How to Compose an Email Marketing Newsletter?
With the prevalence of social media marketing, one might think newsletters are out of style. But email marketing newsletters are still powerful and allow you to engage with your customers directly. When you send periodic emails, you can keep customers informed about your company and captivate their interests.
Think of the times you opened your inbox and your favorite newsletter put you in a good mood. That’s the impact of a purposeful newsletter marketing email.
Newsletter marketing sounds simple enough, right? Well, it is when you know what you’re doing and have your email marketing basics figured out.
You should know that there are different types of email newsletters in digital marketing, and it’s critical to learn how to make a great newsletter. There are several cardinal steps to take to compose a perfect one.
Let’s start from the beginning.
What is an Email Newsletter?
An email marketing newsletter is a recurrent message that contains important news and updates related to your business. Its main purpose is to inform, engage, and build relationships with your subscribers. An email newsletter has a predefined, regular schedule and may contain promotions, brand stories, or announcements.
Companies use newsletters to update customers about the latest industry news, product launches, or other educational materials. A company newsletter is an example of email marketing or internal communication, depending on its purpose.
The best part about running an e-marketing newsletter is that you own all the email content and the email subscriber data. So, even if your email marketing service shuts you down, or its regulations change, the data stays with you. That’s why 3 out of 4 email marketers use newsletters to distribute content.
Approximately 69% of email marketers use email newsletter distribution and 90% of them do it through their organization’s website. Most marketers publish newsletters by themselves, adding personal touches to the content, and only 2% of them use social media to publish them.
So, what makes a newsletter in email marketing interesting? They reward subscribers for opening emails, for example — an invite to try a brand’s new product for free.
Benefits of Best Designed Newsletters
Generally, you should use email campaign newsletters to maintain a casual and friendly relationship with your subscribers, but they can also do more than that:
- Periodic distribution: Email marketers usually send email marketing newsletters weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. Due to such consistency, subscribers know when they’ll get informed and are more likely to engage.
- Content Variety: The content marketing email newsletters are relevant to the brand and the subscribers’ interests and preferences as well. Newsletters may include blog posts, product announcements, behind-the-scenes, industry news, personal stories, event invitations, etc.
- Form of Entertainment: Most people opt-in for newsletters to get information, education, entertainment, or to keep up with the latest news. Sending them the information they want builds deeper connections.
- Branding: Businesses use specific email branding elements to reinforce the brand identity. That’s how they maintain their presence in front of their audience and keep the engagement door open.
- Clear CTA: Email newsletters usually have one clear and convincing CTA (call-to-action). CTAs can direct subscribers to the brand’s website or social media, depending on the nature of the content.
What to Include in a Newsletter? — Types of Content
A well done newsletter campaign keeps your audience engaged, informed, and coming back for more.
There are different types of newsletter content you can share to keep subscribers intrigued:
- Company Updates & Announcements,
- Educational Content & Industry Insights,
- Exclusive Offers & Discounts,
- Customer Stories & Testimonials,
- Event Invitations & Webinars,
- User-Generated Content & Community Highlights,
- Behind-the-Scenes & Team Spotlights,
- Fun & Engaging Content,
- Thought Leadership & Opinion Pieces,
- Curated Content & Recommended Reads.
How Do You Market a Newsletter?
Once you’ve finalized on the content type for your newsletter, the next step is marketing it for maximum impact.
Follow these steps to promote your newsletters:
- Optimize your sign-up forms: Place sign up forms on high-traffic areas, such as blog posts, social media pages, or websites.
- Offer a lead magnet: Give people a compelling reason to provide their email address. For example, a white paper, a template, or a valuable guide.
- Use email signature: Include your newsletter sign up link in your email sign-offs or signature.
- Run paid ads: Use Facebook or Linkedin ads to promote your lead magnets or newsletter landing pages.
- Host giveaways and contests: Encourage sign-ups through contests and giveaways. For example, “Subscriber for a chance to win a $100 gift voucher.”
Reading articles will help you gain a basic understanding of newsletter creation. If you would like a hands-on-approach, subscribe to marketing newsletters from your favorite brands.
We’ve outlined some of them for you already!
Best Marketing Newsletters to Subscribe To
From learning about email marketing for startups to implementing back to school marketing, the following newsletters are the right balance of creativity and fun:
- Demand Curve for startups and growth marketers,
- Sunday Branding Newsletter for e-commerce companies and DTC,
- Marketing Examined for growth hackers,
- Campaign Refinery for higher email marketing revenue,
- Marketing Brew for the latest marketing news,
- Marketing Examples for visually inclined learners.
