As I’ve been working on my (still shiny and new!) website, adding little bits and pieces to my portfolio, it’s given me the chance to revisit some of my favourite projects, and for me, one of my favourites was working on a monthly newsletter.
A monthly business newsletter is one of those things that seems simple on the surface, just a few photos and a quick recap of the month. However, when it came down to building it, there was actually a lot more to it than that.Details that seem small but make a huge difference to flow and design.
Little quirks that become part of the newsletter’s signature. Features that add to brand tone and make it easy for audiences to recognise the newsletter as “yours”.Over the 18 months of creating mine, I realised it’s the smallest (yet most overlooked) details that make the biggest difference.
If you’re looking to create a monthly newsletter for your small business but aren’t sure where to start, or maybe you’re struggling to keep up with one you’ve inherited, hopefully this blog post will give you a few pointers.
Monthly newsletters are one of the simplest ways to keep your audience engaged, build consistency, and showcase what you or your business has been up to. They’re a great way to highlight team news, business updates, and promotions all in one place.
Especially for audience members who may not open every email (guilty!), if your audience learns to expect a concise newsletter at the end of the month with all of the “best bits”, they’re much more likely to open it.
But like most things in marketing, the difference between something that just exists and something that works comes down to details, structure, and intention.
Having created a successful and consistent monthly newsletter as part of a wider marketing campaign, I’ve learnt that it’s not just about putting updates together, it’s how you present them.
So here are a few tips from a someone who learnt it along the way:
This was the most important thing for me, and I don’t just mean posting every month.
Keeping everything consistent, design, layout, tone, and even posting date, is important for building audience trust and positioning your brand as professional. Consistency also means your audience will start to look forward to your updates each month.
In terms of design, it’s a fine balance between keeping visuals, fonts, and colours consistent enough for your brand identity to be recognisable, while still allowing content to adapt month by month.
Personally, I found keeping the header consistent in terms of colours, fonts, and sizing worked well, while keeping things fresh by changing the header image seasonally.
In terms of posting date, I didn’t stick to a fixed day (like the first of the month), but I always worked around the first working day of the following month (so audiences would receive, for example, April’s newsletter in the first week of May).
This approach allowed me to deliver a full recap of the month, while still being flexible enough to work around events or other content, and reliable enough that audiences knew to expect it.
I’ll be the first to admit it, I love a structure. I love a plan. I love anything I can organise (preferably with a notebook and pen!), and the monthly newsletter was no different.
Structure is so important, but also easily overlooked. Once you find your structure formula, stick to it.
For me, the structure looked something like:
-A header with the month and year, plus a short tagline introducing the newsletter, with a background image relevant to that month (for example, florals for spring, ground-breaking)
-Followed by team updates, birthdays, anniversaries, or company achievements to add a human touch
-Then product promotions or links to any blog posts we published that month
-Social media highlights to break up the content with something lighter and more engaging
-A “projects” section (more specific to the B2B business I was working in)
-A short sign-off with a preview of what next month might look like
All newsletters followed this intentional structure.
By starting with team or company updates, it brought a human element straight away rather than jumping straight into “buy this” or “visit that”. Following with something more sales-focused kept things relevant to the business, while social media highlights helped to break things up and keep it engaging.Ending with a sign-off helped everything feel complete, rather than just stopping.
I did give myself flexibility depending on how much content I had each month, but the core structure always remained the same.
The entire newsletter was built around storytelling, rather than just inserting a lot of random information on a page. A lot of businesses don’t give enough attention to brand storytelling, but in this apprentice’s humble opinion it’s one of the most powerful tools you can use.
One of my favourite parts: the design.
As someone who loves playing around with how things look on a page, this was one of the most enjoyable parts of creating the newsletter. Figuring out which elements should stay consistent (fonts, colours, headers, section breaks), while also introducing new layouts depending on the content each month, like somehow adding 10 superhero emojis to one page without it feeling crowded. I did manage it, but it took me a while!
Over time, I naturally developed small design “quirks” that added personality and visual interest:
-Using character emojis for staff members (based on their “meet the team” avatars), keeping everything in a consistent style and adding small touches like balloons for birthdays
-Making sure visuals didn’t feel flat.
-Adding subtle shadows, keeping graphics cohesive, and ensuring everything felt considered.
-Using overlays behind white text to make sure everything remained readable and visually strong
-Balancing space. Not too empty, not too crowded, keeping everything easy to read and accessible
The small touches matter. Keeping text aligned, spacing consistent, and layouts clean are often the most overlooked parts, but they’re what stop something from feeling flat and make it feel intentional.
One thing that really helped was treating the newsletter as part of a wider mini campaign, rather than just a single piece of content.
Instead of just publishing one LinkedIn newsletter or email, I cross-posted across multiple platforms:
-Facebook
-LinkedIn newsletter
-Email campaigns
-Instagram
-The company blog
Some platforms naturally performed better than others, but this approach helped make the newsletter a consistent part of the brand, rather than just a one-off post.
If you are cross-posting, don’t forget to adapt content for each platform. Shorter, more visual content works better for Instagram and Facebook, while more detailed versions suit email, blogs, and LinkedIn.
You can have all the right information, but if it feels flat, people won’t connect with it.
A monthly newsletter is a great opportunity to add personality to your brand. I always aimed to keep the tone professional and friendly, but with a little bit of spark.
Small things like running jokes, that regular audiences would recognise (like how our team would take any excuse for a buffet) made the newsletters feel more human and something people actually connected with.
At the end of the day, people are just people, no matter what their job title is.
Something that’s easy to miss, but really important, where do people go from your newsletter?
Each section should gently lead somewhere. Subtle calls to action like “Read more here” or “View the promotion here” make it easy for readers to explore further, without feeling pushy. It should feel more like: “this is here if you want to take a look” rather than: “BUY THIS NOW”
And don’t forget to wrap everything up properly. A short sign-off, a thank you for reading, or a preview of what’s coming next helps close the newsletter naturally. Otherwise, it just kind of ends, and the momentum gets lost.
It was never about just listing what happened that month. It was about storytelling. Looking back at achievements, sharing moments, and creating something people actually cared about reading and engaging with.
It was a simple format, but it worked, because at the end of the day, what people connect with most is other people.
A monthly newsletter, when done right, creates that connection.
And if you’d like some help creating your own business newsletter, feel free to get in touch here.