Top 10 Marketing Newsletters That Will Make You a Better Professional

Update: This post was updated with my latest selection in 2024.

Newsletters are one of the best-kept secrets in professional knowledge building.

Just think about it – when you find the right newsletter, you’re basically using an expert to serve as a knowledge filter. They show you the most important news in the industry. And they send you the most in-depth helpful articles you need to build your skills.

Smart marketers never did buy the whole “email is dead” thing and so marketing newsletters have always been strong. And there are a lot of great marketing newsletters out there. I’ve been subscribed to most of them – as well as to quite a few I wouldn’t recommend.

In this post, I’ll try to be your “filter of filters” – sharing some of the best marketing newsletters out there.

How I define “Best marketing newsletters”?

As I said, there are a lot of marketing newsletters out there. So how do we define the best ones?

I have a few criteria when choosing what newsletters I dedicate my time to:

• Weekly or less frequent publishing cadence – after all, a newsletter’s main benefit is to curate content for you and save you time. But if the newsletter gets published daily, these qualities diminish. Additionally, guilt builds up whenever you amass more than 10 editions to look back to. Which makes you less likely to return to the newsletter in the first place.
• Serves as a curation tool – I still use an RSS reader to follow my favorite blogs. So, a newsletter that only has links to recent posts doesn’t bring me any value. I want to see what content the expert found interesting enough to share with their audience.
• Has a personal touch – a lot of people focus on the “news” part of “newsletter”. But I love to also focus on the “letter” part. A newsletter arrives in your inbox and feels much more personal than a blog or a social media post. And the best newsletters are even more personal, letting us glance into the thoughts of the author.
• Opens up new perspectives – I love it when my mind gets stretched. This means I naturally gravitate towards newsletters that don’t just give me a curated list of sources but also teach me something new while still in the inbox.

The top marketing newsletters in my inbox

Without further ado, here are the newsletters I’d recommend every junior or experienced marketer to follow. I’m listing them in alphabetical order, as any other sorting will be difficult for me. 

Total Annarchy by Ann Handley

The queen of content marketing sure knows how to create engaging newsletters. She sends hers on a fortnightly basis, and you’ll thoroughly enjoy every edition. It includes a long letter from Ann. It’s basically a blog post to any other writer but much more personal. And it also packs a few interesting links about writing, content marketing, creativity, and more.

Why We Buy by Katelyn Bourgoin

This newsletter goes deep into your customer’s brain. Every week, Katelyn shares a psychological principle you can apply to your marketing. It’s like a course in psychology, but 100% practical, too. The best thing is that she doesn’t just give you the theory. She also shows how the principle works in different categories like e-commerce, services, and more.

Growth Newsletter by Demand Curve

This newsletter is a “filter on steroids” because the insights in it come from both the Demand Curve agency and its Slack community, which has more than 83,000 growth experts. You can be sure the tactics and principles mentioned here have been battle-tested. There are often also real-world examples and data as proof. The newsletter covers growth principles, including copywriting, PPC, retention, pricing, and more.

Marketing Brew

The Morning Brew is an institution in content curation, and Marketing Brew is its version designed for marketers. It is slightly more focused on big creatives, big brands, and agency life than the other examples. This is great because it provides mere mortals like you and me a look at big strategy. It is also the only newsletter here that is delivered on a more frequent basis – it comes to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. But the content quality is so good that I decided to make an exception.

Moz Top 10

As the name suggests, this is a weekly roundup of the top content on SEO selected for you by the team at Moz. These guys sure know their SEO, so seeing the stuff they read and find valuable will surely up your search game. It’s one of these newsletters where I end up clicking almost each and every link they include.

The Audience Research Newsletter

SparkToro is one of the few companies I 100% agree with when it comes to the fundamentals of content creation. And their fortnightly newsletter will quickly show you why. The newsletter is simple, with 3 audience research tips, 3 resources to read, and 3 social media posts worth checking out. It covers customer development, audience research, and digital strategy.

Marketing Examples by Harry Dry

If you’ve ever needed some inspiration for your marketing and copywriting, you may have come across Harry Dry’s website. It’s a treasure trove of examples, enriched by Harry’s shrewd analysis. The newsletter is a hand-picked selection of 6 new copywriting and advertising tips that come straight to your inbox. Since the whole site is essentially curated content, the newsletter is meta-curation.

Marketing FOMO by Aleyda Solis

Aleyda Solis is a knowledge powerhouse! She’s an SEO expert who closely follows the industry and brings the best to you through the original SEO FOMO newsletter. I’m including here her other one – Marketing FOMO. It is more geared toward content marketers and goes lighter on technical SEO news in favor of content, keyword research, and on-page optimization tips.

The Geekout Newsletter by Matt Navarra

If you want a single place to learn all the latest developments across social media platforms, you need The Geekout. Matt Navarra follows all new tests and experiments on social and brings the latest in the newsletter. Be careful: it’s so link-heavy that you may as well spend more than an hour reading this one!

Shameless plug: My very own

It feels so strange to put my newsletter on the same list as the rest of the examples I gave you. I’ll be the first to say I’m nowhere near their level. But I’m bringing curated content pieces about marketing, branding, content, copywriting, and productivity. There’s also a weekly editorial piece that talks about marketing strategy, building relationships with your audience, and becoming a better professional. Hope you like it!

Bonus newsletters for inspiration

Great marketers are great because they draw on more than specific industry skills. They draw inspiration from the broader world around us. So, I suggest you make sure you fill your cup with inspiration and new ideas.

Creative Mornings

The creative community focused on live events has a great newsletter, too. It’s a mix of pieces designed to boost your productivity, serve copious amounts of inspiration, and help you lead a balanced life as a creative professional.

Dense Discovery

A newsletter about everything and anything: interesting books, inspiring art, design thoughts, architecture… It’s a great way to see what creative professionals in completely different fields are bringing into the world.

The Non-Obvious Insights Newsletter

My final suggestion will give you a very different perspective on the world right now. Every week, Rohit Bhargava brings you curious new trends that will make you think. The latest edition covered perfumes that smell like your favorite store or brand of shoes. Curious reading!

Spice up your inbox

My favorite time of the week is Sunday morning. I prepare myself a big cup of V60, and I sit with the news of the week. Most of the time, it’s like I’m getting a coffee with marketing experts I look up to. And that’s the true power of newsletters.

Let me know if you have a favorite newsletter that I missed!