72: I Sent My 285th Weekly Newsletter This Week. Here's the Format That Made It Possible.

🌟 The Number That Surprised Everyone (Including Me)

This week I sent my 285th newsletter.

285 consecutive weeks. Divide that by 52 and that's five and a half years of showing up in inboxes without missing a single one.

The reason that number surprises people is the same reason I almost never started in the first place.

I am not a writer. I have told anyone who would listen, I am not a writer. Writing does not come naturally to me the way designing does. I can open Canva and lose three hours without blinking. But put me in front of a blank document and ask me to write something interesting and worth someone's time every single week? That felt like a punishment.

So today I'm walking you through how I went from avoiding my newsletter like the plague to it being one of my favorite things I do in my business, and the exact format that made that possible.

If you've been putting off starting a newsletter, or you have one but you dread it, or you started one and quietly let it die, this one's for you.

😅 Why I Almost Never Started

When I first started paying attention to email marketing, the newsletters I kept seeing everywhere were a very specific type. Long form. Storytelling. A personal opening that slowly, gracefully ties back to some bigger business idea. Beautifully written. Intimate. Like reading a good essay.

And completely terrifying to try to replicate.

To write like that, you have to sit down with a blank screen and engineer a whole narrative from scratch. A story, a through line, a lesson, a landing point. Every single week.

Every time I tried it, I'd open my laptop and just stare. Nothing came. Or something came and felt forced. Or I'd write something, delete it, feel bad about myself, close the laptop, and decide I was just not a newsletter person.

I told myself that story for a long time.

And the whole time, I knew I needed to be sending email. Your email list is the one thing you own. Instagram can tank. Your account can get hacked. An algorithm change can cut your reach overnight. Your list is yours. The people on it chose to be there.

But knowing that and actually doing it are very different things when the doing part feels hard.

🎯 The Format That Changed Everything: 3-2-1 Create

The shift happened when I found a structured format. Not a boring fill-in-the-blank template, more like a framework with guardrails. Something that told me exactly what I was writing before I sat down, so I wasn't starting from zero every week.

I call it 3-2-1 Create.

Three ideas for your business. Two things I'm loving. One content tip.

That's the whole newsletter.

I know what you're thinking. Is that enough? Is it too simple? Newsletter number 285 says the format works.

Let me walk you through each section.

1. Three Ideas for Your Business

Three short, actionable ideas your reader can actually do something with. A content prompt. A strategy tip. A mindset shift. And short means short, a few sentences each. Not a blog post disguised as a newsletter section.

What I love about this part is that it's basically evergreen content in disguise. I'm pulling from things I already know and teach. I'm not inventing new ideas every week, I'm distilling what I already know into a digestible form. Because I'm already making podcast episodes and Instagram posts and Coven content, I always have material. The newsletter is just where the best of that thinking gets condensed.

Three ideas. A few sentences each. Done.

2. Two Things I'm Loving

This is my favorite part of the whole newsletter. And I think it's the secret weapon that makes people actually look forward to opening it.

This is where I get personal. Not heavy, not deep, just real. A book I can't put down (romantasy, obviously, always romantasy). Something I bought on Amazon at midnight. Something Blitz did that week that made me laugh. A workout I've been into. A restaurant I'm still thinking about.

It has nothing to do with business. And that's exactly why it works.

People don't just want tips. They want to know who they're getting the tips from. This section is where my personality comes through in a way that's impossible to fake. It's easy to write because it's just my life.

I cannot tell you how many DMs and reply emails I've gotten from people saying they bought a book I mentioned, or related so hard to something I shared. That's the relationship-building piece of email people underestimate. The newsletter isn't just a content delivery vehicle. It's a conversation. And this section is often what starts it.

3. One Content Tip

One. Singular. Not five tips, not a framework. One specific, actionable thing they can use that week. Usually it's tied to what's coming up inside the Content Coven, or something I noticed in my own content that worked or didn't. Current, relevant, quick.

And that's it. 3-2-1 Create.

Saturday morning, good cup of coffee (this is a full ritual at this point), and I'm done in under 30 minutes. Sometimes closer to 20. Because the structure is so familiar now, I'm not figuring out what to write. I'm just filling in what I already know.

That's the difference between dreading a newsletter and doing it for five and a half years straight.

💡 The Part Nobody Talks About: List Health

Growing your list is one conversation. What happens after is a completely different one.

Slightly controversial opinion: a smaller, engaged list beats a big, unengaged one every single time. I've seen people with 20,000 subscribers getting open rates in the teens. And people with 2,000 subscribers getting open rates in the 50s. The size of your list matters a lot less than the quality of it.

So here's what I actually do.

I track my numbers after every send. Open rate, click rate, unsubscribes. Not obsessively, but I look, and I write it down. I have a spreadsheet I update every single week, and it is genuinely one of the most valuable things in my business. Over time it shows me patterns. Which content gets more clicks. When my open rate dipped and why. Whether changing my subject line format made a difference. It doesn't have to be fancy. Mine isn't. It's just a record.

And then, the part people don't love to hear, I delete people.

I know. You worked hard to get those subscribers. Why get rid of them?

Because a subscriber who hasn't opened your emails in six months isn't helping you. They're actually hurting you. Email deliverability is real. The more people ignoring your emails, the more likely your emails start landing in spam, for everyone, including the people who love you. Cleaning your list protects the relationship you have with your actual readers.

When I delete, I make a note in my spreadsheet. The date, how many I removed, my list size before and after. It sounds tedious but it gives me a clear picture of list health over time. And it feels good. Like cleaning out a closet. Everything just feels more intentional after.

If you're on Flodesk, which is what I use, this process is straightforward. Filter by engagement, pull the people who haven't opened in a set timeframe, remove them. Not painful. Just a habit worth building.

🛠️ Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• 25% OFF Flodesk: my email platform of choice, and what I use for both sending the newsletter and cleaning out inactive subscribers

• Start & Grow Your Email List from Scratch my self-paced course for anyone starting completely from zero. We cover building a freebie people actually want, getting set up on Flodesk without wanting to throw your laptop, writing a newsletter you don't dread, and using your list to actually make sales!

💪 The Takeaway

You don't have to be a great writer to have a great newsletter. You just need something useful to say and a structure that gets out of your own way.

3-2-1 Create is mine. Use it, adapt it, call it something else entirely. But the principle, show up with value, show up with personality, keep it short enough that you'll actually finish it, that's what matters.

Start with a format that feels doable. Protect it by tracking your numbers and cleaning your list. Send it every week even when it's not perfect, even when you think no one's reading, even when it takes 45 minutes instead of 20.

Newsletter 285 didn't happen because I felt inspired every week. It happened because I had a system that made showing up easier than not showing up.

If you're already on my list, you've been getting a 3-2-1 Create newsletter from me every week. If you're not yet, you can find the link in my Instagram bio.

If this gave you the push you needed to start your newsletter, or fall back in love with the one you already have, drop a comment below and let me know where you're starting from