An Inside Look At My Publication Process: Detailed Walkthrough

Check out the steps I follow to create a new issue every week and my toolbox.

There’s a good reason why all of us consume content, most of the times, is to seek for an answer to a problem we’re currently facing. When it comes to delivering valuable content, newsletters have proven to be one of the most effective methods.

As a content creator, I have found the newsletter publication process to be an incredibly rewarding experience. Not only does it allow me to connect with my audience on a deeper level, but it also enables me to provide them with the answers or advice they are looking for.

What’s the process of creating content?

Whether you want to start a blog, posting on social media or running a newsletter; creating content involves several steps, from gathering and researching ideas to finally publishing and distributing the content.

1. Plan

• Audience Analysis: Understand your target audience's interests, preferences, and needs. Segment your audience if necessary.

• Content Strategy: Define your newsletter's purpose, theme, and content types. Plan the mix of original and curated content.

• Editorial Calendar: Create a schedule for content creation, curation, and distribution. Allocate time for brainstorming, drafting, editing, and design.

• Idea Generation: Gather and research ideas from various sources, such as trends, industry news, and audience feedback.

2. Create

• Content Curation: Select and curate valuable external content that resonates with your audience's interests.

• Content Creation: Write original articles, stories, tutorials, or any other content that aligns with your content strategy.

• Design and Layout: Design a visually appealing layout that enhances the readability and engagement of your content.

• Proofreading and Editing: Review and edit content for accuracy, clarity, grammar, and style. Ensure consistent branding and tone.

3. Distribute

• Email Marketing: Use an email marketing platform to send your newsletter to your subscriber list. Ensure your email list is well-maintained and segmented.

• Social Media: Share highlights or snippets from your newsletter on social media platforms to attract new subscribers and engage your audience.

• Website Integration: If applicable, share your newsletter content on your website to reach a wider online audience.

4. Analyze

• Metrics Tracking: Monitor key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and engagement levels.

• Subscriber Feedback: Gather feedback from subscribers through surveys, comments, and direct communication.

• Content Performance: Analyze which types of content, topics, and formats perform best with your audience.

These 4 stages are part of a continuous growth cycle

The whole process works like a flywheel approach that emphasizes an interconnection of these four key stages: Plan, Create, Distribute, and Analyze. Highlighting how they feed into and support each other.

• Positive Feedback Loop: As you consistently create valuable content and distribute it to your audience, you build engagement and trust, which can lead to increased subscribers and more engagement.

• Iterative Improvement: Analyze the data and feedback you collect to make informed decisions for your next newsletter cycle. Adjust your content strategy, timing, and approach based on what's working best.

• Continuous Optimization: Each iteration of the flywheel improves your understanding of your audience and enhances your content's quality and relevance. Over time, this leads to better performance and growth.

The key to success with the newsletter growth cycle is to maintain a consistent and focused effort across all stages. By continually refining your content and strategy based on feedback and performance data, you'll create a cycle of improvement that drives better engagement and subscriber satisfaction.

A walkthrough to my publication process

This diagram explains how my actual process looks like:

Identifying the audience

When I started Product Release Notes I had a good reason in mind. Product Management is not easy. This is a very challenging role that requires a broad set of skills and competencies, a diverse knowledge of different areas, and don’t forget to keep up with the changing market and industry trends.

If you are like me, you have probably ended up accepting a job promotion to the next step up in your career ladder. That meant to be the only product manager in your team. At that time, it was very a huge challenge to take for me. If I wanted to understand the role and to excel at it, I had to study and consume A LOT of product material.

Thankfully, there’s tons of product management content out there. But some of this advice were not working for me, they sounded great in other companies yet not always in mine. So I thought, there should be more users out there who would appreciate what I learned from experience.

Setting the brand voice

This one was hard very hard for me. I know that a product manager tends to be seen as this impeccable executive person dressing too formal. But this was in conflict with my personality, which is too joyful and funny. I knew I had to bring some balance to my writing. I didn’t want to sound excited the whole time but I knew that my intention was not to imitate Harvard Business Review either.

I started to write different drafts about different topics and re-reading them to identify which ones I liked the most. I also shared them with other PM colleagues to get feedback from them. I asked them if the content was something they would search for or consume often. With their comments I was able to refine my style, getting closer to what I wanted and what the audience needed.

Recently, I used Copy.ai Brand Voice feature to validate if my assumptions about the tone of voice were right, and I was very pleased with the result:

Empathetic, informative, conversational:

This brand's voice aims to connect with its audience personally and provide useful insights and practical advice. When writing for this brand, imagine having a friendly chat with someone seeking guidance. Use relatable language and anecdotes, share personal experiences and opinions, and provide actionable tips and strategies. Encourage readers to share their thoughts and experiences in the comments section and maintain a positive and supportive tone. The brand aims to empower its audience and create a sense of community.

Where ideas come from

I’m the type of person that is constantly learning and consuming content that I think it will make my work even better. Somehow, I think being a product manager was the right challenge for me. there’s always something that can be improved or new framework to try. Every product has its unique challenges and issues. At least, as a PM you never get bored.

Because of this, I follow product people that share amazing insights and advice along as pay for my own growth with events, courses and more. Of course, my job is the most valuable source of knowledge.

I’m constantly saving this knowledge for later and one app that helps me to classify not only product management topics but most of my personal life too is Things. As they mention in their website:

“Things is the award-winning personal task manager that helps you plan your day, manage your projects, and make real progress toward your goals.”

