An automated newsletter is a recurring email that goes to the right list on a fixed schedule, with the assembly, sending and list upkeep handled by the system so your team only writes the content. Done properly, it turns "we should really send a newsletter" into a monthly habit that keeps past clients and slow-moving leads aware of you. This article answers how to automate the parts of a newsletter that can be automated on the levelpartner.ai platform, and which part, the writing, you should not hand over entirely.
What can and cannot be automated
Four parts of a newsletter are mechanical: who receives it, when it goes, how it looks, and what happens to people who stop opening it. All four can run without anyone touching them each month.
One part is not mechanical: what you say. AI content on the platform can draft from your notes, but a newsletter that reads as generic gets ignored and unsubscribed. The useful split is this: automate the machinery, and protect an hour a month for someone senior to decide what is worth saying.
How a newsletter runs on the platform
The newsletter is an email campaign built in the Marketing area from a saved template. The audience is a smart list in Contacts, defined by tags or fields, so new subscribers join automatically and unsubscribes leave automatically. You schedule each issue for a fixed day and time.
Around that, two small workflows keep the list healthy. One tags new contacts from your forms so they join the list. The other identifies people who have not opened in several months and either re-engages them or removes them from the list.
Before you start
- A sending domain verified in Settings.
- A clear audience: past clients, active leads, referral partners, or all three as separate lists.
- A content owner who will approve each issue.
- A decision on frequency. Monthly is the realistic choice for most firms of this size.
How to set it up
- Go to Contacts and click + Add smart list.
- Filter on your newsletter tag, click Apply, then Create.
- In Automation, add a Form Submitted workflow that applies the newsletter tag.
- Go to Marketing, open Emails and select the Templates tab.
- Build the newsletter template with header, content blocks and footer.
- Click Save Template.
- Open Campaigns, click New and select the template.
- Add this issue's content, then click Send or Schedule.
- Set the Date and Time, such as the first Tuesday at 10am.
- Fill in the sender details and the Subject Line.
- Choose the smart list under Recipients and click Schedule.
What to put in it
A newsletter for a 10 to 250 person firm should do one job: remind people what you are good at, through something useful. Three items is plenty. One short piece of insight relevant to your clients' month. One recent piece of work or a team update. One clear thing they can do, such as book a review call.
For a mortgage broker, the insight might be what a rate change means for clients coming off a fixed term. For an agency, a short note on a channel that has changed. For a consultancy, a practical lesson from a recent engagement, anonymised. For an estate agent, what the local market did last month in plain words.
Say the firm sends one newsletter on the first Tuesday of each month. Writing might take the managing partner about an hour, with AI content drafting from her bullet points, and assembly and scheduling another thirty minutes for the marketing coordinator. That is ninety minutes an issue. If one or two past clients a quarter replied asking about new work, the time would be repaid several times over. These are assumed inputs.
What it replaces
It replaces the newsletter that gets sent in January and September and nowhere in between. The template and schedule remove the friction that stops issues going out, and the smart list removes the spreadsheet export that someone has to rebuild each time.
The time it takes each week
Averaged across a month, about thirty minutes a week. Most of it goes on writing. Check the campaign report a few days after each send: opens, clicks, replies and unsubscribes. Look for trends across three or four issues, not single numbers.
The mistake most people make
Sending the newsletter to everyone in the database, including cold leads from five years ago who never heard from you since. The first issue triggers a wave of spam complaints and hurts deliverability for every other email you send. Start with recent clients and engaged leads, and add older contacts only through a separate re-permission email.
If you need ideas for the layout itself, our template for an email newsletter shows a structure that works on mobile, and the email marketing calendar template helps you plan topics a quarter ahead.
When not to use it
If you cannot commit to sending at least every other month, do not start. An irregular newsletter teaches subscribers to ignore you. A firm with very few contacts may also be better served by personal emails from partners than by a formatted newsletter.
Troubleshooting
New subscribers are not receiving the newsletter. The tagging workflow is not running or the form is not triggering it. Check the workflow is published and that the tag name matches the smart list filter exactly.
Open rates fall issue after issue. Your list is ageing. Run a re-engagement email to people who have not opened in six months and remove those who still do not respond. See our guide to keeping an automated email list clean.
The layout breaks in some inboxes. Too many columns or background images. Use single-column blocks and test before every send.
Replies go nowhere. The reply-to address is a no-reply inbox. Set it to a real person.
Frequently asked questions
Can the newsletter build itself from our blog posts?
You can use AI content to draft summaries of recent posts, but someone should still choose and edit them. A newsletter that is only a list of links gets less attention than one with a point of view.
What day should we send?
Choose a weekday morning in your recipients' time zone and keep it consistent. Consistency matters more than the specific day.
Should past clients and prospects get the same newsletter?
Often yes, if the content is useful to both. If you find yourself writing very different things for each, split them into two lists and two campaigns.
How do we handle recipients in different countries?
Schedule by the recipient's time zone if your contacts have one recorded, or send two campaigns with separate smart lists for each market.