If you’re looking for free marketing newsletters, the section is for you.
Best Free Marketing Newsletters
Sometimes, you may not have the budget for a paid tool or you may want to try the software before committing.
Regardless of the reason, the following free tools are here to help:
- VeryGoodCopy focuses on copywriting and marketing psychology,
- Ahrefs Digest with free SEO tips and resources,
- GeekOut provides the latest news on social media,
- Stacked Marketer covers daily news on email marketing and paid media.
Pro Tip: You can also learn more about email marketing on Campaign Refinery’s resource page, where our founder shares his expertise and knowledge packed into bite-sized content.
Creating the best marketing newsletters takes time and a deeper understanding of email marketing principles.
While email marketing turned 45 this year, newsletters have gained even more popularity in recent years. But even though they’re closely related, newsletter and email marketing are not the same thing.
Email Marketing and Email Newsletters: What’s the Difference
Email Marketing is a broader term and includes all email outreach efforts businesses make. They can sell products and services, incentivize customers, and tell brand stories. Any form of ‘selling’ through emails falls under email marketing. For example, when you purchase a product, the brand records your email address for updates related to your purchase. Later, brands can send regular promotional content and engage with you via email in different ways.
Email Newsletters act as sources of information and, in a few cases, entertainment. Marketing a newsletter means you don’t bombard customers with product promotions or sales messages but contain valuable content that inspires recipients. Subscribers willingly sign up to receive newsletters from their favorite brands.
An example of a newsletter is a brand promoting its latest blog post.
The table below contains more information on email marketing vs. newsletter for email marketing.
What Makes Email Marketing Different From an Email Newsletter?
| Aspect | Email marketing | Email newsletter |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Purpose | Promotion of products to drive conversions | Build relationships, engage readers, and provide value |
| Content type | Deals, offers, promotions, and transactional emails | Blog posts, industry news, event invites, and brand stories |
| Frequency | Varies on the type of email campaign you’re sending | Sent at regular intervals: weekly, bi-weekly, etc |
| CTAs | Sign-up buttons, purchase links, deals, etc | Read more or share content buttons |
From company newsletters to practical newsletters, you’ll likely come across more than 10 types of email newsletters. Each of these types has a purpose, and mixing them up can lead to confusion for your subscribers. That’s why we’ve outlined the newsletter types and their uses.
Types of Newsletter in Email Marketing
Even though newsletters are designed to inform your customers, sending them can quickly go downhill when subscribers don’t understand your email content. Let’s start with an example.
Imagine you run two newsletters:
- An e-commerce business newsletter that sends company updates, shares trends, etc.
- And an e-commerce discount newsletter specifically for promotions and deals.
Like any newsletter, you have separate audience segments for each.
Now, what happens when you send the business newsletter content to your e-commerce discount newsletter subscribers?
It’s a seemingly small error, but your subscribers will be confused, and might lose trust in your business. That’s why knowing your newsletter type is more important than growing your subscriber list.
To help you know the different types, we have consolidated the email newsletter types:
1. Welcome Newsletters
Welcome email newsletters are sent to new subscribers as an introduction explaining the content type and frequency. The emails are brief and have a warm tone. You can schedule them immediately after sign-up as they are a great way to build rapport with your subscribers.
2. Promotional Newsletters
Newsletters typically contain less promotional content than regular emails. However, marketers understand the value of promotions and use them to keep subscribers in the loop. That means they send out promotional newsletters at specific times, weekly, bi-weekly, and especially before the holidays. Promotional newsletters are usually concise with a single CTA.
3. Blog Update Newsletter
Blog update newsletters contain links or a summary of the latest blog posts, urging subscribers to read more. Updates are sent once a week or twice a week at most. Since the readers have already shown interest, these newsletters boost your readership and drive valuable traffic to your website.
4. Round-up Newsletter
These email types mention recent events, posts, or inside information as a listicle. It’s useful for companies that produce regular content and are looking to share it with their subscribers. Round-up newsletters are usually sent once a month and include relevant and interesting information, encouraging subscribers to learn more.
5. Curated Newsletter
Curated newsletters combine the best sources from the web into an email list. They provide valuable information, saving a ton of time for the subscribers. It’s important to note that these emails are created for specific audience segments, for example, tech fans or gamers.
6. Paid Newsletters
These newsletters specialize in exclusive content and are behind paywalls. This means subscribers must pay to access the content. Paid newsletters cost anywhere from $1 to $40+ a month, sometimes even more, depending on the author and the niche. Usually, subscribers pay for the newsletter every month, but there are a few that offer one-time opt-in payments. Often, if you want to try it out before committing to paying, brands offer sample content to help you get a taste of the newsletter.
