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I think that most of you should stop sending a newsletter. Like, right now. Immediately. CLOSE THE SUBSTACK TAB!
When you start learning about marketing a business outside of Instagram or social media, one of the first things that gets shoved into your brain is the idea that you NEED to send an email every week to your audience.
This is both terrifying and daunting, because
* The idea of reminding someone you exist every week means they can reject you EVERY WEEK, vs. sliding under the radar hoping they don’t unsubscribe from your email list simply because they don’t notice you. Yery Jurassic Park “T-rex can’t see you if you don’t move” vibes.
* Writing — not putting together a bunch of pictures, not talking in a 15 second IG story, not recording an off-the-cuff podcast, but actually WRITING something — every week is time-consuming, even for people who don’t have to google where the apostrophe goes for its and it’s every time. (It’s me, I’m people)
So a lot of us don’t do it, or pretend that this advice doesn’t apply to us, or stick our fingers in our ears and go LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.
And — pay attention, this is where I vindicate you and you get to forward this to everyone who’s ever made you feel bad about your inconsistent email schedule — the advice to send a newsletter every week is burning people out, keeping them stuck in content loops that don’t convert, and creating audiences who don’t actually know what you do.
Not because you’re doing it wrong! But because a weekly newsletter might be the wrong tool for you entirely.
I know you’re punching the air in celebration right now. But before you get ahead of your skies, I regret to inform you that there’s some solid logic to the Internet Person Commandment #1, “Thou shalt email your list every week.”
Here’s what it gets right:
* building your email list is important because it’s the only digital audience real estate you “own,” meaning it’s independent of a platform (like Instagram or Youtube), you can take it with you anywhere, and it’s not impacted by petty algorithm changes that hide your content from you audience at the exact moment you’re really trying to reach them
* but an email list full of people who don’t know who the hell you are or WHY they signed up for you email list in the first place is another type of hell, and definitely not a hell that you can make money in (more like a hell that makes you feel like a unwelcome guest in your own home, like you’re interrupting a party that you organized… yuck)
* so you should email your list regularly to create trust and recognition — this creates a relationship between you and your audience members, especially when you provide them value
* and putting out regular content is a great way to test your ideas and gauge general audience interest
Basically, help people remember who you are and what you do and give ‘em a little somethin’ somethin’ that makes them happy to see your name in their inbox instead of feeling dread or annoyance when your name pops up next to a subject line.
It’s easy to reduce all that logic down to a quick and dirty bottom line — I’ve gotta email my audience every week OR ELSE — and forget the very important why and to what end behind the action.
In the past, when my students or clients have inquired about the Weekly Email Problem I’ve recommended a few solutions.
PROBLEM:
I don’t know what to send, and so I send nothing. Or it takes me a really long time to write an email every week because I spiral into an existential crisis about whether anyone cares about my thoughts on Wednesday mornings, so I just... don’t do it.
SOLUTIONS:
Create a template you can easily replicate every week and fill in with content, like a newsletter.
Figure out what you’re actively selling or promoting, and using the stages of awareness reverse engineer what you’ll talk about each week in your weekly email.
Use your weekly email to promote your other content (like a podcast, or a Youtube video, or a blog post) and have that be the “focus” of the email.
But I have to amend my advice — because not everyone should send out a weekly newsletter instead of an original piece of content to their audience.
And for some of you, a dedicated weekly newsletter might be doing the opposite of what you want it to.
Think of it this way: content educates, a newsletter informs.
It’s a great format for showing your audience a ton of information. You can easily include links to events, information about upcoming offers, quick updates about what’s up in your world and what you’re enjoying or inspired by.
That’s perfect for a product aware audience — an audience who knows what you do, who you are, and what the value of your product or service is.
But most people who subscribe to your email list are not product aware. They’re still figuring out what you do, and if it can help them, and if they can even trust you.
While they might enjoy the link you share to that chic shower lamp you’ve been using for low-sensory night showers, they’re probably not frothing at the bit to work with you or buy your product. Confused people don’t buy things.
I could argue that confused people also don’t stay subscribed to a Substack publication long-term, but perhaps that’s a discussion for another day.
This is how the weekly newsletter trap creates Void States:
The Uninspired State: You’re on autopilot, filling a template with links week after week. You’re not teaching your actual perspective or expanding anyone’s thinking—including your own.
The Burnt Out State: You’re exhausted by the hamster wheel of it. Another week, another newsletter to cobble together. You’re prioritizing consistency over clarity, and it’s draining you.
The Overwhelmed by Possibility State: You’re throwing everything at the wall — links, personal stories, half-formed ideas, updates — hoping something sticks. But you have no idea what’s actually working or who’s paying attention.
Sound familiar?
When you’re trying to decide what to send email-wise to your audience, remember it all goes back to what you’re trying to do — what’s the most important point for you?
Trying to grow your audience?
Trying to teach or sell?
Trying to build brand identity?
Trying to test your ideas?
Trying to gauge audience interests?
Decide what you’re trying to do FIRST, then design what your regular email missive could look like… not the other way around.
And here’s where I get to the good news: You don’t have to publish on the same day at the same time every week with military-like precision.
You can skip a week, you can publish on different dates, you can change it up! I personally believe that done is better than perfect, but I don’t think you should shortchange quality just to hit an imaginary deadline that no one else really cares about. Your subscribers aren’t sitting there with a calendar and a sharpie marking off the days since your last email, grumbling to themselves if you don’t hit ‘em with a freshie at exactly 9a on Wednesday morning.
Here’s what I believe: there’s always a more creative way to get what you want. Including with email.
The weekly newsletter is one tool. Not the only tool! And definitely not the right tool for everyone at every stage of their business.
Over this next few emails, I’m going to show you how to think about your email strategy differently:
* What to send when you’re building an audience vs. converting sales
* How to structure content that actually moves people through your world
* How to design an email rhythm that serves your goals instead of someone else’s rules
Because the point isn’t to email your list every week. The point is to build a relationship with your audience that converts them into paying clients.
And there are a lot of ways to do that that don’t involve scrambling to send a link roundup every Tuesday at 9am :)
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