Benefits of email marketing for journalists

With constantly changing social and political shifts, journalists face new “unprecedented” times what feels like every week. Upholding journalist ethics has never been more important. People depend on journalists to provide ethical, objective, and accurate reports. In today’s digital era,  journalism spans across platforms. Many journalists utilize social media, blogs, video, and audio content to reach a broad audience. With so many platforms, it’s easy to overlook email. Email is beneficial for journalists because it is a universal platform. Most people have email and check their inboxes routinely. Newsletters are a quick and easy way to directly communicate with your audience and build an active community. Independent journalists get a lot of value out of having a newsletter because of the creative freedom. 

Creative autonomy

Freedom and ownership are hard to come by in journalism. Often when working with larger media companies, journalists face pushback when expressing journalistic creativity and may have to compromise ethics. It can be difficult to control your content and how it is presented to audiences. Newsletters are a good platform to carve your own path. In newsletters, you can share your passions, interests, and content without being at the helm of larger publications. You control your narrative, build your brand, and foster an active and engaged community with your subscribers. You don’t need to compromise who you are as a journalist with newsletters. 

Community building

A pillar of journalistic integrity is accuracy. People need to trust that a journalist has done the research and includes factual and objective perspectives on topics. This creates credibility and fosters trust, two crucial aspects of journalism. Newsletters are the perfect platform for building this trust and nurturing community. Connecting with your subscribers means that you need to speak on topics that resonate with your subscribers. Highlighting relevant builds interest and can increase engagement with your newsletter. This should come easily because they subscribed to your newsletter because of shared passions. Newsletters offer a place for you to have fun and show personality in addition to education. Make sure your newsletter is a space that welcomes discourse. This drives engagement and builds a strong journalistic community. 

Direct communication

The news cycle is constantly running meaning that you are always churning out content on the latest scientific breakthrough, geopolitics, economics, or social movements. It’s easy to over-send newsletters. Fight the urge. Newsletters are one of the best forms of direct communication but you don’t want to bog down your subscriber's inboxes. Newsletters should add value to your subscribers' inboxes. It’s important to be concise with your informational content. A lot of people are “scanners,” meaning that they gloss over long-form email content. Therefore, it’s easy to lose them if your newsletter content isn’t easily digestible and eye-catching. One benefit of newsletters is attachments. Attachments are a great way to add content variety and highlight your other platforms or endeavors. Video clips from your YouTube, audio clips from your podcasts, excerpts from your articles, and links to your blog posts are a great way to keep your reader interested and engaged with your content. With newsletters, consistency is key. You want to integrate your newsletter into the subscriber’s routine. Find a frequency that works for your audience and stick with it. When subscribers expect an email from you every Tuesday, they build up excitement for your work leading up to the day. Email scheduling is a helpful feature for keeping up the frequency with low effort. Maintaining consistent communication is a simple way to build a loyal and engaged following for your journalism.

Conclusion

Journalism is more than facts and information––it is an art. Journalists are expert storytellers and newsletters are an incredibly useful platform to spread educational resources and meaningful narratives. Creating a newsletter is an effective way to communicate with your audience, build a thriving community, and maintain your journalistic autonomy. Starting your newsletter can be an enjoyable journey with the right email service provider. Buttondown offers an intuitive interface, powerful tools, and superior customer support. Our affordable prices start at just $9/mo. So, gather your writing and start sharing your insights today!

Buttondown is trusted by multiple journalists including:

Ed Yong, a British-American science journalist, a Pulitzer winner, and the author of two bestselling books, An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes. Ed uses his newsletter, The Ed’s Up, to update readers about his writing, new projects, speaking events, book recommendations, and more.

The Xylom, founded in 2018, and based in Atlanta, The Xylom is a non-profit, Gen-Z-run newsroom covering the communities influencing and being shaped by science. The Xylom is the only science outlet run by and for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. The Xylom’s newsletter is a space for musings, reader submissions, and a curated collection of must-read science stories, with a focus on the American South.

Julia Angwin, an award-winning investigative journalist, a bestselling author, a New York Times contributing Opinion writer, and a Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Julia’s newsletter, Updates from Julia, sends subscribers periodic updates of her latest writing and projects.