Unlike email marketing campaigns that help you reach short-term sales targets, newsletters can achieve long-term goals like building brand awareness and affinity and establishing a loyal customer base.
“With a newsletter, you’re really focused on potential education, deepening your relationship with different customers, and highlighting an individual voice,” says Josh Rosenblat, a senior editor at Shopify who focuses on editorial marketing content and runs a weekly ecommerce newsletter.
Ahead, learn more about what a newsletter can do for your company, read tips for launching a successful newsletter, and see examples of newsletters done right.
What is a newsletter?
A newsletter is a written publication that provides regular communication to subscribers, typically via email. Newsletters often share news, upcoming events, or information related to a particular topic or organization.
For ecommerce brands, newsletters frequently contribute to digital marketing campaigns alongside promotional emails. However, unlike standard email marketing, newsletters contain engaging content related to the company’s products, industry, or subscribers’ general interests. Content types include narrative articles, tips, recipes, industry news, product roundups, and more.
Solid newsletter content informs and entertains, turning potential customers into buyers. Most newsletters come out regularly—often weekly—to maintain regular contact with email subscribers.
What is the purpose of a newsletter?
Here’s why small-business owners use newsletters in their email marketing strategy:
To maintain customer connection
As an email marketing tool, a newsletter gives a reason for contacting your customers with company news, tips, product or service updates, promotions, events, and other relevant information. This can keep your brand top of mind for customers.
Weekly newsletters boast the highest open and click-through rates in 2025, but there’s no hard and fast rule for how often to send a newsletter. As you decide on a cadence, keep your other branded emails (like product promotions or sale advertisements) in mind: You don’t want to overwhelm your subscribers with too many messages.
To build brand affinity
“Consumers are looking for a deeper personal connection with the people behind the brand that they’re purchasing from,” says Josh.
Newsletters can help you build brand affinity by showcasing the personal side of your company. To do this, you might tell your brand story, feature employees, or use the newsletter as a personal communication channel between your customers and your company’s founder.
You can also showcase the forces that drive your brand.
“Emails are a great way to express, in an authentic way, the values and the vision behind the business that you’re running,” says Josh. “If you have the desire and the creativity to share that aspect of your business, that can be a really effective way to draw folks in.”
What are the benefits of newsletters?
- Direct access to potential customers
- Opportunities to demonstrate value
- Chance to build a subscriber list
Email newsletters can help ecommerce small businesses as part of a broader content marketing strategy. The benefits include:
Direct access to potential customers
Unlike search engine ads, banner ads, and social media marketing campaigns, a newsletter lands directly in an inbox—a great place to grab the reader’s attention (however briefly).
Newsletters also mimic the feeling of one-on-one communication, even if you send your message to thousands of subscribers. Use this quality to give readers behind-the-scenes glimpses of your brand and make your company feel more accessible.
In her newsletter, The Creative Pragmatist, Tibi founder Amy Smilovic blends personal insights and styling tips with promotional content. In the email newsletter below, Amy describes her packing process for a weeklong business trip to Paris in a conversational tone. It’s a combination of practical advice, behind the scenes (Amy is in Paris for Fashion Week), and advertising (all of the clothes are, of course, from Tibi), written in the tone of a voice memo to a friend.
Opportunities to demonstrate value
Sustained, informative email newsletters show your customers that your small business can do more than provide great products—you can also provide insightful, valuable content. Strong newsletter material (like informative articles, tips, interviews, and gift guides) can leave a good impression on subscribers and entice new ones to join the party.
As you brainstorm newsletter ideas, keep reader benefits top of mind: Why should they sign up and read?
“The key thing for starting a newsletter is that there needs to be some type of value proposition for the audience,” says Josh. “You need to offer something that is unique, that is helpful, and that leads someone to want to actually subscribe.”
If you’re just launching your email newsletter, Josh suggests sourcing content from your company’s blog (if you have one) or turning your newsletter into a series of direct messages from your brand’s founder.
