Newsletters: (How Lighthouse PR Achieves a Min 25% Open Rates, Every Time)
Most company newsletters are digital junk mail. They get ignored. Deleted. Or worse—they train your audience to tune you out completely.
I understand that the average email open rate across industries is 15-20%, and the click-through rate is 1-2%. Translation: 4 out of 5 people don't even open your newsletter. Of those who do, 98% don't click anything.
At Lighthouse PR, we teach a fundamentally different approach—one that consistently achieves a regular 30%+ open rate and 10%+ click-through rates.
Here's the difference between newsletters that work and newsletters that waste everyone's time.
Why Most Newsletters Fail
Bad Mailing Lists and Incorrect Data (The Foundation Problem)
This is where most newsletter failures actually start—before a single word is written. The patterns we see:
Buying or renting email lists:
You're sending to people who never asked to hear from you. Instant spam folder. Terrible deliverability. Reputation damage.
Collecting emails without permission or context:
Business card drops at events. LinkedIn scraping for connections. "Newsletter sign-up" is buried in forms people didn't read. These aren't subscribers—they're hostages.
Never cleaning your list:
Sending to dead email addresses, people who left companies years ago, contacts who've never opened a single newsletter. This destroys your sender reputation and deliverability.
No segmentation or targeting:
Sending the same content to CEOs and interns, customers and competitors, Romanian executives and American investors. Generic content relevant to no one.
Incorrect or outdated data:
Wrong names, wrong titles, wrong companies. Nothing says "we don't actually know you" like addressing a CEO as "Dear Marketing Manager" at a company they left two years ago.
Quality of list > Quality of content > Quality of design. In that order. Always.
A smaller, engaged, accurately-targeted list of 500 beats a bloated, disengaged, poorly-maintained list of 5,000. Every time.
Lighthouse PR Newsletter Winning Formula
Strategic targeting:
Define who should receive this newsletter (specific titles, industries, geographies)
Segment lists by stakeholder type, job title, function, interest, or relevance
Different content for different segments when and where appropriate
Quality over quantity—500 people with the correct data beats 5,000 wrong ones every time
Regular list hygiene:
Remove hard bounces immediately
Remove contacts who haven't opened in 6 months (or re-engage first, then remove)
Update outdated information systematically
Ask subscribers to update their preferences annually
Monitor engagement and segment accordingly
Data accuracy protocols:
Verify names, titles, and companies before adding
Instil a regular data enrichment and validation process
Source high-quality information, don't guess
Maintain current contact status (job changes, etc.)
The rule: If you can't send personalised, relevant content because your data is poor, fix the data before improving the content.
The Right Way: The Lighthouse PR Newsletter Framework
List Quality Is the Foundation. Before anything else, build and maintain a high-quality, permission-based, accurately segmented mailing list. The standards we teach:
Every Newsletter Subscriber Should:
Have explicitly opted in and are accurately profiled.
Be appropriate for the newsletter's purpose and have engaged recently.
Each Newsletter Should Have One Clear Purpose.
Not "keep people informed" or "stay top of mind." Pick one:
Educate on industry developments
Provide insight into strategic challenges
Offer perspective on trends
Deliver intelligence they can't get elsewhere
Build thought leadership by adding value
The Golden Rule: Before writing, complete this sentence: "Readers open this newsletter because it helps them ___________."
If you can't complete that with something valuable to the reader (not to you), you don't have a newsletter strategy. There should be no company news or self-promotion in the core content.
Write for Humans
The standard:
Conversational but professional. Clear and direct (no jargon)
Confident but not arrogant. Honest and substantive.
Measure and Optimise
Metrics that matter:
Open rate: Are people opening? If not, fix subject lines or list quality.
Click-through rate: Are people engaging? If not, fix the value proposition or CTA.
Reply rate: Are people responding? This indicates genuine engagement.
Unsubscribe rate: Losing >0.5% per send? You're annoying people.
Bounce rate: High bounces? Your list data is bad.
The Bottom Line
Newsletters that achieve 25%+ open rates and 10%+ click-through rates are built on high-quality, permission-based, accurately-maintained mailing lists (the foundation)
One clear purpose relentlessly executed
Genuine value delivered consistently
Human voice that respects the reader's intelligence
Ruthless discipline on cadence and quality
One clear call to action per newsletter
Continuous optimisation, including list maintenance
Right list > Right content > Right design. Without the right list, brilliant content fails. With the right list, even good content succeeds.
Most organisations skip the list work and wonder why their newsletters fail. They focus on design, subject lines, and content—while sending to people who don't want to hear from them, don't remember subscribing, or are no longer at that email address.
Because newsletters done right aren't just communication tools. They are relationship tools, built on a foundation of permission, relevance, and accuracy.
Done wrong, they're spam that damages your reputation.
If your organisation wants newsletter capability that drives a minimum 25%+ open rates and 5%+ click-through rates—starting with list quality and data accuracy—that's what Lighthouse PR can do for you.
Are you ready to do newsletters properly?
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About the Author
Steve Gardiner (exec MBA) is a senior marketing and commercial leader at Lighthouse PR, bringing global experience from Accenture, Electronic Arts, Virgin Media, Telekom, and Etisalat. Latterly, as VP Business at Etisalat, he was responsible for $1.8B in revenue.
Today, Steve applies his strategic, marketing, and growth expertise to support Lighthouse PR clients as part of the agency’s service offering.