What to Say in Your Weekly Newsletter

If you have ever sat down to write your weekly newsletter and immediately thought, “Cool, I have absolutely nothing interesting to say,” welcome, you’re in excellent company.

You know you should be emailing weekly, but when it comes time to actually write, you end up rambling or not sending an email at all.

And it’s not because you’re lazy or bad at email marketing. It’s because nobody taught you what is actually supposed to go in a weekly newsletter that will nurture your list and make them want to buy your offers. Because that’s what your newsletter should be doing—leading to sales. If not, it’s low-key a waste of time for you and your subscribers.

In this blog, I’ll break down what you need to say in your weekly newsletter to build a connection with your subscribers and drive sales.

Why Most Weekly Newsletters Do Not Lead to Sales

Sales usually don’t happen from one magical email. They happen over time after your audience has seen enough of your content to know, like, and trust you—aka 7+ times. So the #1 reason most business owners struggle with email marketing is not emailing enough. You need that weekly touch point to stay top of mind with your subscribers.

I mean, think about it, that’s only 4-5x per month you’re emailing them compared to the constant onslaught of social media content expected to succeed. Your ideal customer is busy, and if they’re half-reading emails while standing in line somewhere holding an iced coffee and a thousand life problems—disappearing for two weeks, then four weeks, then pop back in when you want to sell something, you are asking people to care about your offer without giving them enough recent contact to remember why they should. So you need to meet them, we there are in the inbox, and remind them why they should care about your offers. Because if you let them forget, they will.

What Your Weekly Newsletter Actually Needs to Do

A weekly newsletter that leads to sales has four jobs.

First, it needs to build a connection with your email list. Consumers of this decade and likely beyond want to buy from someone who is a friend or at least feels like one. So you need to write all your emails like you’re speaking to a friend, so you’re building a relationship wth your email list, not yelling at them to do more.

Second, it needs to build belief. Your email list needs to believe that you’re the exact person to solve their specific problem. Your newsletter is the vehicle that delivers your message of expertise.

Third, it needs to build desire. Your audience has to want to solve the problem they’re facing—your job (or rather your newsletter job) is to convince them that they need to fix it now, using one of your paid offers by helping them see what’s possible, the things getting in their way, and why solving this problem can be life-changing.

Fourth, it needs to build trust in your offer. Your newsletter isn’t separate from your sales process; it’s an integral part of it. Each email should help someone understand your offers and expertise better and prep them for the next steps, aka buying your offer.

When you see your newsletter this way, it gets easier to know what to say.
You are not trying to entertain the masses. You are helping the right people move closer to buying what you’re selling

Every Email Should Point Back to Your Offer in Some Way

If your content never points back to your offers, you are building attention with nowhere for it to go.

Your newsletter should warm people up for your offer by reinforcing the solution and transformation that your offer addresses.

The point is not to pitch nonstop. The point is to create content that aligns with your offer suite. You want your email to naturally start thinking, oh wow, this is exactly the kind of thing I need help with. By the time they get to your CTA, it should feel like the logical next step—not a hard pivot into sales mode.

What to Say in a Weekly Newsletter That Leads to Sales

This is the formula I keep coming back to for writing for myself, clients, and in my email template membership.

Start with a hook.

That could be a story, a pop culture moment, a hot take, an opinion, a random observation, a client moment, or something chaotic that happened in your day. The point is to open with something interesting enough to make your subscribers want to keep reading by presenting them with a line or two that creates intrigue.

Then connect the dots.

Bridge the opening to the actual point. Show your email why this story, moment, or thought matters in their lives—don’t ramble about your personal life, focus on why this moment or thought matters to your subscribers lives.

Then segue into the point.

End your newsletter with a CTA always. It does not have to be a massive pitch, but your email should lead somewhere: reply to this email, read my new blog post, join the waitlist, etc.

Examples of Email Hooks

A lot of people hear “start with a hook” and immediately panic because they think they now have to become a full-time storyteller with a Netflix writers’ room in their brain.

But hooks can be simple. A personal story is an easy hook. Something small that happened in your day can lead to a bigger point in the lesson you’re sharing.

A client experience works beautifully, too. Maybe a client said something that exposed a bigger struggle. Maybe you noticed a common pattern in all your clients that your subscriber likely faces. 

A pop culture moment can also work really well. Basically, anything that can become an open loop for the CTA.

How to Make Your Weekly Newsletter Feel Natural Instead of Salesy

A lot of the fear around newsletter selling comes from treating the CTA like an awkward interruption. And it should feel weird to suddenly say please buy my thing if you don’t wind up with a conversation before you pitch.

The fix is not removing the CTA. The fix is making the whole email build toward it. When your story or insight naturally supports the offer, the CTA does not feel shoved in. It feels earned. You’re not making a hard left turn into sales. You are simply continuing the conversation into the next logical step.

If the email is about how hard content feels when you are always starting from running out of ideas, the CTA to join a content creation ideas membership makes perfect sense as the next step.

See how much smoother that is? You’re not forcing the sale. You are connecting the dots between your audience’s problems and your solutions.

What to Do When You Have No Idea What to Write

Here is the good news: you probably already have way more newsletter ideas than you think.

Start with your audience’s questions: What do they ask all the time? What are they confused about? What are they procrastinating on? What do they think they need that they actually do not?

Those are all newsletter topics.

Then look at objections.
Why are people not buying your offers yet? What false beliefs are slowing them down from buying? What do they misunderstand about the problem or the solution that’s keeping them stuck?