In this tiny article, I'll show you the new archive page for my newsletter and the reasoning behind that change.

What changes

From now on, all the past newsletters I've sent will no longer be archived in this backstage blog but are now part of the new newsletter page.

On that new page where people can subscribe to the newsletter I've also added a bit of a preview or teaser showing what you usually get in one of those weekly newsletters.

Technically, this new newsletter archive page uses the same Podia hack that I use for the blog, the help centre and the Q&A where I "hack" the course feature to create something else.

Why did I make this change?

It's now a few months since I decided to take my newsletter more seriously. As this new habit is now in "cruise mode", I see that I can continue like this in the long term. So instead of "polluting" the backstage blog with newsletter content, I've decided to separate both types of content for more clarity. This has a few advantages:

1. People can more easily get a preview of the newsletter before subscribing. They can even see how consistent the newsletter has been.

2. When people arrive at a newsletter preview and they subscribe to the "podia course" that is related to it, they don't subscribe too to the blog.

3. It's just tidier, and that's always lovely for my Swiss-German loving of tidiness culture.

4. It heals a bit my impostor syndrome when I see how many newsletters I've been able to produce in the last months when I see all of them in one place.

Ideas for the future

As I'm working on the newsletter and the new newsletter archive page this gives me a few ideas on how I could continue to push these ideas further:

1. Video teaser: It could be fun to have a little walk-through video done with Loom where I show one of the newsletters and explain the structure, the type of content the thinking behind it. This would allow people who are interested in it to get a richer preview before leaving their email.

2. Vlog newsletter: These days, I follow a few vlogs of photography educators on Youtube and find the format to be both entertaining and informative. Maybe one day I could do something similar where during the week I record small videos about the new content pieces I've worked on. And at the end of the week, I stitch all these little moments together to create a video summary of the newsletter that has a bit more context and emotion than just a list of links.

We'll see if these ideas stick in my memory and if I'll find the time to implement them in the future.

Join the newsletter

If you are not yet part of the Weekly Service Design Digest newsletter, now is the perfect time to join this little community. You'll get each week a summary of all the new Service Design content I've created directly in your inbox.

Written on Sunday 2nd of April 2023, by Daniele Catalanotto.