The Ultimate Guide To Newsletter Types and Styles

Today we're going to be discussing the best newsletter styles and formats to choose from.

We'll cover over ten different newsletter styles used by top creators and even newsletter media brands, but it's important to note that the end goal is to give writer-creators the best options for scaling a solo newsletter to 6+ figures.

I will be going over:

1. The Five Best Options for Creator Newsletters
2. The Four Best Options Media Brand Newsletters

Note: We are not looking to build a media-brand newsletter, but it's good to know what type of newsletters are out there.

First things first: why do we care about newsletter types and styles?

Making sure you're sticking to a specific theme with your newsletter is going to do two main things for you (among others):

1. Make your life easier when it comes to creating.
2. Make your branding familiar to your audience and let them know what they're going to get (which will also improve open rate and click through rate).

Knowing the theme, style and format you're sticking to each time you go to write it makes it easier for you, for obvious reasons, but it also let's readers know WHY they should be opening your emails, and allows you to grow a list of superfans that are waiting for your newsletter to arrive in their inbox each time. 

This is similar to sticking to a regular posting schedule on social media and podcasts.

Do you have a favorite creator that you know will be dropping a weekly episode of their podcast that you look forward to?

You want to be that for your newsletter subscribers.

After researching tons and tons of newsletters, I have found that there are specific formats that stand out and work best for creator newsletters, and some that work best for those looking to scale into a media brand.

Here's the breakdown with examples:

📬#1 - Thought Leader Weekly Newsletters

This one could technically fall into a few categories, like "generic", "on brand", or even "original thinking" - but I'm calling it thought leader, and I will explain what I mean by it, and give a breakdown for our examples.

A weekly thought leader newsletter generally comes from a personal brand who is sending out an email that falls within their specific niche, but can range from a wide array of different topics within that overall niche (as opposed to getting hyper specific for the newsletter, like we'll see below).

The examples above are:

1. Justin Welsh: The Saturday Solopreneur
2. Dan Go: The High Performance Journal

I'm starting here because Justin Welsh runs one of the most successful solo newsletters that exists: The Saturday Solopreneur, and writes about solopreneurship.

So, technically, it's all "on-brand" and within his niche, but he covers a wide range of topics each week within that overall niche.

Let's take a deeper look at some of his past emails.

Justin Welsh - Saturday Solopreneur:

1. Everything is Hard.
2. One Small Shift That Unlocks Business Scale
3. How to Stack 4 Offers to Make $105,000+
4. 5 Questions That Will Help You Win More Business
5. How to Write a (Successful) Cold DM

And I didn't go looking for a handful that are all over the place, I specifically chose from his last 10 or so email titles.

As you can see: they fall within his niche, but they aren't covering a hyper-specific topic each time.

Now let's take a deeper look at Dan Go so you get a better idea of what I mean.

Dan Go - The High Performance Journal:

1. 5 Secrets To Losing Weight And Keeping It Off Forever
2. 7 Toxic Ingredients To Avoid In Your Everyday Household Products
3. Health Cheat Codes I Know At 44 That I Wish I knew At 24
4. How I Tricked My Brain To Like Doing Hard Things
5. The 3 Best Exercises To Build A Strong Set Of Abs

Beginning to see what I mean when I say it could also fall under the theme of "generic"?

This style could be a great place to start, but I generally recommend niching down.

Things To Make Note Of:

1. Both of these newsletters are sent 1X weekly (the most popular structure).
2. Both of these creators position themselves as the authority (Thought Leaders), teaching the specific information from THEM.
3. Both of these newsletters have a specific broad overarching niche they fall in that all their content can be tied back to (Justin Welsh = Solopreneurship, Dan Go = Fitness/Performance).

📬#2 - Topic Specific Weekly Newsletters

This next one is an obvious choice for me to highlight next as it will help show you what I meant when I said "Thought Leader" could also be "General".

A weekly topic specific newsletter generally comes from a personal brand (or media brand) who is sending out an email that falls within a SPECIFIC TOPIC, which also falls within their specific niche, but while their discovery platform topics (generally social media) are more broad, their their newsletter (relationship platform) topics stay hyper specific.