7. Interview Newsletter
An interview newsletter includes interviews with experts in the niche. It motivates readers to achieve their goals and stay on top of the industry news. These newsletters are helpful for individuals or brands looking to gain authority while observing key insights in their field.
Choosing an email newsletter type you will send depends on your goals, resources, and business type. When you’re clear on what you want to share and in which way, it’s time to take action.
These articles about newsletters will guide you down the right path:
Steps to Create the Best Marketing Newsletters in 2025
Creating a newsletter that’s useful and engaging requires meticulous planning and attention to detail.
Here are the steps you need to take:
1. Understand Your Goal
Every newsletter exists for a reason — to educate, motivate, or entertain. Determining your motive will help you know which audience segments to target and which newsletter type to use.
2. Understand and Segment Your Audience
Although subscribers consent to receive your information, they have different interests and expectations from your newsletter email campaigns. Identifying your audiences’ likes, wants, and needs will make it easier to create enjoyable content for them. To understand your audiences’ wants, implement social listening; search your ideas on social media platforms and read the reviews. Someone has likely already created a similar newsletter, and looking at it will help you build yours.
Segment your subscribers based on the following:
- Age,
- Demographic data,
- Behavioral data,
- Psychographic data,
- Location,
- Previous search intent,
- Job,
- Purchase history.
3. Choose an Email Newsletter Tool
An email newsletter tool will affect the look of your periodical, and it will determine technical options and allow easy creation (or not). Choose a newsletter tool based on your budget and technical expertise. A professional tool with an easy-to-use UI can help you create attention-grabbing newsletters in little time. Plus, you’ll have more options if it offers templates and automation.
Campaign Refinery has a library filled with pre-made campaigns and sequences. Our interface is clean and easy to navigate, allowing you all the freedom you want to focus on the look and feel of your newsletters.
If you would like to compare how Campaign Refinery stacks up against other newsletter platforms, here are the resources:
5. Build Your Subscriber List
To build and grow your email list, add a subscription form with double opt-in on relevant website pages, so you collect valid email addresses. You can also use lead magnets to collect email addresses promoting special offers in exchange for customer details.
Building a subscriber list takes time, and meanwhile, purchasing email lists isn’t the right approach. This can impact your IP reputation negatively and damage your sender reputation. The best way is to start small and grow your subscribers organically.
6. Plan the Content
Since email newsletters are sent regularly, you need to plan your email content calendar in advance. Plan around the type of content, image uses, and other criteria.
Ensure your content sticks to brand guidelines, including colors and typefaces. It’s best to create a content calendar template and fill out the necessary items for each type of email campaign. Plus, if you’ll be sending customized content to different audiences, then choose a newsletter type according to that.
Apart from content, your newsletter must also contain:
- Simple and effective design,
- The best font for emails,
- Attractive images,
- A clear subject line,
- Powerful CTA.
In addition to following the above steps for newsletter creation, it’s also critical to choose the right marketing platform.
Below are top newsletter creation platforms to consider in 2025.
Best Email Platform For Newsletters
There are countless newsletter creation platforms, and choosing one depends on your needs and budget.
Here’s an overview of the top email newsletter platforms.
1. Mailchimp — Good for Beginners and Small Businesses
Mailchimp is an intuitive email marketing platform with advanced automation, segmentation, and newsletter creation tools. Customers can create branded content with creative assistant and drive sales with AI-driven product recommendations.
2. ConvertKit — Suitable for Creators and Bloggers
Kit, formerly ConvertKit, is a specialized newsletter service platform, allowing users to add paid newsletters to their service offerings.
If you’re open to collaboration, the “Recommendations” feature helps other creators to recommend your products or services.
3. Substack — Best for Writers and Paid Newsletters
Substack has a different kind of email newsletter service — writers are not charged money upfront. When subscribers pay for a subscription on Substack, the writer gets to keep 86% of the revenue.
4. Brevo — Good For Automation, Newsletters, and Transactional Emails
Brevo, formerly SendinBlue, is a simple email marketing for newsletter creators. to build free newsletters for up to 300 emails per day. The intuitive drag-and-drop editor and customizable templates offer inspiration to build your newsletters campaigns.
5. Campaign Refinery – A Comprehensive Email Marketing Solution
If you’re keen on a user-friendly email services platform with advanced tools and features, Campaign Refinery is your best bet. Our platform offers the highest email deliverability rate in the industry.
