials

If you’re using MailChimp, you need to take Paul Jarvis’s course Chimp Essentials [https://chimpessentials.com]. It paid for itself within a few months and has since saved me even more money and time. I’m not an affiliate. I’m not being paid to say this. It’

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Subject lines don’t matter as much as your From line.

There’s a debate about what kind of subject line works best for newsletters. Do you craft each one individually, or do you make one, uniform subject line for your newsletter that never changes (except maybe the issue number). I do both. The following two examples are subject lines on

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Conquer Newsletter Obesity

Over time, your list of subscribers will become bloated with the no-longer-interested, no-longer-reading, or no-longer-with-us. This decreases your open rate, bleeds your wallet, and makes you look more like a spammer to email providers. For personal newsletters and small business newsletters, the solution is to simply prune your list of