Newsletters

Newsletters have become a major audience development and engagement tool, with growing numbers of jobs in the field. They are not only a great way to communicate with your readers, build deeper relationships with segments of your audience, but also something that, if well planned, adds value to your content.

With tools like Substack, Ghost and Revue, they have also become a way for individual creators to earn income, and build their own publishing businesses.

In this four-session online course, we will take a deep dive into the psychology of a good newsletter strategy, the skills needed to create them, and the different approaches needed to make them work for different segments of your audience.

Delivered in a workshop format, we will integrate on practical newsletter concepts, structures and content through the day.

We will draw on the best practices from across journalism and marketing to explore what makes the newsletter a success and what makes them fail horribly. We will also look at how to monitor success and use the information to improve what you do.

Participants will work together to create sample newsletters — or improve existing ones — as part of the workshop to gain practical, hands-on experience of how to do it and do it well.

The course will:

  • Explain what newsletters work and why.
  • Give examples of the best practices and the latest innovations.
  • Give guidance on who to target and when.
  • Look at different models of newsletter structure and the audiences they serve.
  • Explain newsletter analytics and how to use them.
  • Give detailed examples and practical exercises in writing and curating newsletters that work for readers.
  • Explore their role in achieving business and editorial objectives.

Getting there

This is an online course happening over four 90-minute sessions. Sessions will take place on Monday 16th September, Monday 23rd September, Monday 30th September and Monday 7th October.


About Adam Tinworth

A journalist for 30 years, Adam now works as a consultant and trainer in digital journalism, audience growth, social media and content strategy.

His clients have ranged from large, global outlets such as The Financial Times, The Straits Times and The Telegraph to smaller publishers and businesses.

Adam is also a lecturer in the UK’s leading journalism department at City, University of London and has written about digital content, social media and publishing for more than 20 years at One Man & His Blog.

Find him on Twitter @adders.