Campaign Refinery’s powerful features include: Automation, advanced segmentation, email campaign templates, email gamification, automatic list cleaning.
An Overview of the Best Email Marketing Software/ESP in 2025
Currently, there are 400+ ESPs in the market, and Campaign Refinery is proud to offer all the best features under one roof. To make your choices easier, we’ve compiled a list of commonly heard ESPs below.
| ESP | Automation Features | Advanced Segmentation Features | Automatic List Cleaning | Engagement Rewards | Credit System |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Campaign Refinery | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Mailchimp | ✅ | ✅ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
| Substack | ✅ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
| Brevo | ✅ | ✅ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
| ConvertKit | ✅ | ✅ | ✖ | ✖ | ✖ |
Although you use robust tools, you’ll need time and practice to create the perfect email newsletter. Prioritize your content to increase open rates, and focus on the subject line in your email newsletters — the first point of contact with your audience. t of contact with your audience.
Why Is the Subject Line Important in Your Newsletters?
A subject line is similar to a signage on a heavy-traffic road. The text is highlighted and dives into the subject matter immediately, grabbing the attention and interest of the subscriber.
Subject lines also:
- Give a good first impression,
- Increase open rates,
- Show relevance and clarity,
- Aid brand recognition.
Use these various subject line ideas for inspiration:
Nearly 69% of recipients report an email as spam after reading the subject line. Especially if you use salesy language like ‘Buy now’, ‘Additional Income’, or ‘Urgent’, spam traps can blacklist your email domain.
Now, the next milestone could be – finding the best time to send your well-designed newsletters. Read on to learn at what times the users are the most active.
The Best Times to Send an Email Newsletter?
The best time to send emails is between 9 am – 12 pm and 12 pm – 3 pm. Users are the most active during the mornings; around 34.9% of people check their emails during this time.
Whether it’s a biweekly marketing newsletter or a monthly newsletter, here are optimal times to consider.
Best Times to Send Email Newsletters
| Time | Reason | Percentage of people who open their emails |
|---|---|---|
| 6 am – 9 am | Most people check their emails immediately after waking up | 20% |
| 9 am – 12 pm | People check emails the most in the morning | 31% |
| 12 pm – 3 pm | Lunchbreaks are ideal to capture recipients’ attention | 26% |
| 3 pm-6 pm | An opportunity to schedule emails for global audiences | 13% |
| 6 pm – 9 pm | A good time to send B2C email campaigns | 5% |
| 9 pm-12 am | It’s best to avoid sending emails during sleep hours | 1% |
The above is based on the U.S. time zones and may vary for global audiences. With this as guidance, you can choose a time closely related to other time zones. Once you’re ready to create your newsletters, follow these best practices to polish your strategies.
Email Marketing Newsletter Best Practices
Successful audience building with email newsletters lies in balancing the content. Ideally, it should be 90% information and 10% promotions.
To maximize their impact, follow these practices.
1. Personalize the Email Content
Once you know what subscribers want, use this data to build personalized and relevant content for each audience segment. Address the recipients by their first names and include other personal information where appropriate.
2. Make Your Newsletter Responsive
Responsive newsletters adapt to different formats and devices, especially mobiles. Mobile email opens accounts for nearly 41.6%, followed by desktop opens at 16.2%.
While optimizing newsletters for mobile, remember the following:
- Use single-column templates and break texts into readable chunks.
- Ensure CTAs are placed right and follow eye-tracking movement.
- Use the correct image sizes to avoid loading speed and messing up the layout.
- Use an easy-to-read typeface and differentiate font sizes to enhance the look of newsletters.
3. Understand Email Metrics
Email campaign metrics help you track the number of opens, clicks, and other parameters for your newsletters.
Common email metrics available to track in a newsletter marketing system include:
- Open rate: The percentage of subscribers that opened your newsletters.
- Click rate: The percentage of subscribers that clicked on the email to open it.
- Click-through rate: The percentage of subscribers who clicked on at least one link in your newsletter.
- Email marketing conversions: The percentage of people who completed a desired action (purchase, sign-ups, etc).
- Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of subscribers who canceled their newsletter subscription.
It doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have, as you start sending your newsletters, you should be able to see the metrics.
4. Send a Test Campaign
Before sending it to your entire email list, test the newsletter with a smaller audience group. This will help you adjust your emails and make necessary changes. If you’re starting out and don’t have a list yet, you can test emails by sending them to your personal email address.
Another way is to forward an email to identify layout issues and content gaps.
