4 Types of Email Newsletter and How They Help Your Business

Discover what an email newsletter is, how to start your own, and learn best practices to meet your business goals

Want to connect deeply with your audience? When it comes to digital marketing, there are not many places on the internet as impactful as an email box. Undisturbed by competing content, you have direct contact with customers and can provide interesting, relevant information to them.

A good newsletter builds trust, a sense of community, and your authority on a topic. It educates and entertains your reader, but above all connects with them. Here, copywriter and content strategist Pam Neely (@pamneely) reveals what turns a regular email into a newsletter, and the four styles that could unlock your online community dreams...

Pam runs an email newsletter and coaching business, creating content for ad agencies and companies, and aiding solo creators with their marketing strategies. She earned a master’s degree in direct and interactive marketing from New York University, and has won multiple awards, including the New York Press Award and the Hermes Creative Award. Her book, 50 Ways to Build Your Email Marketing List, is a Kindle bestseller.

Here, she explains what a newsletter is, how it differs from other types of emails, and the four types of newsletter which each serve different purposes.

What’s an email newsletter?

In her course on copywriting essentials for newsletters, Pam offers a clear definition of an email newsletter: “A regularly scheduled message sent to subscribers that includes a roundup of information about a specific topic.”

Let’s break that down. Depending on your goals and sector, "regular" could mean daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly. If you’re a news source, subscribers may want curated news content every lunchtime, for example.

"Subscribers" refers to people who are expressly opted into and interested in your content. Don’t add emails to your list without the person’s permission, and ensure that when new subscribers sign up, you get explicit confirmation (for example via a verification email) that the person understands what they’re signing up for.

As for the "roundup of information", Pam explains that your newsletter is like a mini-publication. It should focus on a specific topic, and it’s not (all) about selling. Instead, it should be curated and thoughtful, with a through-line that tells a story. You’ll include several pieces of content relevant to the theme. The exception to this is a literary newsletter (explored below) which might have a single essay as the contents.

What an email newsletter is NOT

Pam notes that there are many other kinds of email with marketing and community-related goals. However, they tend towards selling specifically, and are often shorter and more direct. Here are the three other kinds of email, which differ from newsletters.

- Confirmation emails: These are sent automatically to confirm an action the user took, like a transaction, invoice, or event registration.

- Lead nurturing emails: Sequences of emails that welcome new subscribers, or engage older ones, with a series of proposals that hopefully lead to a significant purchase.

- Announcement Emails: These are simple and focused on one event such as a new product launch. They are short and clear, and direct the subscriber to a specific action, like a purchase.

The difference between a marketing email and an email newsletter

The main difference between a newsletter and the three formats mentioned above is the amount of content. As Pam mentioned, your newsletter is like a mini-publication, a magazine of ideas around a theme. They tend to be longer, more thoughtfully curated, and focus on building trust and a true relationship with the reader. They may or may not sell your product, but they should be relevant to your sector and feature some calls to action, like reading a blog post, watching a video, or simply reading the newsletter itself.

4 types of email newsletters and how they work

Finally, it’s time to consider the different types of email newsletters that you might wish to send, in order to build an engaged audience that is always interested to hear what you have to share.

Why is it important to distinguish between the four types? The answer is that each requires its own distinct tone and language. You’ll need to slip into different styles of copywriting to ensure you engage your audience. It will also likely impact the design of your email, and whether you choose to add images, video, and other media.

These are the four types of email newsletters that Pam explores in her course: company newsletters, e-commerce newsletters, curated newsletters, and literary newsletters.

To understand which will serve your business most effectively, let’s deep-dive into each category in detail.

1. Company/organization newsletters

This is perhaps the simplest style—an update on a company’s latest products, news, and events. It can be used by large businesses, small brands, a single person, or a media publication. Each key piece of information will receive a short summary, and there may be links to explore the news more deeply. Pam notes that this style “helps to amplify content the organization has published, and keeps the organization top-of-mind for their subscribers.”

2. E-commerce newsletters

Though it might sound similar to the above "announcement" format, this newsletter explores the story around a single product or service. Beyond the product itself, an e-commerce newsletter will share related thinkpieces and blogs, customer stories, behind-the-scenes, and perhaps extra content like a webinar. This makes the email more informative, as opposed to a sales pitch.

3. Curated newsletters

Curated newsletters are mini-magazines. You curate content from around the internet, and use it to reflect a theme. You might use a curated newsletter for the eighty-twenty rule: eighty percent of the content comes from other sources, and the last twenty percent is dedicated to one of your posts or products. Alternatively, you may use it to curate affiliate links you have and generate direct income from the email itself!

4. Literary newsletter

These are a newer kind of newsletter that Pam has noticed over the last couple of years, with the emerging term “sletter” to describe them. Sletters seem to have emerged from platforms like Substack, an online service for writers and bloggers to easily send newsletters. Pam notes that a sletter is perfect for a writer or journalist, because readers expect longer-form pieces. You might share news, diary entries, thoughts, and more, before linking to an interview you’ve done, or resources you’ve created.

Out of these four types, Pam explains that the company newsletter is the most flexible and recognizable. A common structure would include: a personal message, summaries of blog posts, a product carousel, and then upcoming events or news. “It doesn’t have to go on for pages,” Pam says, “and you can mix and match the different types of content however you like. It’s your newsletter!”

If you’d like expert guidance to take you through the creation of your own newsletter, check out Pam Neely’s full course, Copywriting Essentials for Email Newsletters. Learn the principles of successful email writing, and develop the voice of your copy to effectively connect with readers. Explore ways to integrate your newsletters with social media content, and expand your reach.

You may also like this marketing content:

- What is a Digital Strategy and How Do You Create One?
- 5 Tips to Become a Better Copywriter
- Tips for Creating a Successful Newsletter
- Email Marketing to Boost Your Business, course by Ignacio Arriaga
- Digital Marketing Strategy: Build Your Online Presence, course by Alice Benham