Newsletter Production & Strategy
At Block Club Chicago, a nonprofit, reader-funded newsroom and five-time winner of Chicago Reader’s Best Newsletter award, I work on a nimble newsletter desk that sends 25+ editions weekly to over 130,000 subscribers (paid and free).
The ecosystem: A free morning flagship and afternoon briefing, 14 neighborhood beat newsletters (twice weekly, half free and half subscriber-only), two free specialty weeklies (Arts & Culture and Block Club Eats), a monthly Proud City LGBTQ+ newsletter and a Sunday recap. That’s 25+ editions a week hitting inboxes across the city.
Email campaigns I curated and designed for Block Club Chicago.
What I do day-to-day:
- Write and edit web-ready newsletter copy, packaging stories from 30+ reporters for digital-first audiences
- Develop strategic subject lines engineered to drive open rates well above the 20–25% industry average, including conducting A/B testing
- Shape story framing, hierarchy, and sequencing — deciding what leads a newsletter, what gets a callout, and what context a reader needs before they click, creating custom design for large features
- Collaborate with beat reporters and editors on story packaging, ensuring newsletter presentation serves both the story and the subscriber
- Write original stories that feed directly into newsletter content, including service pieces, arts and culture coverage, community features, and civic news
WhatsApp Channel Launch
The Opportunity: During intensified federal immigration enforcement, many Chicago residents were turning to WhatsApp for news and information — identifying a gap where Block Club’s reporting wasn’t reaching this audience.
My Strategy: Launched Block Club’s WhatsApp Channel to deliver verified coverage directly to the community.
Results & Impact:
- 3,200 subscribers in 6 weeks after launch
- Reached 420 accounts in the last 30 days (96.4% followers) despite reduced posting frequency
- Industry recognition: Lauded by the American Journalism Project, Northwestern Medill and the Knight Foundation; featured in a Reuters report about college students reporting on ICE
- Thought leadership: Presented the project to Newspack publisher call, helping other nonprofit newsrooms learn from our success and apply similar audience strategies. Read the presentation.
Block Club Chicago's WhatsApp broadcast channel showing curated immigration news updates.
Key Takeaway: Understanding where readers already consume news should drive audience strategy — effective reach comes from adapting curation and content to the platform you’re posting on and the audience using it.