Friday 27th October: Why the FT's fashion newsletter is its most successful

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There’s just under 6 weeks to go until Mx3 AI; a collaboration between Media Voices and Media Makers Meet. We’ll be featuring sessions on AI in local, national, consumer and B2B media, as well as discussions on innovation, developments and regulation.

When it comes to case studies, what better one to recommend than a newsletter which not only won ‘Best Hobbies & Special Interest Newsletter’ at our inaugural Publisher Newsletter Awards, but one which the team chose as the best overall newsletter across the fourteen categories.

For InPublishing, the FT’s Head of Newsletters Sarah Ebner looks at the past twelve months in Fashion Matters; the publisher’s most opened newsletter. She talks about researching the concept, the pre-launch preparation, the launch itself, the challenges the team faced, and what has made it successful.

Something I thought was worth reinforcing was the simplest of points: that promotion isn’t just for the launch phase. “Launching a newsletter is an ongoing process, something people can forget,” Ebner advises. “It is not only about the launch, but about writing something every day or week, and keeping it in people’s minds by promoting it again and again.”

We’ve written for Media Voices before about why publishers should be investing in newsgames, so this is nice to see from The Fix. They say media literacy skills in Europe’s youth are good, but there is a gap when it comes to creating online content. To help improve these skills, they’ve complied a list of games that can assist children in learning media literacy in a fun and engaging way.

Elle is yet another title seeing a print resurgence, according to a nugget in this interview with editor Kenya Hunt. In September, single issue newsstand sales were up 24% year on year. The full discussion about their new membership scheme is in the podcast rather than this piece, which just teases a few details. One for the listening queue.

Reviewed, Gannett’s product reviews site, took down several affiliate marketing articles that some of its journalists claimed were generated by artificial intelligence. The whole situation seems pretty muddy, but one thing is certain: this won’t be the last case we see of freelancers or publishers not being entirely honest with their use of generative AI. Yet another reason why clear guidelines are needed for both staff and readers.

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