The examples above are:

1. Ben Meer: System Sunday
2. Katelyn Bourgoin: Why We Buy

Ben Meer's is fairly easy to see where we're going with it, so let's start there.

Instead of immediately breaking down the weekly topics Ben has sent out and just focusing on that, I want to also discuss some of the topics he writes on his discovery platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram).

Ben Meer - System Sunday:

• Ben's Discovery Platform Topics: Ben writes about personal development, systems and high performance living on social media.
• Past topics include: These can range from a specific system or the best Ted Talks to watch, all the way to the best books to read, top websites to bookmark, or general ways to improve your life.
• Ben's Newsletter - System Sunday: Then we look at Ben's newsletter and he gets hyper-specific, sending out the best systems for personal growth, every Sunday.
• Past newsletters include: A System for Tidying Your Home [5S Method], A System for Prioritizing Your Time [Eisenhower Matrix], A System for Creativity [3 Elements], A System for Work-Life Balance [Shutdown Routine], and A System for Stoic Habits [Marcus Aurelius Routine]

For this specific example Ben Meer is actually fairly broad in his overall niche topic for his discovery platforms, but hyper-specific on his newsletter.

For our next example, Katelyn Bourgoin, she gets much more specific in her overall niche (for her discovery platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn), and then also gets even more specific on her newsletter.

Let's take a look at her example to give you a better idea of what I mean...

Katelyn Bourgoin - Why We Buy:

1. Katelyn's Discovery Platform Topics: Katelyn writes about buyer psychology, but she also touches on topics that relate to it occasionally as well, like overall marketing, picking your niche, psychology, copywriting and more (but still much more specific than Ben; generally always tying back to consumer behavior in some way).
2. Past topics include: Katelyn has content that gets very specific in her niche and teaching buyer psychology right on her discovery platforms, but she also zooms in on corporate brand marketing, iconic advertising, and overall consumer trends.
3. Katelyn's Newsletter - Why We Buy: If we then go and look at Katelyn's newsletter she is hyper-specific to marketing psychology, and even picks a specific cognitive bias or effect that nudges consumers each week.
4. Past newsletters include: Dunning-Kruger Effect, Framing, Scarcity, Fresh Start Effect, Reciprocity, Red Sneaker Effect, and Blemishing Effect.

In each email she teaches you a specific reason why we buy, giving examples of corporate brands products, ads and marketing, and then teaching a lesson on how we can use it in our own marketing plan.

Things To Make Note Of:

1. Both of these newsletters are sent 1X weekly (the most popular structure).
2. Both of these creators still position themselves as the authority, but they are teaching lessons coming from elsewhere (using other brands, other methods, etc.).
3. Both of these newsletters get hyper-specific to a topic and sub-niche within the creators overall branding.

📬#3 - Weekly Roundup Curation Newsletters

Next up we have a popular style of newsletter among some of the largest solo creators out there like James Clear, Tim Ferriss and Sahil Bloom: The Weekly Roundup Curation Newsletter.

Where the first two newsletter types may have needed some extra explaining, I'm sure this one doesn't, but I'm going to explain anyway (mainly because there are quite a few ways you can switch this one up).

A weekly roundup curation newsletter generally comes from a personal brand (or media brand) who is sending out an email that covers the same specific mini curated topics each week.

I will be building on that with specific examples below.

The examples above are:

1. James Clear: 3-2-1
2. Sahill Bloom: Curiosity Journal

But I'll also give you a quick summary of Tim Ferriss' 5 Bullet Friday newsletter AND an example of a smaller creator (who is now much larger, but started with this type of newsletter early on) at the end of this breakdown [to show you some alternatives]. 

The order we go in doesn't much matter here considering it will be a quick wrap up of specific topics each of these creators cover in their emails.

So, for the sake of ease, we'll go in order that I named them above.

James Clear - 3-2-1: 

• "3 Ideas From Me"
• "2 Quotes From Others"
• "1 Question For You"

Each of these are specific sections of James' newsletter.

