A newsletter and a blog that support each other: one calendar, several formats

Anyone searching for “business newsletter” usually has one of two problems: a list of addresses collected over the years that nobody has ever written to, or a blog that gets updated and nobody reads. The two are solved together.

The blog brings in people who do not know you yet, through search. The newsletter brings back those who already know you, without depending on any network’s algorithm. We plan them as a single publication, with a single calendar.

One article, several lives

The big effort in a publication is the research: finding out something true and useful from the person in the company who knows. It would be a waste to get a single text out of it, so we plan every topic in all its forms.

The forms are not copies. The article answers a search in full. The newsletter gives the idea in a few paragraphs, in a more personal tone, and leaves the details on the website, so the subscriber does not get the same text twice.

• The blog article: the full version, written for search, which stays on the website.
• The newsletter: the main idea and a reason to read on.
• Social posts: a few excerpts, each with a single idea.
• The welcome series: the best articles, sent one at a time to new subscribers.
• The reply for sales: the text you send when the same question comes in again.

The editorial calendar and a rhythm you can keep up

The calendar is a simple table covering a quarter: the topic, who provides the information, who writes, the publication dates, the derived formats. The themes follow your business’s seasons. Say you sell irrigation systems: in spring you write about installation, in autumn about draining the system.

We choose the rhythm according to how much time the person approving the texts has, not according to ambition. A monthly newsletter sent every month does more than a weekly one abandoned after the fourth issue. We keep a few articles in reserve that do not depend on the date, and you tell subscribers on the sign-up form how often you will write to them.

The list grows only with people’s consent

The sign-up form says clearly what the person will receive and how often. The box is not ticked in advance and is not hidden among the terms. After signing up, the subscriber receives a message and confirms through a link: this is double opt-in, which keeps the list clean of mistyped addresses and leaves you with proof of consent.

We do not buy lists and we do not collect addresses from other people’s websites. What you can send existing customers without separate consent is a question for your data protection officer or your lawyer. If you offer a guide in exchange for an address, you state clearly that the person is also subscribing; check that wording with the same specialist too.

The unsubscribe link sits in the footer of every message and takes one step, with no password and no compulsory survey. Making it hard to unsubscribe does not keep readers; it only produces spam complaints. Addresses that have not opened anything for a long time are asked to reconfirm, then come off the list.

Business newsletter: the structure of an email that gets read to the end

A newsletter competes with everything else in the inbox. It wins if it looks like a message from a person, not like a leaflet: plain text, few images, readable on a phone, a single theme.

Replies go to an address somebody reads: a subscriber who replies is the best sign that you have written something useful.

• The sender: a person’s name alongside the company name, not an address nobody can reply to.
• The subject line: says what is inside, with no words in capitals and no promises.
• The body: one main idea, two secondary ones at most.
• The call to action: just one, be it reading the article, replying or requesting a quote.
• The footer: who you are, why the person is receiving the message and the unsubscribe link.

The sending platform, domain authentication and the figures you can trust

We send from an email marketing platform (Brevo, MailerLite or Mailchimp, for example), which holds the list, the forms, the unsubscribes and the statistics. The form on the WordPress site connects to it directly. Messages go out from the company’s domain, not from a free address.

Before the first send we set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC. These are records placed in the domain’s DNS, through which email providers check whether a message really comes from you. The big providers require them of bulk senders; without them, the newsletter ends up in spam more easily.

The open rate is only a rough guide: some email apps load messages automatically and inflate the figure. More reliable are clicks (the links carry UTM parameters, tags that show newsletter visits in Google Analytics), replies and unsubscribes. We promise neither list growth nor sales.

This is a typical project description: it shows how we usually approach this kind of work and does not present a project carried out for a particular client. Every real project starts from your company’s situation, and the stages, timescales and price are agreed after the initial discussion.