👋🏻 Welcome to Newsletter Examples, where I highlight cool sh*t I’m seeing in newsletters that you can borrow for your newsletter.

This week, I’m kicking off a new series on how to stand out in the inbox. In today’s installment, I’m sharing 4 examples of habit-forming content from The Varsity, Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends, One Great Story, and WBUR Today. Reading time: 3 minutes.

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A newsletter reckoning?

Adam Ryan’s provocative essay last week—in which he predicted that AI will soon decide which emails you see, creating a single, personalized digest of only the most relevant content—was a wake-up call for our industry.

His argument, in a nutshell:

• The rise of platforms like Beehiiv has democratized newsletter creation, leading to market oversaturation.

• The era of high-growth newsletters is ending. AI-driven changes will force newsletter publishers to rethink distribution and engagement strategies or risk irrelevance.

Whether you agree with him or not, it’s hard to argue with his solution:

Adam and I have talked for years about the importance of creating “habit-forming” content. It’s one of the only ways to insulate yourself from the competition.

But there aren’t enough examples of what good habit-forming content looks like.

So over the coming weeks, I plan to share dozens of examples of habit-forming content that audiences love—and that will make people open your email no matter what your subject line is.

Today’s examples share this in common:

• They highlight one thing readers need to know

• Or they have one element that entices readers to open their email every time

The Varsity

John Ourand’s sports business newsletter, the latest addition to the Puck News family, does many things I love:

• It keeps me up-to-date on sports deals that matter

• It shares a behind-the-scenes view of the egos fueling the game

• It has a point of view—it’s not just a curated list of other people’s takes

But the thing I like most is its celebration of a single “Player of the Week”—a smart way of elevating people in the business while sharing unique insights on the news.

But Ourand doesn’t just name a weekly winner. He has a clever way of highlighting the week’s biggest loser, which is often just as illuminating👇️…

Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends

Last year, Caitlin Dewey published 82 issues of her newsletter and reviewed more than 100k links. So when she singles out one story she wants you to read, you pay attention.

She does that every Sunday—and it’s a story I invariably click on:

She finds other creative ways to highlight the best of the best stories. Last year, she spent four issues in December counting down the 12 most-clicked stories of the year. Here was No. 1:

One Great Story

Week in and week out, New York magazine features some of the best stories on the internet.

But unlike many publications that share far too many of their own (not-so-good) stories, New York’s editors pick one story a day to publicize—and they build an entire newsletter around it:

Yes, their stories are long. But that’s all the more reason to only share one.

WBUR

As an antidote to the doom and gloom that often leads the daily news, Boston public radio ends its morning newsletter on an uplifting note with sections named:

• “Tell Me Something Good”

• “Life Advice”

• “Food for Thought”

The last line of every email is always the same (“Before you go”), encouraging readers to click away to something interesting.

Sometimes it’s a winning catch. Other times it’s a winning restaurant…

… And other times, like this timeless photo from the Boston Globe’s archives, it’s a leap of faith👇️…

Hope you enjoyed this week’s examples. I’ll be back next week with another set!

☮️ -Brad

P.S. What’s one newsletter you can’t do without? Hit reply and tell me—or, better yet, send examples!

ICYMI: Links to recent issues

🎨 How ArtButMakeItSports became the ‘best thing on the internet’
✍️ 7 things I learned at the Newsletter Marketing Summit
📧 The invite-only email every newsletter operator should be reading