Clockwork Copy

summary newsletter tips

How to Create a Summary Newsletter That Your Readers Will Love

Remember when you were in school and you were taught to write a concluding paragraph? Although it was never supposed to start with “in conclusion,” it was expected to be there because it helps readers, as my teacher would say, “tie a nice bow around your article.”

This same idea can be applied to an email marketing campaign through a summary newsletter. 

A summary newsletter is simply a summary of the content that you have created and sent out to your readers (imagine that). Whether it is through an email marketing campaign, social media, or another type of platform, most readers appreciate a wrap up for a few reasons: 

  • They’re used to it. Many things in life have an end or a conclusion—individual articles always have a concluding paragraph, the end of high school is marked by a graduation ceremony, and the end of a company always has a moment of reflection. 
  • They may have missed some of your content. Not everyone participates in social media, so it’s a good idea to recap for those who may have missed something you promoted or posted. On that same note, some people only participate in social media and do not subscribe to your newsletter. Whatever the reason may be, most people would appreciate a message letting them know what they missed. 

The one thing that many business owners don’t realize is that a summary newsletter is not just a way to take a break. Believe it or not, creating the perfect summary newsletter is about more than just picking content you like and re-sending it to readers. You want to make sure that you’re picking the right content and sending it out at the most opportune times. 

Whether you’re just starting a business or hoping to improve the content marketing of your current business, the goal of a summary newsletter should be to give readers the content they missed. Therefore, it is important that you follow a few steps to make sure readers will get the most out of this newsletter:

Getting Started with a Summary Newsletter as Easy as 1, 2, 3

Step #1: Gather Analytics

It’s important that you have analytics data and popularity metrics so that you know which content was read through which medium on which day. This will help give you a better idea of what kind of content was seen and what kind of content was missed. You can access web analytics using a tool such as Google Analytics and can track data from social media accounts by using a URL shortening service

Step #2: Discover where your audience is most likely to read your content.

You will want to discover which platform most of your audience reads your content. Check the number of active Twitter followers, those subscribed to your blog, or those who are a part of your other email marketing campaigns.  Then, check to see which content was published or promoted on these different platforms to determine which pieces of content deserve a second chance. 

Step #3: Create your summary newsletter.

Once you know the content you want to include in your letter, it’s time to actually create the letter. I typically like to keep the summary newsletter looking similar to my typical email marketing campaigns, but with a featured article so people know it’s something different. If you have many different channels you post content, consider creating sections to your newsletter such as Top 5 Blog Posts, Top 5 Twitter Posts, etc. 

You can create a summary newsletter whenever you wish, but I recommend you do not send one out too often. Readers don’t want to continually see the same content, so a summary newsletter at the end of the month is usually a good rule of thumb. 

A newsletter can of course be traditional and come through the mail, but most companies are utilizing online summary newsletters. It works in the same way as your current email marketing campaigns but helps readers tie that nice little bow at the end.