Medium Publications Should Include Article Links in Newsletters
By: Walter Rhein
Tags: Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Productivity, Advice, Writing

Medium Publications Should Include Article Links in Newsletters

Leveraging the newsletter rewards writers and helps a publication grow

Photo by Yannik Mika on Unsplash

Having their work featured in a publication is one of the best ways that writers can achieve visibility on Medium. Some publications have hundreds of thousands of followers that visit the publication homepage on a daily basis. However, even publications with ten or twenty thousand followers can provide an enormous author boost by properly leveraging the newsletter feature available to all publications.

What is a Medium newsletter?

Medium publications allow publication owners to send out a newsletter to everyone who follows the publication. This is essentially a mass email that allows for fantastic visibility. The newsletter building tool is located right in the drop down menu on the publication page.

Writing a newsletter is similar to writing a regular Medium post. Publication owners can include text, images, and links to relevant articles. Here’s an example of a newsletter I wrote for my publication Write and Review:

Why publications should include article links in their newsletters

Above all, writers need visibility. Visibility through visits is how they get paid, and visibility through engagement helps writers stay motivated to produce more articles.

Writers have a natural incentive to submit their work to the largest publications. Having a link to one of their articles included in a newsletter that goes out to 200,000 followers is guaranteed to bring a huge surge of revenue to the author.

However, many of the larger publications don’t include author links in their newsletters. Therefore, smaller publications have a tremendous opportunity to attract new writers by making it known that they send out a regular newsletter that includes the links of their top writers.

Here’s an example of a thought provoking story that could be featured in a newsletter:

Don’t over-saturate the marketplace

One of the basics of email marketing is to not overdo it. Publication owners should not send out a daily email, or they risk losing followers. However, a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter with a dozen or so relevant links would be acceptable to the majority of followers.

Just because people follow your publication, does not mean that they are actively involved. A newsletter is a means by which publication owners can drive traffic to their publication and help enhance participation.

Highlighting stories helps ensure that the publication is never lacking high quality content, and the newsletter helps direct followers to the articles that they are likely to find compelling. It also allows your publication to play an important role in fighting social injustices like bigotry or racism:

Get the most out of your publication and reward your writers

Many writers are satisfied just to have their work recognized in a publication, but there are a lot of publishing opportunities on Medium. Highlighting quality articles helps fortify the commitment a writer has to your publication.

A bi-monthly newsletter that features approximately ten article links would help boost the visibility of a publication, and provide welcome attention (and revenue) to writers that have contributed worthy articles. It’s a win-win situation that will help a publication distinguish itself from the competition and attract the most talented writers.