Remember when the said we were “past peak newsletter” (23 Oct 2022)?
Well, no one told news publishers.
There have been a bunch of launches/announcements that point to newsletters being critical to their business in 2023.
Here’s what we’ve seen in January alone
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Conversation
The flurry of activity can be broadly bucketed into three categories:
1️⃣ Product and pricing
2️⃣ Content and distribution
3️⃣ Design and UX
All have significant implications for engagement/retention (and therefore $$$) if publishers get them right.
2/16
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Note: I’m not talking about individual creators or platform news (eg Revue/Substack etc) here. I'm looking specifically at media brands evolving their newsletter plays in different ways.
3/16
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1️⃣ Product and pricing
Reach announced that nine of its outlets will go newsletter-first following a pilot last year in which the titles hit traffic targets and notably increased 'loyal page views’.
Websites will become a secondary platform.
pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/reg
4/16
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Robinhood’s new media arm, Sherwood, will have “newsletter products across specific verticals related to business and finance” and “specific newsletters that cover high-profile companies, such as Tesla or Disney”.
Move to ultra-niche.
axios.com/2023/01/17/rob
5/16
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In the last few days, the FT has made its daily UK politics newsletter, Inside Politics by , available as an individual product.
Non-subs can try it for free for 90 days before paying £5.99/$7.99 a month. Swanky sign-up page.
ft.com/newsletter-sig
6/16
Replying to
2️⃣ Content and distribution
WSJ launched Debrief, which hits inboxes right after a big news event to “sum up everything you need to know about what everyone is talking about”.
Marks a new form of curation that speaks to the user needs model.
twitter.com/RobinKwong/sta
7/16
Quote Tweet
Instead of a regular daily or weekly news summary newsletter, you’ll get WSJ News Debrief only when big news events happen - think Oscars, Midterm-elections, or the collapse of FTX.
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Dezeen will send out a new In Depth monthly newsletter with “a feature, an interview and an opinion piece selected by our features editor Nat Barker”.
The architecture brand already sends out a daily digest and two weekly newsletters.
dezeen.com/2023/01/26/dez
8/16
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Bloomberg has announced The Brink, a twice-weekly newsletter “chronicling corporate distress, bankruptcies, financial meltdowns and turnaround stories”.
Joins the stable of 40+ emails that non-subs can sample before paying. bloomberg.com/account/newsle
9/16
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Just important as new newsletters: paused its Virus Briefing after almost 3 years.
said that lessons would be applied "across The Times’s newsletters, particularly the inclusion of your [reader] voices in our coverage”
nytimes.com/2023/01/25/bri
10/16
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3️⃣ Design and UX
introduced a fun new logo and has added a PMQs edition on Wednesdays to complement the UK morning edition.
Design is key to clarifying its brand/value to audiences that aren't familiar with Westminister politics.
thetimes.co.uk/article/introd
11/16
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The Guardian has introduced a new and improved Fashion Statement newsletter with “inbox-exclusive fashion journalism".
All newsletters have undergone revamp in the last 12 months (via ).
theguardian.com/global/2022/se
12/16
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What’s behind this trend?
As notes in his 2023 trends report:
- Traffic is flat/declining for a large number of publishers due to users lacking time/avoiding news
- Retaining subscribers will be crucial in 2023 as market and price wars hot up
13/16
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If done well, newsletters can be part of the strategy in both cases.
That’s presumably why 69% of publishing execs will be putting more resources behind them this year.
FYI: That's more than digital video and only 3%pp fewer than podcasts/audio.
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/
14/16
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Finally, Jim VandeHei, who knows a thing or two about the medium, wrote in his recent prediction that “there is no better way for busy readers to mass consume high-quality content than a well-crafted newsletter”.
niemanlab.org/2022/12/there-
15/16
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In summary, I predict:
- Lots of new, niche, audience-led email offerings
- Some newsletters spun out to become products/profit centres in their own right
- A few acquisitions as publishers shortcut their way to finding audience and revenue
ftstrategies.com/en-gb/insights
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