Want to start a weekly newsletter? Here’s a step-by-step guide for you.
Okay so. You’ve been thinking about starting a newsletter for, what, six months now? Maybe longer. You’ve got a note somewhere with a list of potential names, half-written intro lines, and a resolution to “figure it out eventually.”
And every time you get close to actually starting, you talk yourself right back out of it.
- What if nobody subscribes?
- Should I send a weekly newsletter? Or maybe monthly…?
- How do I write the newsletter?
- What if I run out of things to say by week three?
- What if I pick the wrong platform and have to migrate everything later and it becomes this whole thing?
Breathe…
It probably sounds hard right now, but by the time you’re done with this guide, you’ll know exactly how to start a weekly newsletter.
What is an email newsletter, exactly?
An email newsletter is a recurring email you send to a list of subscribers—people who’ve willingly handed over their email address because they want to keep hearing from you.
Unlike a one-off sales email or a random announcement, a newsletter shows up on a rhythm. Same-ish format, same voice, landing in the same inbox on a schedule your reader starts to expect.
Think of it more like an ongoing conversation you’re having with the same group of people, on a set schedule.
Why bother sending a weekly newsletter at all?
Social media IS rented land.
The algorithm of the platform decides who sees your content. They change their rules whenever the frick they want. And, if for whatever reason, they decide to lose it and crack down on your account, your entire audience can vanish overnight.
Your email list is the exact opposite of that. It’s yours. Fully. Permanently.
But it’s not just about having a list or sending an email newsletter. The reward is in how consistently you show up in it.
Now, let’s talk about why the frequency actually matters.
Send a newsletter weekly, and people know when to expect you. It becomes a familiar appointment in their inbox. One that they look forward to four times a month.
Send it biweekly, and there’s a chance they forget about you for those thirteen days in between.
Send it monthly, and you risk something worse—genuine confusion of them thinking, “Wait, who is this again, and when did I sign up for this?” And their reaction would be valid since they’ll only hear from you 12 times in a whole year.
Showing up weekly is the best rhythm to build the like-know-trust factor that makes your ideal client look forward to hearing from you.
Now that you know how often to show up, let’s talk about how to get started.
Starting a Weekly Email Newsletter
So, you want to start a weekly newsetter? GOOD. Here’s everything you need to do to get started:
Step 1: Get clear on what it’s about
This is the easiest step, since your newsletter should literally be about what you do.
For example, as a personal brand expert, your newsletter should revolve around tips to help business owners build memorable personal brands online.
But it’s still necessary to define that. It makes it easy to write microcopy such as “sign up for practical tips every week to learn one good thing about social media marketing” or “subscribe for our weekly productivity tips for busy moms.”
So, ask yourself: who is this newsletter for, and what do they get out of reading it every week?
The narrower this is, the easier every future step becomes.
Step 2: Give it an identity
Name your newsletter because if you want it to be imprinted on the forefront of your subscribers’ minds, you need an actual identity.
Maybe even a little visual identity of its own—you know, a logo and maybe a featured image style.
For instance, I named my weekly newsletter: The Content Folder. It used to be called Present and Less Tense. But the point is that, at every stage, it has its own identity and content focus. Every Tuesday, I send my subscribers a good / ridiculous / wtf story that teaches them one good thing about marketing. You should subscribe. You’ll love it, I promise.
I also have my traffic challenge newsletter, Make It Click, which I send every Friday to update my readers about everything I’m doing to grow my traffic to 50,000 sessions in six months.
When your newsletter feels like its own thing—something with a name and a personality, not just emails you send every now and then—people get genuinely excited to be invited into it.
Step 3: Pick your email platform
I’m a big fan of email marketing, so I’ve tested many of the email marketing platforms out there.
And by “many,” I mean going through nine different software tools, finding my way around and testing them.
I have a few recommendations to help you get over decision paralysis.
MailerLite: I used this for yearssss. If you want an easy-to-use, budget-friendly option with more features than you’d expect for the price, this should be your pick.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit): I love Kit and use it for my side projects. It’s beautiful and simple to design in. It’s the perfect fit if you want a creator-focused, sophisticated vibe.
Systeme.io: This is an all-in-one option that does wayyyy beyond email marketing, and it’s what I use to run my business. It’s perfect for you if you want to manage your funnels, emails, and sales in one place.
Don’t agonize over this step, though.
Just pick one platform based on budget and how much design and customization matters to you, and move on. You can migrate later if you truly outgrow it.
Step 4: Build something worth subscribing to
The fastest way to grow your email list is to offer something valuable for free.
You need a freebie (aka, lead magnet) that solves one small, specific, real problem for your ideal reader.
It should be something they can consume quickly and get genuine value from immediately.
If you want more tips on how to create the perfect lead magnet, read this post. It also includes 13 freebie ideas that work every time.
Step 5: Nail down your consistency levers
Consistency is about giving your weekly newsletter a recognizable shape.
Think about your favorite show. It airs every week at the same time and follows a familiar rhythm episode to episode, and you know roughly what story you’re getting (even if you don’t know the specific angle) before you even press play.
That familiarity isn’t boring. It’s actually what makes you come back to watch with anticipation.
Your newsletter needs that same recognizable shape, or it just reads as a random thing that lands in someone’s inbox whenever you happen to feel inspired.
This means:
Picking a day and actually sticking to it. If you say they should expect an email every Wednesday, show up in their inbox on this day every week.
Having a consistent structure. This is just like outlining the blog posts you eventually publish. Each one has a title, a featured image, an introduction, a body, a conclusion, and a call to action. Your email should be the same so people aren’t relearning how to read your email every single time
Staying within your topic lane. Even if the specific angle or subject shifts, ensure you stay within your lane. Someone who signed up for blogging tips shouldn’t suddenly be getting three weeks straight about your skincare routine, however good it is—except, of course, it’s a story that ties to what you do.
