3 Tips to help you start your own newsletter

Our team started Your ATTN Please 9 months ago – so yes, it literally is our baby. Born of blood, sweat, tears and sheer willpower.

Okay, maybe the blood is a lie – but that’s not to say it hasn’t been a grind.

Over that time, we’ve managed to adapt, learn and grow this thing to become, well an actual thing. Now sitting at almost 10,000 readers, it’s hard not to feel a little chuffed.

However, there have been plenty of ups, downs, and lessons learnt along the way. So today, we’re sharing 3 learnings from this crazy ride we’ve been on.

Whether you’re thinking about starting a newsletter or you’ve already started, we hope sharing our learnings helps you.

Lesson number one: you’ve got to nail your concept.

This starts with defining your purpose:

This looks like answering a couple of foundational questions: Are you going niche or broad?

Think about it like this:

Niche: Target specific interests or communities (like ‘Middle-aged women who are learning to play golf’ or fans of your city’s local soccer team).

Smaller audiences are often more loyal and engaged. If you’re wanting to eventually monetise your newsletter, this will be appealing to niche advertisers as they will be able to get in front of people who truly care.

Broad: Cover a range of general-interest topics (think Morning Brew or 1440). It’s tough to stand out in this space, but if done well, you can grow a wide, varied readership.

Both have benefits. But you need to figure out who you want to speak to based on the nature of your topic. Not only that, but who’s going to listen.

Then you need to decide what job your newsletter does for these people.

Figure out what role your newsletter fills in your readers’ lives.

Maybe it’s making them feel smarter and more confident with a specific skill or interest. Maybe it’s keeping them updated on niche topics they care about, or simply giving them a break from traditional media.

Make it easy for people to get what they need in one place.

At first, we thought of our newsletter as an extension of our team. But we quickly learned that people weren’t here for the insider stories about The Attention Seeker—they wanted what our team had to offer: expertise.

Lesson number two: just start.

We promise, it’s not as scary as you think it is.

It’s like taking the training wheels off your bike – your first ride is filled with doubts and fear, but you soon realize nothing that bad’s going to happen. And from there on out you’ve got the wind in your hair.

What’s a couple of scrapes and bruises, anyway?

For us, our mistakes came in the form of some accidental sends, an endless list of typos, and pixelated graphics. Not the end of the world, right?

My point is, if you wait until everything is perfect, you’re never going to start. It's a recipe for procrastination. Because nothing is ever going to be perfect, and the only way you get close is to get your reps in.

Which brings me to lesson number three: Listen, evolve, repeat.

Start with what you have an iterate along the way. Improve as you go, constantly learning from the process.

We have some truly vintage editions that make us cringe a little, but every issue was a step toward where we are today. (The O.G.s will remember, and if you’re still here, we love you ♡)

It’s once you’re up and running that the real work begins. What works today might not work tomorrow. We’re always asking you, our readers, for feedback. And every day, we analyse our data, consistently refining our approach.

Here’s how we do that:

A/B testing subject lines: Ever day, we experiment with subject lines to see what resonates best.

Data-driven adjustments: By checking which articles perform well, we can zero in on what our you, our readers, care about most.

Feedback loops: You all are our sounding board. We regularly ask for input, take your feedback to heart, and implement changes based on what we learn.

So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, remember that we did too, and here we are.

Just take that first step. You never know how far it might take you.

-Sophie, Writer