How a daily Oklahoma newsletter hit 60% open rates — and what businesses can learn
I started a newsletter in January 2025 to satisfy my need to stay connected to journalism.
The newsletter is called “Oklahoma Memo,” and I would be honored if you’d give it a look. It is a curation of the day’s news across the state, compiled by a human (me) to amplify the most important, most impactful, and the best journalism in Oklahoma.
I’ve put together a newsletter every weekday since Jan. 21, 2025, and every Monday through Saturday since the fall. I haven’t missed a single day for any reason. When my family and I took a European vacation last summer, I still didn’t miss a day.
One year later, I’m helping businesses and organizations launch their newsletters. Here’s why: Because few communication tactics in 2026 work as well as a simple, human-created, and curated opt-in email newsletter.
• You own the relationship, not an algorithm.
• Email has the highest engagement per impression of any digital channel.
• Consistency of publication builds trust.
• Trust and value lead to sales.
What is your conversion? Are you selling a relationship, like a law firm or a doctor’s office? Are you selling pizzas? Tires? In my case, when I created “Oklahoma Memo,” the conversion was to convince people I don’t know and who don’t know me to give me their email address so that I can send them this daily newsletter.
In one year, “Oklahoma Memo” has pulled in 1,005 subscriptions and maintained a 60% open rate and a nearly 12% click-through rate. That’s somewhere between very good and tremendous in the newsletter world.
And I’m convinced the formula I use in “Oklahoma Memo” could work for any business, not that I’d recommend you create a daily newsletter. I’d suggest monthly or bi-weekly, weekly if you want to be aggressive.
The formula looks a lot like a church bulletin:
• Greetings up front
• Tidbits and nuggets come next
• Reminders
• The offering (the value proposition, the connection, dining, service, whatever you do)
• The sermon (a story that brings VALUE)
• Benediction
There are several platforms you could use to create this newsletter. I picked Beehiiv because it’s a platform focused on newsletters. Substack is a bigger, deeper content and social ecosystem, and it may be right for some of you — but it requires significantly more care and feeding.
There’s Constant Contact and Active Campaign. Right now, I manage a newsletter in Active Campaign, and I don’t hate the platform. It ties into a WordPress website nicely — but I am all-in on the Beehiiv bandwagon. It’s clean, low-cost and easy to scale.
For small businesses that have long considered their website as a communications hub, might I convince you to change your thinking here. Websites are still effective as brochures, but newsletters as content hubs drive deeper connection and better results — and it’s all super measurable if you set it up right.
What makes this work best isn’t in finding somebody who can figure out the Beehiiv platform. Anybody can do it. I believe that partnering with somebody who has significant editorial experience is the way to go — somebody who can ideate and execute stories quickly and consistently.
And then everything you do on social should be created to drive folks to this newsletter.
I was able to attract more than 1,000 people to sign up for my “Oklahoma Memo” newsletter. Just think what your business, with years of community equity, could do — and at the cost of an extra minimum-wage employee for a monthly edition.
If a newsletter is something you’ve ever considered, I’d be happy to walk you through what this process would look like for you — and what it could accomplish.
Reach out anytime at ryan@doabledigitalmedia.com — and sign up for my weekly newsletter called “5-Minute Newsroom,” where I offer digital content news, tips, and tactics every Wednesday. (Note: It is re-debuting on Jan. 7, 2026!)
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
