Someone recently asked me for the playbook we use to write our community newsletter over at Hampton. He was hoping for a one-pager he could give his team, so they could write something similar for their industry.
That was a big compliment.
It was also a little daunting because the last thing I wrote about content strategy was, like… Fifty pages. After cutting.
So I’m going to try and write something shorter and more actionable here. We’ll focus only on the real stuff I do each week to produce our email, and we’ll cover:
- Developing A Template
- The Importance Of Your Drop File
- Writing The Bones Each Week
- Editing + Style
- The Final Step
None of this is Hampton-specific. It should all transfer.
1. Developing A Template
When I talk about a newsletter template, I’m talking about the overall structure for the email – the major sections, and what goes in each.
Having a template for your newsletter is important because…
- It makes the email easier to write each week
- It helps you think about the purpose of each segment you include
- Over time, it sets expectations with readers, and helps them skim and find what they’re looking for faster
The easiest way to start is to copy the format of a newsletter you already like, and iterate from there as you see what works and what doesn’t with your audience.
Each week, when I sit down to write, the very first thing I do is duplicate the last week’s email. I remove the old content, and the rest of my job is just filling in the structure with new content.
This saves a ton of time and energy. In fact, steps 1-3 are all about saving time and energy so you can spend it on step 4 (styling), where it’s most valuable.
So have a template.
The important thing to know is that your template evolves over time, and will take a while to solidify.
I’d estimate it took us about 2-3 months of weekly emails to settle on a pretty good structure at Hampton. And even then, it’s still evolving (currently in the middle of a visual refresh, though structurally, it’ll remain mostly the same).
Ours currently looks something like this:
- Brief Intro
- Recap Of Popular Slack Posts
- New Members From This Week
- Upcoming Events
- A Post From The Blog
Every one of these is designed to do something specific (like get people excited about the Slack group, drive event RSVPs, or get eyes on the member interviews we publish on our blog).
And each of those, really boils down to the same single thing – helping members connect with one another.
That’s the essence of a community email. It’s about creating points of connection between your readers.
There are a hundred little tactics (for example, we intentionally include a lot of names in each issue – names, names, names!), but if you just write with the intention of creating connections between your readers, you’ll find your way.
2. The Importance Of Your Drop File
Okay, so you’ve got a template. Now how do you fill it in each week?
Answer: Your drop file.
The drop file is a simple Google or Word doc that you keep handy all week long. As you stumble across things that could be cool for your newsletter, you drop them in the drop file, and forget about them until it’s time to write.
I keep mine right in my bookmarks bar.
The structure of the drop file is simple. It’s a running list. Just bullet-items for each idea you come across, and maybe a few quick thoughts or follow-up links to help you write later.
You can find ideas anywhere. But over time, you’ll narrow the list of sources down to a few that deliver great options every week.
At Hampton, most of our content starts with our Slack channels. We’ve got hundreds of members in there, and our weekly active users have hovered between 85-89% from day one. So every week, there are a bunch of great conversations going on.
When I come across one I want to remember, it gets added to the drop file.
Then, whenever I sit down to write newsletters or do content planning, I open the file to jump-start the process.
3. Writing The Bones Each Week
With your template and an active drop file, the process of writing the newsletter is actually pretty simple.
It’s usually a process of…
- Looking at your template – what needs to be filled in?
- Looking at your drop file – what fits where in the template?
- Match one to the other.
- Rinse and repeat to fill in the major sections of the newsletter
On the first pass, I don’t write much. I’m just slotting story ideas in to make sure I like how they all fit.
Sometimes, a story or link might be a good match for more than one section of the newsletter, and it’s not immediately clear where it should go. But a little plugging and playing usually helps sort things out as I see the broader email take shape.
As things start to click, I’ll add more detail to each section, writing segments the way readers will eventually see them.
4. Editing + Style
Ultimately, your voice is the most important part of your style, and that’s different for everyone.
But here are a few editorial best-practices we used at The Hustle, which I’ve carried to Hampton, and which (I feel) make the newsletter easier and more pleasant to read…
- Use simple language
- Short paragraphs (no more than 2-3 lines in a Google doc)
- An image at least every 200-300 words to break up text
- Use bullets and bolding to make it skim-able
Axios really pioneered this style in recent years. You can learn more from them in their book, Smart Brevity.
5. The Final Step
Finally, testing. You want to a send test-version of the email to yourself.
When you get out of the editing window, and review in your inbox, you’ll pretty much always catch at least one thing you missed.
At minimum, you should read the newsletter on your phone, and click each link to be sure it’s headed to the right destination.
It can also be a good idea to read it in dark mode if it’s very design-centric. A surprising number of readers leave dark mode on all the time, and it can throw off certain design elements or make certain text hard to read.