Newsletter

Newsletter

Write newsletter issues that subscribers open, read, and reply to. A newsletter is a recurring relationship, not a broadcast: it must be consistent (same format and cadence every time), valuable (useful before promotional), and personal (sounds like one human wrote it to one human). Prime directive: the reader must finish the issue glad they opened it — value first, promotion never more than a postscript.

When to use / when not to

• Use for writing a newsletter issue, designing a new newsletter (format + cadence + template), or fixing a stale one (falling opens, no replies).
• If the user wants automated emails triggered by behavior (welcome series, launch, sales sequence), use skills/marketing/email-sequences — a newsletter is a recurring broadcast, not an automation.
• If the user has no list and no way to get subscribers, route to skills/marketing/lead-magnet first.
• If the source material is a blog post being adapted for many channels at once, use skills/marketing/content-atomizer (it can hand the newsletter item back here).

Intake

Ask in one batch, only what's missing:

1. Audience and list — who subscribes, roughly how many, and what they signed up expecting.
2. This issue's raw material — a story, lesson, link roundup, data point, or recent piece of content. If nothing, ask for one recent professional observation or lesson; there is always one.
3. Voice — existing issues or a brand-voice guide to match (use skills/marketing/brand-voice output if it exists).
4. Goal — pure relationship-building, or is there something to softly promote?

If the user is starting a newsletter from scratch, also ask what they can sustain: writing capacity and how much source material their work naturally generates. Otherwise infer format and cadence from past issues. If enough is known, state assumptions and draft — don't stall.

Workflow

1. If new: lock the format and cadence (the Blueprint)

Pick one primary format by decision rule — the user can guest-star other formats occasionally, but the flagship format is what subscribers learn to expect:

Cadence by decision rule: weekly if their work generates material weekly and they'll actually sustain it; otherwise bi-weekly (the default recommendation — heuristic: a kept bi-weekly schedule beats a broken weekly one); monthly only if the format is heavyweight (interview, data-driven). Fix the send day/time and put it in the Blueprint.

2. Extract the issue's one idea

Every issue carries exactly one central idea (curated format: one theme unifying the links). From the raw material, pull the single most useful/surprising insight for this audience. If the material holds several strong ideas, list them, pick the best for now, and bank the rest as future issue seeds in the delivery notes.

3. Draft the issue

• Subject line: write 3 candidates, ≤45 characters each, specific and curiosity- or benefit-driven. No clickbait the body doesn't cash; no ALL CAPS; at most one punctuation flourish.
• Preview text: ≤90 characters that extends (not repeats) the subject.
• Opening: 1–3 sentences, personal and concrete — an observation, moment, or admission. Never "Welcome to another issue" or weather-report throat-clearing.
• Body: follow the format skeleton from Step 1. Short paragraphs (≤3 sentences), subheads or bold lead-ins if the issue runs past ~300 words, written to one reader ("you", never "you all"/"subscribers").
• CTA: exactly one, engagement-first — "Hit reply and tell me X" beats "click here" for relationship-building. If there's a promotion, it rides in the P.S., not the body, unless the user explicitly wants a promotional issue.
• Sign-off: first name + optional P.S. (the P.S. is prime real estate: a bonus link, question, or the soft promo).

Length target: 300–800 words for original-content formats; curated can run longer but each link blurb stays ≤2 sentences of commentary.

4. Self-review and deliver

Run the quality bar. Then deliver in the required output format, including next-issue seeds so the user never faces a blank page.

Required output format

# Newsletter Issue — [working title]

## Subject line options
1. "…" (n chars)
2. "…" (n chars)
3. "…" (n chars)
Recommended: #_ — [one-line reason]

## Preview text
"…" (n chars)

## Body
[Full issue: opening → format-skeleton body → CTA → sign-off → P.S.]

## Send notes
- Format: [which of the six] · Cadence slot: [day/time]
- CTA: [the one action asked]
- Promo present: [none | P.S. only | promotional issue]

## Next-issue seeds
- [2–3 banked ideas pulled from this material or conversation]

When setting up a new newsletter, precede the issue with:

# Newsletter Blueprint — [name]

- Audience & promise: [who subscribes and what each issue gives them]
- Flagship format: [one of six] — [why, per decision rule]
- Cadence: [weekly/bi-weekly/monthly], sent [day/time]
- Section template: [the recurring skeleton, so every issue is structurally identical]
- Voice notes: [3–5 bullets]
- Metrics to watch: open rate trend, reply count, unsubscribe spikes per issue

Quality bar

Check every item; fix before delivering:

• Every subject line ≤45 characters (count them) and honestly cashed by the body
• Preview text ≤90 characters and not a repeat of the subject
• Opening is personal/concrete — no "welcome to this week's issue" boilerplate
• Exactly one idea; exactly one CTA
• Promotion absent or confined to the P.S. (unless explicitly a promo issue)
• No paragraph over 3 sentences; issue scannable on a phone
• Sounds like the user, not like "a newsletter" — read it aloud; generic sentences get cut
• Every factual claim cited, attributable to the user's own experience, or cut; no invented anecdotes presented as the user's
• Curated format: every link has a stated reason it earned inclusion

Integration

• skills/marketing/brand-voice — supplies the voice guide the issue must match; run it first if the user has no defined voice.
• skills/marketing/lead-magnet — builds the subscriber-acquisition offer; new subscribers flow through skills/marketing/email-sequences (welcome) before landing on this newsletter.
• skills/marketing/email-sequences — owns triggered/automated email; the newsletter is the ongoing touchpoint subscribers graduate into.
• skills/marketing/content-atomizer — turns blog/video content into newsletter items, and turns strong newsletter issues back into social posts.
• skills/marketing/seo-content — published articles are recurring issue material; pass title, link, and one-sentence hook.