Creating a newsletter
You must be a publication editor to set up a newsletter. Here’s how to create a publication and change the editors. Once you’re a publication editor:
- Go to your publication homepage.
- Click the publication icon next to your profile picture.
- Click Newsletters.
- Enter the name of your newsletter. It can be no less than 3 characters, no more than 50 characters. The name of your newsletter will be the name that appears in readers’ email inbox.
- Enter the description of your newsletter. It can be no less than 10 characters, no more than 200 characters. The description will appear on your newsletter sign up page so readers can get a sense of what your newsletter is about.
- If you want to have an avatar for your newsletter, upload a square image.
- If you want to have a promotion for newsletter sign up inserted at the bottom of all posts within your publication, click the checkbox to turn on Newsletter promotion.
- Click the Create button.
- When you click Create, you will be taken to your Newsletter landing page where readers can sign up to receive your newsletter. You can promote this URL on your social networks, share with your friends and family, or ask writers you work with to forward this page to friends to grow your audience. This URL is dynamic and will show sign up buttons for anyone who is not an editor of the publication.
- To start writing your Newsletter click the Write a newsletter button on your Newsletter landing page.
Please note: You can edit the name and description fields in the future.
Editing your newsletter settings
Once you’ve created a Newsletter, you can edit it and change your promotion settings at any point.
- Go to your publication homepage.
- Click the publication icon next to your profile picture.
- Click Newsletters.
- Click More options.
- Click Settings to go to your Newsletter settings.
Here you can edit the name, description, and promotion toggle. Once you have made changes, click Save to keep your changes or click Cancel to discard the changes.
Please note: If you update the name of the Newsletter, the URL for your Newsletter landing page will change and you will need to update any off-platform links.
Sending a newsletter email
Once you’ve created your Newsletter, you’re ready to start emailing your subscribers. You must be an editor of the publication to send newsletters.
- Go to your publication homepage.
- Click the publication icon next to your profile picture.
- Click Newsletters. This will bring you to your Newsletter landing page.
- Click Write a newsletter button.
- Start writing a message. Need help? Find out how to write a great newsletter.
- Click Send button.
You will now be on the Newsletter authoring and management page. Here you can:
- Preview the email by clicking Preview
- Send an email to your subscribers (note, this cannot be “undone” once sent)
- Access draft emails
- See the statistics (subscribers, sends, open rate, click-through rate) of your Newsletter and previously sent emails
Please note: If you set an email address in your Contact info for your Publication, this email address will be visible as the reply-to email address in your Newsletter emails and subscribers will be able to reply and reach you at this email address.
Where does my newsletter email show up?
Previously, Letters did not feed into the Medium network. But Newsletters do! So you don't have to create a duplicate version in order for it to be discoverable on Medium.
Newsletters show up:
- In the inboxes of your newsletter’s subscribers and publication staff
- On your newsletter’s sign up page
- On the newsletter sender’s profile page
- In Medium’s Digest email recommendations (depending on user interests)
- In Medium’s homepage recommendations (depending on user interests)
- If you apply a topic to the newsletter, it can show up within the “Stories in a tag” section on your publication’s homepage
Newsletter emails don’t show up within the “Latest stories” section of a publication’s homepage.
Managing newsletter emails
All of your newsletter draft, scheduled and sent emails can be found on your publication’s Stories page.
- Go to your publication homepage.
- Click the publication icon next to your profile page in the top-right corner.
- Click Stories.
Newsletter statistics
Your newsletter statistics show you how many subscribers you have and how well your newsletters are resonating with them.
- Go to your publication homepage.
- Click the publication icon next to your profile page in the top-right corner.
- Click Newsletters.
- Click More options.
- Click Stats to go to your Newsletter stats.
- Subscribers
- Unique active subscribers — Active users are users who have opened an email from you or any other Medium email or that have visited the website or app within the past 45 days and are opted-in to receive emails
- Sent
- Unique active subscribers who were sent an email
- Opened
- Unique subscribers who opened an email
- Open rate
- Percentage of people who were sent the email and opened it
- Clicked
- Unique subscribers who clicked any link in an email
- Click rate
- Percentage of people who were sent the email and clicked any link
Grow your newsletter audience
Readers can subscribe to your Newsletter separately from Following your Publication. Readers can subscribe to your Newsletter on the landing page or via the promotions on your post page, if you’ve elected to use this feature.
To navigate to your Newsletter sign up page, click on Newsletters from under your publication avatar while on your publication homepage.
Tips for promoting your newsletter sign up page:
- On your Newsletter settings page, click the checkmark for “Promote your newsletter on your publication’s stories.”
- Include a line in your newsletter encouraging your readers to forward the email to friends who share similar interests.
- Include your newsletter sign up page in your publication homepage navigation, so that your readers can easily find it.
- Share widely with your circle of friends, family, and colleagues.
- Make your newsletter sign up page easy to find on your social media accounts. Include it in your bio, a pinned tweet, link to it directly from your posts.
At this time, publication newsletters do not offer the ability to import an email list with your subscribers.
Export your newsletter audience
Newsletter editors can export a list of subscribers who’ve opted in to share their email address with editors of newsletters they’re subscribed to.
You can only export subscribers by agreeing to follow our Terms of Service, which include important terms that apply to your use of subscriber information. For example, you agree not to sell this information or use it in ways that violate applicable laws or the rights of others.
Please note: The list will only contain subscribers who’ve opted in to share their email address. If the list contains fewer email addresses than the number of subscribers to your newsletter, it’s because your subscribers haven’t yet opted in to share their email address. Email addresses that are associated with deleted or suspended accounts will also not be included in the list.
Deleting a newsletter
At this time deleting a newsletter is not supported. You can however turn off newsletter promotions on your publication pages to so that no new users can sign up.
- Go to your publication homepage.
- Click the publication icon next to your profile picture.
- Click Newsletters. This will bring you to your Newsletter landing page.
- Click More options and choose Settings from the menu.
- Under Promotion, make sure to uncheck all options.