5. Use Scheduling
Always automate your emails using scheduling software or an ESP for better delivery rates. Email automation bestpractices helps you focus on other tasks while the software sends emails at the specified times.
6. Maintain List Hygiene
Email list hygiene is the process of removing inactive, fake, and other problematic recipient email addresses for a healthy subscriber base. If you have a small list, you can clean it manually and we recommend you do it monthly.
However, for larger lists, it’s best to rely on an email service provider to maintain your lists. At Campaign Refinery, we use an automatic list cleaning feature that removes fake and harmful email addresses before sending emails. This feature has helped our clients achieve higher deliverability and open rates than ever before.
In some cases, our clients witnessed an increase in deliverability by a whopping 600%!
Check out our user reviews!
7. Follow Legal Guidelines
Every email you send must comply with CAN-SPAM Requirements and GDPR. One of the most important criteria is to include an unsubscribe option in your newsletters. And to satisfy the internet service providers, steer clear of spam-like words and phrases to start with.
Campaign Refinery includes a one-click unsubscribe in all emails sent out.
We also recommend you read through the following articles to improve your email marketing:
Now that you have actionable guidelines to create an engaging newsletter, look at how other companies did it.
Best Email Marketing Newsletters
Email marketers don’t build successful newsletters by chance — they give subscribers what they want, at the right time with the best newsletter creation software.
Let’s look at a few marketing newsletters examples with scalable newsletter strategies.
1. Business Newsletter Example — Blog Series
Blog-related emailing newsletters drive targeted traffic to your website. When someone subscribes to your blog posts, they will likely want to read similar blog content.
Below is an example of a good newsletter that urges subscribers to read more on the Atlantic website.
2. Company Newsletter Example — Interview Newsletter
Expert interviews fill research gaps, answer common questions, and provide insights into industry trends. Compiling these into newsletters will help subscribers be up-to-date on their industries.
This email newsletter discusses key strategies for hiring the best employees for the company. Similarly, you can send insights regarding new business activities and changes to keep subscribers updated about your current business happenings.
3. Example of Newsletter For Company
Flamingo Estate shares an inspiring story to get more people back to eating healthy. The brand’s copywriting is precise and uses psychological triggers to encourage people to take action.
4. Funny Email Newsletters
Bandit sends a funny email newsletter, explaining each scene like in a movie. The email newsletter intrigues users to learn more about the brand’s journey and consider becoming a part.
5. Monthly Newsletter Example
Rootless empathizes with women over 35 years, explaining the psychological and physiological changes their bodies go through. The newsletter is a perfect example of captivating copywriting and elegant design choices.
There are plenty of newsletter examples online, but building an engaging newsletter always starts with an ESP.
6. Email Newsletters For Kids
Suffolk Libraries finds a unique way to enhance the kids’ reading skills. From borrowing books to sharing favorite stories, Suffolk Library allows children to make the most of their learning skills.
7. Educational Email Newsletter Content Example
GoodRX is fixated on teaching subscribers good oral hygiene and educating them on the costs involved.
This educational newsletter is straightforward and aims to let users in on the latest industry changes and prices.
You can certainly build a solid email marketing newsletter foundation with the examples mentioned above. Even then, you’ll need a robust email newsletter tool to help you design emails, automate them, and send them to the right subscribers.
What next? – it’s time to build your email newsletter!
Build Your Email Marketing Newsletter The Right Way
A successful newsletter identifies goals, builds an audience, creates engaging content, and more importantly, uses the right email management system.
At Campaign Refinery, we help you plan and execute your email newsletters with sophisticated tools and features.
And to help you get subscribers, even before you join our elite platform, we want to help you collect leads and multiply opens through our free Lead Magnet Multiplier Course.
It has 4-mini training packed with strategies to increase lead magnet opens by up to 8x.
However, you only have 7 days to complete the course from the day of download. And if you do, you’ll have access to it forever!
Good luck!
FAQ
What is email newsletter marketing?
Newsletter email marketing refers to regular messages sent by companies to their subscribers. These emails can contain brand updates, industry news, promotions, or blog content.
What is the difference between newsletter and email marketing?
Newsletter is a type of email marketing, whereas email marketing is a broad term that uses emails to promote services, products, or create brand awareness.
What is the difference between an email campaign and newsletter?
Email campaign is a targeted series of messages sent to achieve a specific goal. E-mail marketing newsletters are regularly scheduled emails that provide users with valuable content.
Are newsletters still relevant?
Yes, newsletters are very much relevant in 2025 due to their higher engagement ratio and direct marketing approach.
