Prompt · Newsletter
Monthly note for a local business list
Stay in the inbox as a useful sender, so the next offer email gets opened.
- Email type
- Newsletter
- Business
- Local service
- Tone
- Friendly
- Length
- 150-220 words
The newsletter email prompt
Write a plain-text monthly note from [SENDER] at [BUSINESS] to the customer list. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes. Nothing is being sold in this email. Rules: - 150 to 220 words. Plain language, the way you would explain something to a customer standing in front of you. - Lead with [THE USEFUL THING] and give it most of the email. Something a customer can act on without hiring anyone — the seasonal check, the common mistake, the thing people always ask. - Cover [WHAT IS HAPPENING] in one short paragraph, at the end. Hours, a new person, a busy month. If there is nothing, leave it out rather than padding it. - No offer, no discount, no booking push. One quiet line saying how to get in touch is enough, and it belongs last. - Do not write a preamble about the month or the weather. Start on the useful thing. - Never invent a number, statistic, saving or rating. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave [XX]. - No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case. Write a subject line under 45 characters naming the useful thing. Never the business name plus "newsletter". Return subject, preheader, body, sign-off.
What to fill in first
[BUSINESS]- Your business name as customers say it.
[THE USEFUL THING]- One thing worth knowing this month. Seasonal advice, a common mistake, a fix people ask about.
[WHAT IS HAPPENING]- Anything actually going on. Holiday hours, a new person, a booked-up month. If nothing, say nothing.
[SENDER]- The owner's name. A local list belongs to a person, not a brand.
[XX]- Leave as written. The placeholder for a figure you supply, never one the model supplies.
When to send it
Monthly, on a date you can keep, in the months you are not running an offer. This is the email that makes the offer email work: a list that only ever hears from you when you want something learns to recognise that pattern, and stops opening.
What to change first
[THE USEFUL THING]. It has to be genuinely useful without you — the check they can do themselves,
the mistake that costs money, the thing you explain on every job. Advice that dead-ends in “call us”
is an advert with a hat on, and readers can tell the difference immediately.
What good output looks like
Subject: The gutter thing, before it rains
Preheader: Two minutes with a ladder saves a call-out.
Every October we get the same call, and most of them are avoidable.
If water is coming over the front of your gutter rather than down the pipe, the blockage is almost always at the outlet, not spread along the run. You can usually clear it from the ladder with a gloved hand in about two minutes. Do it before the first proper storm, not after.
The one to actually call about is water running down the wall behind the gutter, because that is the bracket or the fall, and that is not a two-minute job.
We are booked to the end of November. December has space.
— [SENDER]
The prompt writes the words. Bring them here and the studio builds the campaign — branded, dark-mode safe, and ready to import.
Generate your ownIn the studio
A model writes copy. It does not write email.
Production HTML that survives Outlook, dark mode and a Gmail clip is a different job from writing the words. Describe the send once and export it to Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign or MailerLite.