James shares three quotes from him, often from Twitter, with links, two quotes from others ranging extremely wide and from all sorts of dates (Example: Steve Jobs from Worldwide Developers Conference 1997) and sources, and finally a question to ponder.

Super simple, but it has been extremely effective for him.

Sahil Bloom - Curiosity Chronicle:

1. Question
2. Quote
3. Framework
4. Illusion of Choice
5. Article

For Sahil Bloom's Curiosity Journal he sends out what he calls "The Friday Five" where each week we get a different Question, Quote, Framework, Illusion of Choice and Article, with a breakdown from him.

Admittedly, it's actually much longer than I prefer reading for a curation newsletter.

Things To Make Note Of:

1. Both of these newsletters are sent 1X weekly (the most popular structure).
2. Both of these creators are curating the same specific topics each week and then giving their thoughts on them.
3. Both of these creators have MASSIVE personal brands that are built around their audience specifically wanting to know more about THEIR thoughts and opinions.
4. This can also be done for media brands, but is generally better if hyper-specific to a topic (we'll see more below).

Tim Ferriss 5-Bullet Friday:

Similar to this last point, Tim Ferriss has his 5 Bullet Friday where he sends out 5 things he is pondering and exploring; covering tons of different topics. It could be what he's reading, what movies he's watching, a quote he read that he's thinking about, some tech he likes, or even what he's been eating (generally with affiliate links).

I am a massive fan of Tim Ferriss, and The Four Hour Workweek changed my life when I was 17-18, but I personally think the newsletter is one of the most boring things I have ever read - which brings us back to needing to rely on your audience REALLY caring about your specific thoughts and opinions on things.

Dickie Bush - Dickie's Digest:

And finally, I want to make a note that all of these creators are also thought leaders and have MASSIVE followings, but this can also work for smaller creators looking to get started with a newsletter while building their personal brands.

For example, when Dickie Bush was just starting with his writing he wasn't an authority yet, and he also wasn't quite sure what he wanted his newsletter to be about...BUT he knew he wanted to grow his personal brand and he knew he wanted to connect with his audience.

So he started Dickie's Digest, which started with topics like:

• Lamar Jackson, Kettlebell Swings and The Resistance
• Tame Impala, Twitter Gold and Single-Ply
• Coronavirus, Bill Walsh and Building Wealth

I could go on, but I think you get the point...(if not: the point is that these are extremely random).

That said, I personally recommend getting more specific, but still wanted to at least make mention to it for anyone it might be relevant for.

📬#4 - Niche Topic Curation Newsletters

Next up on our list is Niche Topic Curation Newsletters, which may sound like I'm saying the weekly curation newsletters above are random, but I promise it will make sense as I break these down.

A niche value curation newsletter generally comes from creator/brand who is sending out an email that curating a specific topic to deliver high value research for that topic (as opposed to thoughts, opinions and sometimes random additions).

The examples above are:

1. The Wolf: The Wolf Franchises of The Week
2. Justin Moore: Creator Wizard

I love both of these newsletters even though I'm not even in their ICP (though, I suppose I'm closer to Justin Moore's ICP, but still not quite).

They're also going to be really fun to breakdown being that they do similar things, but also with very different overall weekly formats.

For example, The Wolf Of Franchises sends a weekly email, where-as Justin Moore sends out FOUR emails per week, each with a specific topic [that I'll break down below].

But let's start with The Wolf Franchises of The Week.

The Wolf Franchises of The Week: 

• The Wolf Franchises of The Week CTA is: Join 40K+ entrepreneurs, investors, and operators who get weekly insight and analysis on the franchise industry.
• Each week The Wolf sends out: Curated research on franchises, revenue, franchise fees, location trends, background, and his own specific takes.

The emails are generally titled with the main franchise The Wolf is discussing, but he actually sends out curation and takeaways on two franchises each week.

Let's take a look at a handful of his recent emails to give you a better idea.

