If you consider modern digital communication channels, perhaps emails are not at the top of your list? But the fact is that emails in general and newsletters, in particular, have gone from being tired to trendy.
Earlier this year, Twitter entered the market by buying the Dutch company Revue – a free service for creating newsletters. This was reported by Dagens Media, among others. Twitter itself justified its acquisition as follows: “Writers and content creators are a valuable part of the conversation, and it is important that we offer new ways for them to create and share content, and more importantly, help them grow and get better contact with their audience.”.
MORE WRITERS USE SUBSTACK
Another example is the American platform Substack, where writers and journalists create newsletters that people can subscribe to for a fee. Substack has forced more and more American journalists to leave their traditional media to deliver journalism via their own newsletters.
In September, it became known that the author Salman Rushdie will start publishing fiction in newsletter format at Substack. The first newsletters will be free and then cost money. It is no secret that Substack paid Rushdie to begin using the platform, but the amount is still unknown.
THE NEWSPAPER’S FIRST NEWSLETTER REPORTER
There is also an increased interest in newsletters in Sweden. This year, Svenska Dagbladet has shifted its focus on newsletters by hiring experienced journalist Jonas Ekblom as its first newsletter reporter.
– As a journalist, you want to be relevant, current, and where the readers are – and we see that newsletters play a central role in today’s changing media climate, Jonas Ekblom told TT.
“We use more digital platforms and send fewer emails – that’s why we read what we receive in our inbox.”
Someone successful with paid newsletters via Substack is the Swedish journalist Ivar Arpi. When asked how it feels for a former op writer to switch to a newsletter as a forum for his opinion formation, Ivar Arpi answers that he thinks he is on the right track. According to an interview with nwt.se, he believes that the pandemic has led us to use more new digital platforms at our jobs and therefore send fewer emails, which in turn means that we actually read the emails we get.
EASY, CHEAP AND EFFICIENT
Maybe it’s good that we’re reminded of the possibilities of a well-designed newsletter. Unlike other media, newsletters immediately give a clear indication of how many people are receiving your message. Who are the readers, what are they interested in, and what news do they prefer to read? Used properly, this information helps you to offer better and better newsletters. The nice thing is that it is both easy and cheap to send newsletters, yet the channel reaches your readers directly. According to the report Svenskarna och internet 2020, 97 per cent of all Swedes use email after all.