👋🏻 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 sharing 4 examples of killer kickers from Shift, Write With AI, The Pulse, and Popbitch. Reading time: 3 minutes.

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🫢 Distinctive endings

Ending your email with a predictably funny/memorable/useful section is one of the best ways to build a habit with your audience.

It serves two purposes:

1. It gets people to open your email every time

2. It gets people to read to the end, clicking on more stuff

When you’re brainstorming ideas, think:

• What service or utility do I want to provide?

• What emotions do I want to evoke?

• What feeling do I want readers to have?

Here are four kickers that build habits in different ways👇️…

#1: Shift

The men’s health and wellness newsletter (think: GQ without the cologne inserts) does a masterful job of making men open their emails.

Their habit-forming tactics include:

• Sharing life hacks (i.e., “11 Tips for Getting Out of a Rut”)

• Providing a clickable mix of advice

• Ending with an picture of a beautiful place

The habits they’re building: 

• Improving people’s lives

• Providing inspiration

#2: Write With AI

Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush embed prompts throughout their email, but often reserve the best ones for paying subscribers.

Yesterday, they ran a piece by my pal Eve Arnold, author of Part-Time Creator Club, in which she shared her “Step-Problem Technique” for making more sales, ending with a ChatGPT prompt to help you put the framework into action👇️…

The habits they’re building: 

• Providing something useful

• Helping people make money

#3: The Pulse

Yes, this is like the third week in a row I’ve mentioned a sports newsletter.

Sports newsletters are innovative because they have to be.

• They’re competing with video highlights and live sports

• They need to come up with unique ways of attracting attention

The Athletic’s daily newsletter does this with two memorable sections at the end of every issue:

1. Their daily sports puzzle, in which you match sports terms that share a common thread. The game is so addictive, other websites publish daily clues about it to drive traffic to their own sites!

2. Pulse Picks, which includes an original graphic and links to indispensable content, including the most-clicked thing in the newsletter from the day before (a sure-fire way to get people to click if they haven’t already).

The habits they’re building: 

• Saving people time

• Creating FOMO

#4: Popbitch

The popular British gossip newsletter is full of clever hooks and habit-forming sections. They end every issue with two memorable parts:

1. Internet bright spots👇️ 

2. And a section called “Still Bored?” which is often outrageous…

The habits they’re building: 

• Discovering cool stuff

• Surprising and shocking people

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

☮️ -Brad

P.S. I have lots more examples of habit-forming content. Hit reply and say “habit” if you want another set next week.

P.P.S. What does habit-forming content look like to you? Send me screenshots and I’ll include them!

ICYMI: Links to recent issues

📧 How to create habit-forming content (Part 1)
🎨 How ArtButMakeItSports became the ‘best thing on the internet’
✍️ 7 things I learned at the Newsletter Marketing Summit