The Wolf Franchises of The Week: 

1. Teriyaki Madness with $1.1M AUV
2. Lawn Care Franchise with $2.1 Avg Revenue
3. SBA Lending 101
4. The Regional Convenience Behemoth (Wawa)
5. Staffing Franchise Doing $4.2M in Revenue

Next up is Justin Moore's Creator Wizard, which has the main goal of sharing sponsorship opportunities for creators and media brands.

BUT, instead of just sending one weekly email with a curation of potential sponsorship deals, Justin sends out four emails per week.

Let's take a look at how he structures it.

Justin Moore - Creator Wizard:

1. Monday - Mindset Mondays - Justin sends out an email with a Creator Debate video or a somewhat random topic (I found more random topics than specific topic I can relate this back to as I clicked through, but I think generally this is meant for his YouTube videos).
2. Tuesday - Tool Tuesdays - Justin sends out a quick email with a tool he uses (or one that sponsors the newsletter) that can be helpful for creators or media brands.
3. **Thursdays - Take Action Thursdays - This is the real meat and potatoes of the newsletter, where Justin sends out sponsorship opportunities he curated.
4. Saturday - Strategy Saturdays - On Saturday Justin generally sends a longer email with some type of strategy, or another video from YouTube like "Sponsorship Scams (And How To Avoid Them)".

I am highlighting Take Action Thursdays for this because this is where the real HIGH VALUE niche topic curation comes from on Justin's newsletter.

The rest of his emails can be fairly random, and can sometimes feel like he had to just struggle to find some content to add to them, but the Thursday email is definitely worth taking a look at if you need some inspiration.

Things To Make Note Of:

1. Both of these newsletters are sent 1X weekly (the most popular structure). 
   • Note: Yes, Justin's newsletter is 4X weekly, but the Niche Topic Curation aspect of it actually is 1X weekly, coming from his Take Action Thursday emails.
2. Both of these newsletters are hyper-specific to who they serve and fall within a category that allows them to curate this research. 
3. Other newsletters to check out in this style are: Who Sponsors Stuff, The Daily Lead, The Offer Sheet, Scott's Cheap Flights.
4. There is a good mix of both creator AND media brands that use this newsletter style, and I think it is one of the more unique we'll see.

📬#5 - Weekly Deep Dive Newsletters

Updated Note: I did another deep dive entirely on how to use Deep Dive Newsletters to never run out of content ideas. You can read that here.

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Last but not least among our top newsletter types for solo newsletter creators (the next one is more of a bonus addition), is the Weekly Case Study Newsletter.

This is my personal favorite, and similar to what I send out for The WriterCreator.

Weekly Case Study Newsletters are exactly what they sound like: newsletters that revolve around a case study or deep dive related to a specific topic.

The examples above are:

1. Alex Garcia: Marketing Examined
2. Chenell Basilio: Growth In Reverse

There's not much to explain, which makes my life easy, but I do want to go a bit deeper into these specific examples so you can get an idea of how they specifically do it.

Let's take a deeper look at some of Alex's past emails for Marketing Examined.

Alex Garcia - Marketing Examined:

1. How True Classic Grew to $250M
2. How Ridge Scaled to $100M+ W/ Influencers
3. How James Clear Built a 2M+ Person Newsletter
4. Olipop's growth playbook
5. How I'd Grow Quip

Alex generally breaks down larger companies that have already hit high revenue, minimum 7 figures, and does an in depth case study on something specific to how they have grown - with Marketing Examined being specific to growth marketing (and his other newsletters now covering sub-niches like landing pages, social media, content, and DTC).

Where Alex is choosing to go the media brand route, and expanding into sub niches like this with a total of 5 newsletters covering massive brands, we also have Chenell Basilio who sticks to the creator route and also researches and does deep dives on creators who have grown their newsletters to 50K+.

Let's take a look at who she has covered.

Chenell Basilio - Growth In Reverse:

1. Justin Welsh
2. Ben Meer
3. Dan Koe
4. Alex Garcia
5. Sahil Bloom

Chenell has covered over 50 creators, but yes, I went out of my way to scan through and see if she has covered the names on our list so far so I can specifically use them.