If you’re just learning how to write a newsletter, this is going to help you a lot and make the writing process less daunting.
This is how you make your newsletter feel like something with a pulse—a real, ongoing thing your readers can settle into, instead of a surprise that shows up in their inbox looking slightly different every time.
Step 6: Send your first newsletter
Andddd don’t overthink it.
It does not need to be perfect or polished or detailed. It just has to be where you freely express yourself because it’s YOURS. Your insider community. So, write your newsletter like you talk in real life, when you’re giving your bestie the tea about what’s up.
Just share something useful and hit the send button.
The structure to follow?
A simple newsletter structure is fine. Open with a specific, relatable moment, transition into your main point, share the actual value, and close with a next step.
One more thing: It doesn’t have to be long.
If you’re on my list or any other chatterbox’s newsletter, you might feel like “lengthy newsletters are it.”
But it’s just me. I genuinely like to talk. I’m Gemini with ADHD, who overthinks for a sport. Naturally, yapping is one of my core strengths.
Short newsletters perform just as well, sometimes better, because people can read till the end. As long as they’re valuable and engaging, you’re good.
Step 8: Give real thought to your subject lines
Your subject line determines whether your email gets opened at all.
It accounts for the open rate, while your email content accounts for the engagement and click-through rates.
Here are some tips to actually get better at writing them.
Lead with specificity. “This week’s update” tells your reader nothing, while “How I fixed my inbox chaos in one weekend” gives them a reason to click. When in doubt, specific and slightly boring beats vague and mysterious.
Use numbers when they genuinely fit. “5 things I wish I knew before launching” gives your reader a sense of scope and payoff before they even open it. They know what they’re signing up to read, and that clarity gets your emails opened.
Answer a question your reader is already asking themselves. “Why your website is not converting” works because it doesn’t introduce a new thought. It names something they’ve probably already wondered, which makes the email feel like it’s about to give them an answer they’ve been wanting.
Create a small, honest curiosity gap. Tell them the topic and stakes, but leave one small thing unresolved. “One mistake cost me 3 months of sales,” but make sure the email delivers on the tease to improve trust.
Make it your newsletter summary. Your subject line can be a quick summary of your newsletter content. During my summer travels, I wrote an issue titled “Jet Lag, Turquoise Water, and a Lit Blog Era.” I had just traveled to Zanzibar (which is famous for its turquoise blue waters) for a quick vacation, and since I was in my digital nomad era, I had a sh*t ton of work to do—especially since I had just announced a 6-month traffic challenge a week before.
Feel free to read the newsletter issue here.
How to write a newsletter might sound like a lot until you realize it’s just creating a subject line that gets people to open and a relatable story that keeps them engaged.
More tips on writing your subject line:
Keep it short enough to survive mobile. Most people are reading on their phones, where subject lines get cut off after roughly 40-50 characters. Say the important part first, so even a truncated subject line still makes sense and still hooks them.
A/B test when you can. If your platform allows it, send two different subject lines to a small portion of your list and let the winner go to everyone else. Over time, this teaches you what your specific audience actually responds to, instead of guessing.
Read it back OUT LOUD before you hit send. If it sounds stiff, robotic, or like something a corporate newsletter would say, rewrite it. If it sounds like something you’d text a friend to get them, you’re on the right track.
Step 7: Batch your content
If you want a sustainable tip to stay consistent with your newsletter, it’s this:
Batch your emails.
Instead of writing newsletter to newsletter in a panic every single week, sit down once a month and outline four (or more) newsletters at once. Think about what the story arc would be and what specific action you want subscribers to take after reading.
And you should keep a running list of ideas in a Trello dashboard or the Notes app on your phone so it’s easier to batch your newsletter. It doesn’t have to be any over-the-top experience.
It could be a question someone asked, a popular search query your ideal clients really want to know about, something funny that happened on Sunday, or a ridiculous question your kid asked Grandma.
And you might wonder, how do you even turn these ideas into emails worth sending?
And what if you don’t have any experience since you’re such a hermit? Where do you find ideas on what to write about??
Here are some newsletter content ideas, including tips to find more so you never run out of things to write.
Step 9: Actually grow your list
It could be a tad discouraging to consistently send a weekly newsletter if your list only has a few tens of subscribers.
But I want you to keep up your newslettering rhythm while you grow your email list.
Put your freebie in multiple places on your site. Reference it as often as possible in your blog posts. Promote it across your social or traffic channels.
Growth compounds eventually! And nurturing them from the start is a smart move, because a small but engaged list beats a huge disengaged one every time.
Newsletter QuickStart Checklist
Here’s what starting a weekly newsletter actually requires, stripped of all the overthinking:
- Know who it’s for
- Give it a real identity
- Pick a platform
- Build one genuinely useful freebie
- Lock in your three consistency levers
- Send the first one without overthinking it
- Keep subject lines curiosity-driven
- Batch your content (and keep a running idea list)
- Promote your newsletter consistently
Ready to Start a Weekly Email Newsletter?
None of this needs to happen perfectly in week one.
It needs to happen consistently, in a system simple enough that you can actually sustain it past the initial burst of motivation that got you here today.
If you want a custom newsletter plan built around your actual business so you can keep up with your list and engage your subscribers instead of guessing week to week, book a strategy session with me.
And if you’d rather hand off the writing entirely—if you want your weekly newsletter to sound like you without you having to sit down and write it yourself—I offer custom copywriting support. Reach out and let’s chat about it.