Chance to build a subscriber list
As you ramp up your email newsletter, you can amass a large number of email addresses, which are incredibly valuable for marketing purposes. For example, you can use these email addresses to track customer behavior on your ecommerce store. You can then use this information to send automated email campaigns like abandoned cart reminders.
You can also use this database to create tailored emails for a curated segment of your subscriber list—i.e., emails for customers who have already purchased a particular product.
An effective email marketing strategy will likely have all of these elements.
“It all works in concert: It creates a kind of consistent ecosystem through which people are able to get in touch with your brand or get a taste of what your brand offers,” says Josh.
With a new audience of potential customers within reach, you can also use your email newsletter (and promotional emails) to drive readers to other marketing channels. For instance, you might issue a call to action to your newsletter subscribers to follow you on social media or include links to improve your email clickthrough rates, drive website traffic to your blog, and bolster your content marketing strategy.
Six tips for creating an effective email marketing newsletter
- Maintain a regular schedule
- Optimize for mobile devices
- Use clear, engaging subject lines
- Respect your audience’s time
- Offer newsletter subscribers special access
- Adhere to local email laws
Successful newsletter campaigns usually come from deliberate, cohesive strategies. Here are six tips for making your email newsletter work wonders:
Maintain a regular schedule
Both your company and your subscribers benefit from regular newsletters. A schedule helps establish your newsletter as a trusted source of information for subscribers, increasing the likelihood that they’ll read and act on the updates you provide. Quarterly and monthly newsletters are relatively easy to sustain, whereas weekly and daily email newsletters may require dedicated staff members.
Optimize for mobile devices
More than 62% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices in 2025. Make sure your newsletter renders well on both mobile and desktop devices by using an email newsletter template with responsive web design, keeping subject lines under nine words/70 characters to prevent cutoff, and using images that aren’t too big.
Use clear, engaging subject lines
Keep your email subject lines short and succinct, and preview the content of the full letter. You might tease information with a question (“Is this the solution to closet clutter?”)—but watch out for words and phrases that trigger spam filters, like “guaranteed” and “act now.”
Here’s an example from the olive oil brand Graza. The company’s newsletter frequently features recipes, and in this iteration, Graza previews its email’s contents with an attention-grabbing headline: “Schnitzel + Salad = SCHNALAD.” The silly subject line works for Graza’s playful brand.
Respect your audience’s time
Expect your newsletter to land in a full inbox. Help your audience read through it by breaking your letter into sections, each with a heading. Keep sentences short and focused so your readers can quickly process your content.
Look at this email from makeup brand Saie, which has the subject line “The Women-Owned Businesses We Support.” The company breaks the newsletter into product categories and places each business under a clear heading.
This format is much more approachable than a huge block of text due to it allowing the reader to skim before deciding to read the entire newsletter.
Offer newsletter subscribers special access
Add value to your newsletter by creating exclusive offers for subscribers. You might provide special sale codes, discounts, event invites, premium site access, and gifts.
Here’s an example from skin care and health food brand Cap Beauty. The company offers 15% to incentivize new subscribers to sign up for its newsletter.
Adhere to local email laws
In the US, the CAN-SPAM Act sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.
There are several considerations to stay compliant, like using subject lines that reflect the content of your email, giving subscribers the option to opt out, and honoring unsubscribe requests promptly.
Read more
Purpose of a newsletter FAQ
Why should you issue a newsletter?
As a small-business owner, consider issuing a newsletter as an organic way to engage with your target audience and build your brand’s reputation. Your goal isn’t only to drive instant sales but to sustain a trusting relationship with your customers.
What are five elements of an effective newsletter?
1. A clear subject line
2. An alluring preheader (the text that appears next to the subject line)
3. A clearly partitioned email body with subject headings
4. High-quality content
5. A call to action (such as an invitation to try a product or subscribe to a social media feed)
How do you attract attention to an email marketing newsletter?
You can attract attention to a newsletter by linking to it on your website and social media platforms. You can draw readers to your newsletter by making it a source of exclusive information and offers. For instance, you might include special checkout codes available only to subscribers. You can also give subscribers advance access to new releases or special video viewing privileges. In other words, populate your newsletter with valuable content you can’t get elsewhere.
