The "Ghosts" Guide to Email Newsletters

👉 or why value is not enough

Have you seen the TV show “Ghosts”?

It's the kind of lightweight sitcom the BBC does very well. Not stomach-achingly funny all the time, but a good few chuckles every episode. And with characters interesting and likeable enough that you care about what happens to them each week.

It's the kind of style that works well for email newsletters too (except instead of "funny", read "valuable").

Just like with a lightweight comedy, most people read your newsletter as a bit of a distraction from work. They want to learn something useful, but not to have to work too hard for it. And certainly not to get bored in the process.

Your emails are neither pure information nor pure entertainment. They're somewhere in between.

I see some email newsletters that are all value, but deathly boring. 

They're very well-meaning, but you have to recognise that most people just don't want to get a lecture in their inbox each week. You have to make your emails easy or even a pleasure to read.

And some emails are all entertainment. Stories and anecdotes without much insight.

Eventually, your subscribers will grow tired of this too. When you're pushed for time to read emails you need to be getting something useful to keep going. 

Getting that balance right can sound like hard work but it's not really.

There are certain structures you can use for your newsletter that work to pique interest and allow you to then share some value.

• You can illustrate a point with a personal story

• You can share a case study of an interesting person or business your reader is likely to know a little about

• You can use data to reveal surprising findings and insights

• You can draw unexpected analogies (like with a TV comedy)

• You sprinkle humour into your writing (if you have that skill)

• You can write with a strong point of view

Trial and error will tell you what works for you and what doesn’t. But you can also accelerate your experience by learning what's worked (and hasn't) for other email writers. Make sure you subscribe to popular newsletters inside and outside your own field and look at how they inject entertainment and interest into the content.

Most importantly, before hitting the publish button, ask yourself “is this the sort of email I’d actually read? Is there something to it that makes it more than just an academic paper or news report?”.

If not, take a quick look at some of the suggestions above to inject some interest.