Chenell goes into a TON of depth on how they grew their audience, how they convert subscribers (and any unique methods they use to continue scaling subscriber count), and even how they make money.

Things To Make Note Of:

1. Both of these newsletters are sent 1X weekly (the most popular structure).
2. This structures works for both solo creators and even expanding into a media brand (Alex Garcia now has 5 newsletters under the Marketing Examined umbrella).
3. Both of these newsletters do in-depth research and case studies on a specific topic and stick to that topic each week, but with new examples.
4. You can also check out newsletters like Contrarian Thinking (Codie Sanchez), The Generalist, Houck's Newsletter and Go To Grind.

📬#6-9 - Popular Media Brand Newsletters Types

IMPORTANT NOTE: I do not teach people how to grow a media brand newsletter, for a multitude of reasons (one good deep dive on this topic here). I am adding this small section just so you are aware of some other models in the newsletter realm.

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For this next section I'm going to do a speed run of some of the top media brand newsletter types (with quick breakdowns), rather than the deep dives we did above.

As I mentioned: the goal of this case study is to help writer-creators choose the best newsletter type to scale a solo newsletter to 6+ figures.

That said, I want to at least mention the rest of these being that they do hold some validity if you want to attempt to go for high volume newsletters in specific niche and scale with sponsorship.

That's generally not the ideal route as a solo writer-creator (if that wasn't obvious based on what I'm saying), but I'll highlight another creator who decided to go this route who had a ton of success (other than Alex Garcia who I highlighted in our Weekly Case Study Newsletters above who is currently building out 4 other newsletters to scale with volume).

Let's start with the newsletter type that was made most popular by two of the biggest newsletters ever: The Morning Brew and The Hustle.

#6 - Daily Curated Current Event Newsletters

This is actually the most popular type of newsletter format, but it's not necessarily optimal for solo creators.

• The basis of this type of newsletter is giving short stories about current events with 3-5 small sections of big news.
• You generally have one big story that has around 200-300 words, and then a few secondary sections that range from 100-250 words.

This style can be combined with short sections for briefs and also bulleted sections to continue giving updates on specific sub topics, and is best used for news and current events.

Marketing Brew has now gone on to replicate this format with tons of other Brew newsletters like the one you see above in the image: Marketing Brew.

Other newsletters who use this format: TechCrunch, 1440, Front Office Sports, Stacked Marketer, The Hustle, and A LOT of others.

#7 - TLDR Newsletters

This is a fun newsletter style that was made popular by the TLDR Newsletter (makes sense, right?), and has now been replicated by other smart newsletters.

• The basis of the newsletter is similar to how Daily Curated Current Event Newsletters summarize current events, but in this case TLDR takes an article specific to a topic (like Big Tech and Startups), shares the link, and gives a 1 paragraph TLDR about it.

The creator I want to highlight for this one is Marketing Max, who started a weekly newsletter similar to Marketing Examined, but then decided to scale into a media brand with his newsletter Growth Daily that you see pictured above (on the right).

He saw a whole in the market for a TLDR style newsletter for marketing, and that's what he filled; scaling with a team of writers and now 3 different newsletters.

This can be a great option for a specific niche focused newsletter, but it can be very hard to stand out, and also take a lot of work to see income as sponsorship is generally needed in this type of style (as opposed to being able to sell product, which is what we like from a solo newsletter).

#8 - Daily Analysis Newsletter

This style newsletter was made popular by Stratechery (Ben Thompson) and is essentially a newsletter that gives a daily analysis of something to do with a specific industry.

Other newsletters who use this format: Milk Road, Noahpinion, Van Trump Report, Sinocism and more.

I am naming the newsletters first this time because it will help me gives you a better example of how these newsletter stick to a specific industry to then breakdown [a topic for] daily:

• Milk Road does daily analysis on crypto.
• Stratechery does daily analysis on tech.
• The Van Trump Report does daily analysis on agriculture. 

As you can probably tell, this newsletter style definitely isn't for everyone. 