I can confirm this it true!

Creating the first draft

To be honest, I don’t follow a strict calendar publication and have a checklist to get a massive amount of subscribers. Neither I seek to talk about latest tendencies or popular headlines. The topics that I decide to mention every week is because:

• The topic is something I recently learned

• Is a topic I already knew but I think it can be revisited in a different way

• A topic I learned at an event, course, video, etc. and I’m willing to implement

For now, I’m keeping it very simple. I save this content in Things app by pasting the URL and adding some notes for later.

Then, I choose one topic based on the points I mentioned before and, if the material is not enough, I start researching. I like to spent enough time to find valuable resources, but if the content is very old and complex I like to consult an AI for resources like: “Give me five accurate resources for X topic.”

Once I had enough to start writing, I create my first draft in craft.do. Craft is a rich text editor that is easy and frictionless to use. It also supports markdown, code blocks, images, videos, and attaching files or rich link previews. As they mention in their website:

“Craft brings structure to your documents – and gives you the tools and freedom to do it your way. Seamlessly combine images, text, media or tables for the perfect experience. Drive deep understanding and engagement by allowing the reader to consume your document just as they would a website.”

Just take a look at this exact post draft made in Craft:

Designing visuals and layout

In a world saturated with information, adding visuals into your posts can make your content more appealing and easier to comprehend. Visuals can break up the text, highlight key points, and provide a visual representation of concepts.

Readability not only means visuals and images, but also how the content is organized, the consistency and structure of the storytelling, incorporating headers, bullet points, and color schemes can make the content more appealing and easier to understand to the readers.

Sometimes, when I think that my post does not need imagery, turns out that with an image would have been easier to consume. That’s why I try to design fast and simple with tools like Whimsical for diagrams and explain processes, and Figma for any other visual representation of a concept.

Whimsical is designed to help teams and individuals create various types of visual content, such as diagrams, wireframes, flowcharts, mind maps, and more. Whimsical aims to make the process of creating and sharing visual content easy and efficient for both remote and in-person collaboration.

While Figma is a cloud-based design and prototyping tool that is widely used in the fields of user interface (UI) design, user experience (UX) design, and collaborative design work. It enables designers, teams, and stakeholders to create, edit, and collaborate on design projects in real time, regardless of their physical location.

From reviewing to publishing

A lot can happen before publishing, there are several important steps that take place between reviewing and publishing content, especially when it comes to publishing articles, blog posts, or newsletters.

Content often goes through a proofreading review process to check for grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, and overall clarity. One thing I love about Craft.do is that it has a great native spellchecker on it, so this is something I’m verifying since the first draft.

But when I have serious doubts about an expression or a particular word in English, I use DeepL. DeepL is an AI-powered translator that utilizes deep learning and neural network technology to provide language translation services. I’ve never used Google Translate since then.

Afterwards, I copy paste my whole post from Craft to Substack. Thanks to Markdown capabilities, I just have to adjust some minor details to get everything ready.

As a final check, I like to test all the links and see the previous of how the article looks like in different mail apps or in the Substack app itself. When everything looks good, hit publish.

On getting feedback and continuous improvement

Publishing an issue is not the end of the road. In fact, it's just the beginning. Once your content is out there, it's crucial to gather feedback from your subscribers and continuously improve. I see feedback as a gift. My favorite part is reading my audience comments and learn from them!

Each individual can face different situations and the level of knowledge is very diverse. Reading your subscribers comments and questions is another way to come up with fresh ideas for a next issue or revisit a topic from a different perspective.

Never underestimate the power of connecting with your audience.

Continuously improving your newsletter is a never-ending process. As you gather feedback, analyze data, and make adjustments, you'll find that your content becomes more valuable, engaging, and tailored to your audience's needs. The more you refine your content and strategy, the stronger your connection with your audience will become.

In Conclusion

As a content creator, I find the newsletter publication process to be incredibly rewarding. Newsletters are an effective way to deliver valuable content and connect with my audience.

Remember, the process involves four main stages: Plan, Create, Distribute, and Analyze:

1. Analyze the audience and create a content strategy and editorial calendar.

2. Gather ideas from various sources and create both curated and original content. Design visually appealing layouts and edit content for accuracy and clarity.

3. Distribute it through email marketing, social media, and more.

4. Then analyze metrics and collect feedback from subscribers to improve content and strategy.

The benefits I identified of having my own newsletter

• Newsletters allow for a deeper connection with your audience compared to other content mediums.

• Newsletters provide a platform to address your audience's problems and offer solutions and advice.

• Creating a newsletter helps establish your brand voice and unique identity in the market.

• Feedback from subscribers can provide valuable insights and help improve your content and strategy.

• A valuable and engaging newsletter can drive website traffic, generate leads, and create monetization opportunities such as sponsored content or paid subscriptions.

The tools that are part of my publication process

• Things: Personal task manager app

• Copy.ai: AI-powered brand voice validation tool

• Craft.do: Rich text editor for creating drafts

• Whimsical: Visual content creation tool for diagrams and flowcharts

• Figma: Cloud-based design and prototyping tool

• DeepL: AI-powered translator for language translation services

• Substack: Platform for publishing newsletters

If you’re also a content creator, how does your process look like? And if not, are you willing to start creating with this advice? Let me know in the comments!

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