A newsletter is simply a vehicle for driving traffic to your site, right? Actually, no.

At The Telegraph UK, the editorial team is emphasising newsletters as a channel to surface exclusive content. 

Its daily From the Editor newsletter is driving “tens of thousands” of subscriptions a year. Its focus: original writing and “behind-the-scenes” reporting.

The subscribers that come through a newsletter are those that are likely to stay rather than churn, said Maire Bonheim, head of newsletters.

“If people become a subscriber to The Telegraph after clicking on a link in a newsletter, they’re 50% more likely to still be a subscriber a year later,” Bonheim said. 

This makes sense: Newsletters excel at building a regular reading habit.

“We definitely do see that being engaged with newsletters, and subscribing on the basis of a newsletter, really creates a high-quality reader who is likely to remain engaged with The Telegraph long term,” Bonheim said. 

The news brand has cut the number of newsletters it publishes from 40 to 26. 

“I think some newsletters in the past might have been guilty of being seen as promotion channels getting people through to the Web site. We now see newsletters as pieces of journalism that should provide quality within the inbox in their own right, so a lot of focus on improving quality,” she said.

Similarly, at The Guardian, newsletters were traditionally viewed as a way to push readers to the main site. Toby Moses, head of newsletters, took a different approach.

“I wanted to angle [them] more towards written-through, authored newsletters, creating that human connection between our writers, our journalism, and our readers rather than just replicating what was on the Web already,” he said.

That direct connection is often underscored by events where the key selling point is exclusivity rather than scale, says e-mail newsletter consultant Dan Oshinsky, pointing out, “It’s not so much about getting as many people in the room as it is getting the right people in the room.”

Indeed, direct human connection, such as that with a trusted columnist with a recognisable face and byline, is something AI answer engines cannot replicate. This creates a space where news brands have a competitive advantage. (Our Webinar on building community will explore this topic further as well.)

Still not convinced that less is more when it comes to newsletter content? Listen, then, to Joshi Hermann, who runs Mill Media. He has built a local news business that gets 95% of its revenue from readers who receive a handful of worthwhile stories a week, in seven cities in the U.K.

“We’ve built up an audience of people who understand, I think, on the whole, that getting three or four really high-quality pieces of journalism every week makes them more intelligent about the city and makes them feel more connected to the city than getting dozens and dozens of stories of average quality,” Hermann said. 

“The point is, every time you get an e-mail from us, it should be the type of story you couldn’t read anywhere else. We’re trying to make local journalism enjoyable to read again rather than just like a purely kind informational exchange.”

If you’d like to subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter, INMA members can do so here.

Banner photo: Adobe stock image by Jakub Krechowicz.

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