You really need to be an established expert in a specific topic, and if you're looking to establish this expert status it's likely better to do so with one of the newsletter styles among the top choices for solo newsletters above.

#9 - Daily Super Short Newsletter

I wasn't going to add this one at first, but it can be a fun style for people looking to get into a very specific niche and put a fun spin on it.

The best newsletter to take a look at within this niche is A.Word.A.Day, which publishes a word a day, what it means, the origin of it, and some more information about that specific word.

It has nearly 500,000 subscribers...

So while this one likely isn't a great option for everyone, it COULD be something that sparks your creativity and gets you thinking and exploring a bit.

You can also check out Get 8 AM for some more inspiration if you like this style.

Why is "Daily" popular among media brand newsletters?

Daily newsletters are popular among media brand newsletters for the same reason they're not ideal for solo newsletter operators.

Revenue = more volume = more sponsorship slots.

The more emails these media brand newsletters send, the more space or "billboards" they create for sponsorships that pay for placement within the newsletter.

The reason this isn't ideal for solo newsletter writer-creators is because sponsorships take high volume not only in terms of the amount of emails sent, but also high volume in terms of the amount of subscribers you need to have.

While you CAN sell digital products and services to a smaller list with the right offer and positioning, you CAN'T make good money off of sponsorships with a small list. 

So, I repeat: With these types of newsletters money is in the volume of subscribers...AND the amount of sponsorship ad space you have (increased with more weekly emails sent overall). Not optimal for solo newsletter creators.

Which Newsletter Style Is Best For You?

By now it should be pretty clear why I favor the first 5 examples, but I'm going to use this section to do a bit of a recap for us and make things even more clear.

Here are a handful of reasons why we prefer the first five options for solo newsletter operators:

1. They are more ideal for building relationships and selling with a digital products and value ladders in a specific niche.
2. They don't rely on sponsorship sales and volume for the majority of the revenue.
3. But, they still allow you to utilize sponsorships as an additional revenue stream as you scale to higher amounts of subscribers.
4. They are easier for solo writer-creators to build authority (you can write in depth case studies, articles, and breakdowns without needing other writers or to worry about writing or curating daily).
5. They are flexible and allow you to scale up the volume if you want to (instead of 1X weekly, you can choose to send more if you'd like), but they don't require it.

There's a reason why the newsletters among the first five are usually run by solo creators, the second set run by media brands, and the alternative plain text generally not popular among the largest newsletters...

At the end of the day, choosing which newsletter style is right for you is going to come down your own personal preference and foresight into the type of newsletter that's not only best for you to create, but also best for the overall goal you're looking to work your way to (how you want to monetize, what your audience wants, what's best for your niche, etc.).

One last thing I'll leave you with is a quote from Marketing Max when asked: "If you were to start another newsletter, would you kind of think backwards from the sponsors to the content?":

"It's funny because I did so much homework Q4 of last year, listening to every podcast, and the one thing I keep thinking about a lot these days is how Sam Parr said 'If I started another newsletter there would be no ads, it would be other ways of monetizing'...you know, just because ad sales suck".

Sam Parr is the co-founder of The Hustle newsletter that sold for more than $20 million dollars.

Marketing Max then goes on to talk about how if he was to go back he would probably find a newsletter niche that was more niched down so he would have an easier time selling premium content to his subscribers, with ads still in the newsletter just to supplement extra money on the side.

Matt McGarry then asks him a follow up question about where he has any specific recommendations on creators crushing it for the style he's referring to among newsletters with paid informational content in a specific niche.

And, sure enough, Max says: "Justin Welsh completely nailed it."

The big takeaways he wants to hit on here are:

1. You need to have a specific niche that can be monetized with premium content or paid digital/informational products.
2. Going the value ladder/sell digital product route is far more lucrative than the media brand route (especially for solo newsletter creators), even stated by two creators who scaled up into massive media brands.

My recommendation?

Choose one from the top five that is best for YOUR style of writing/creating.

My personal favorites for new writer-creators looking to start their solo newsletter are #1, #2, and #5.

From there you can always eventually choose to pivot or increase the volume.