This is an archive version of the 99 Newsletter Project newsletter originally published in February 2024. Columbia Journalism Review published a post about a University of Pennsylvania study. The doom & gloom headline was: They gave local news away for free. Virtually nobody wanted it. I saw this getting kicked around online, and I can’t…
This post gives you permission to repeat yourself. Why? Because Repeating yourself is how you build reliable, higher converting membership & subscription campaigns. People who work in the news sometimes struggle with embracing repetition. They want to report what’s new, not what’s already been said. It’s right there in the name: the news! As I…
The 99 Newsletter Project focuses on smaller publishers, especially local publishers, because those are the newsrooms I work with best. However, there are good practices small newsrooms can learn from big news organizations. With more resources and staffing, they can try things that may be beyond the reach of small newsrooms. Also, large organizations must…
Hi! This post was originally appeared in the 99 Newsletter Project newsletter. Every other Sunday(ish), I share tips from my deep back of tricks developed from growing loyal audiences and paid subscribers for more than 20 years. All without AI-written content or hustle bro bullshit. What’s not to love? Recently, I had a great email…
2024 is a presidential election year, so newsrooms around the country are using starting to publish Voter Guides. In recent years, voter guides have become a pretty common feature of news websites. However, perhaps I’m a little early, because I found about as many guides from past elections as I did for 2024. The samples…
Designing emails is hard. Email is an old format. It’s restricted from different directions by different inbox providers. There’s so much that doesn’t work in email the way it might on the web or in an app. Or it works in Gmail but doesn’t work in Outlook. Or vice versa. This leads email newsletter design…
I don’t know what people think is the best-designed newsletter out there today, but I see who people are copying: Axios. I’m a former designer, so I picked six newsletter designs better than Axios. They key context here is that Axios’s visual design is driven by it’s in-house writing style — as it should be. Design…
Sunny Sone is one of my favorite journalists. I worked with Sunny when they interned at Austin Monitor, then later when they were Digital Editor for the Texas Observer. They are thoughtfully innovative, willing to experiment with new methods and formats to build new pathways between people and journalism. Sunny Sone is currently Associate Newsletter…
There’s no shame in celebrating success! Each year a newsroom stays in business is a huge win. Too many publications close each year, while others teeter closer to the brink. Celebrating your newsroom’s birthday is a great reason to reinforce your commitment to your community. It’s also a great reason for a fundraising campaign or…
What do you do when your Mailchimp segments aren’t working? Not working in this situation means the segments aren’t sent to everyone in the segment you built. For example, the segment has 2,000 subscribers, but a campaign sent to that segment only goes to 1,700 people. Two clients recently ran into this problem with Mailchimp…
Most people don’t like asking other people for money. It’s hard. It feels gross. In my experience, this is especially true for journalists. However, as more newsrooms launch as nonprofits or lean into subscriptions, the skills to raise money from individual readers gets more important every day. Persuading people to pay for journalism is a…
If this were a recipe website, there would be 4,000 words with a backstory before you got to the recipe you came for. The 99 Newsletter Project doesn’t need to keep you scrolling to get more ad impressions, so we’ll jump right in! Each newsletter in this showcase was received from December 2022 through March…
Over the last several years, publishers have invested heavily in newsletters. That’s great! Newsletters make great products and are effective tools for distributing content. They also are useful for acquiring more paying subscribers or donors. Likewise, readers love newsletters as an alternative to social media recommendation engines. A great user experience goes far in building…
A publisher’s newsletter signup page benefits two different types of readers: Tips for getting useful insights from these newsletter signup page examples Each landing page in this roundup is from February-March 2023. The goal here was some variety, so publishers could see what other publishers are doing on their signup pages. I’ve added comments to…
Newswire from City Bureau is one of my favorite newsletters. In a recent Newsletter Spotlight, I highlighted how Newswire’s redesign showcased a change in strategy rather than a visual redesign with some new fonts but the same content. I wanted to learn more, so I spoke with India Daniels, who writes Newswire. During our conversation,…
A strong newsletter identity is how you align your goals with reader value. You spent time researching and strategizing your newsletter before it launched. You may have used a guide like the NPR Newsletter Identity plan, which is great! But now you need to take that plan publiTo to show readers the value you hope…
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