A Peek Behind-the-Scenes of My Newsletter Operations

How I keep my publication updated

Mar 10, 2024

I'm going to give you a very brief introduction to some of the behind-the-scenes operations of The Cheniece Circular publication. You're invited to view the inner workings of what is required for the care and keeping of this newsletter of mine. As I'm sure you can imagine, it involves a little bit more than flipping through a catalog of post topics and writing about one of them weekly. To illustrate the exact process, I'll show you the actual workflow I use to keep The Cheniece Circular updated! My way is not necessarily one of the best ways, or most efficient ways to get this done. But this method simply works for me, right now. So, come let me show you what exactly I'm referring to.

Every week, I'm tasked with the role of being this email newsletter's operator. I plan my duties out against a schedule, for organization's sake. This is also because I'd like for the job that I do here to be based on a repeatable process that I could duplicate from week-to-week while maintaining the same level of quality and results. It took quite a bit of trial and error over many different attempts at getting things just right. As I learn better, I continually try to execute better and better approaches. I don't consider this as something that I can ever be totally "done" with, actually. Things can always be improved.

First, for the job of selecting my post topics, I actually have implemented the practice of referring to my Content Pillars. These are the established content subjects that make up the foundation of what my publication is about. Each week, I can find the appropriate list housing my Content Pillars in my Project Management tool, ClickUp, and browse a collection of possible subjects and topics to dedicate my next post to. They are all organized by which Content Pillar that they align with, and I then mark my chosen subject as "In Progress" so that I don't select it again as the weekly topic in the future.

Now, comes drafting my post! To get this done, I actually follow the same task list inside of ClickUp from week-to-week. I have it memorized! Each task required for publishing a post is given a due date to keep me on-track and timely with my work. As you can see below for the task named "Posting Day", it includes a number of even smaller subtasks within it that need to be done in order for the entire task to be considered as "completed." All of those subtasks there for a single job are a far cry from just selecting a topic from a list and writing about it! My current publishing schedule is a paid or free post at 10 AM on every 1st, 2nd, and 4th Tuesday monthly AND a paid podcast episode on every 3rd Wednesday.

Each of my posts goes through the same steps before it is scheduled or posted. I perform my actual drafting over a couple of days before I secure the artwork that is to be included with the post. I make sure to pay attention to my header and footer as well, in case they need to change for whatever reason. I then do a final check in which I send myself a sample email of the newsletter and view how it looks on different devices, mobile and desktop screens. Once it is posted, the corresponding task in my Project Management tool is automatically marked as completed for my record keeping.

And that is the general, high-level process that I rely on to keep The Cheniece Circular updated weekly. It is the product of trying many different methods, including the total absence of planning and randomly maintaining my publication, instead.

It takes more than consistent publishing to run an email newsletter, however! I work hard to keep eyes on what I spend so much time writing regularly. As a bonus, I excitedly share with you one of my more fun marketing methods:

I've been giving out these customized buttons in person to curious people, and I wear one on my bag daily as well. The QR code is pointed directly to my publication homepage!

I do hope that you found this little peek behind my curtain interesting. At best, I hope that I have given someone a good idea, or at least the motivation to try something new to them. I'd love to hear from you; do you write or work on a set schedule, or do you maintain your duties randomly in a way that works out for you? Feel free to sound off in a comment.