A good newsletter is hard to beat when it comes to driving traffic to your website, building cult loyalty with your audience, and driving revenue. The most important part of building a successful newsletter that manages to accomplish all that? People want quality content they can count on.
With a well-written newsletter, marketers can engage subscribers and organically grow their lists.
In our quest to shed light on some of our favorite newsletters, we’ll be sharing a different recommendation every month.
Today in the series, we’ll be talking about Concrete Playground.
Be sure to check out our last post about Adweek Morning Digest if you missed it!
Introducing Concrete Playground:
Concrete Playground is an Oceania-based newsletter released every other day. This write-up is a valuable source for city news and to-dos. And since we have a Campaign Monitor office based in Sydney, we naturally signed up to receive Sydney happenings.
Each installment of the newsletter provides an extensive supply of fun, new ways to spend your weeknights and weekends. Whether it’s a new restaurant, upcoming concerts, or fundraising events, CP subscribers will never run out of places to explore or activities to try.
The newsletter typically opens with two features. Here you can usually find valuable lists, like the top events happening in Sydney this weekend, or the best ramen restaurants in the city.
Below the features, you have an extensive list of recent news and what’s upcoming on the calendar.
Concrete Playground seeks to answer the question: What should we do tonight? In a massive city like Sydney, it can be difficult to pinpoint activities near you that you actually want to do. This newsletter does it for you.
How it started:
The CP newsletter is an extension of the Concrete Playground brand, which, after being founded in 2009, has attracted fans from both Australia and New Zealand.
With event news for Sydney, Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Wellington, Concrete Playground ensures numerous people can feel excited about what’s going on in their region.
Having carefully selected editors and contributors, Concrete Playground focuses on truly quality experiences, as well as honest reviews and culturally relevant news.
Who it targets:
While the Concrete Playground site services Australians and New Zealanders alike, the site primarily focuses on east-coast cities.
The Concrete Playground newsletter caters to urbanites looking to get out, explore, and try new activities in their area. While city residents will most likely get the most from this newsletter, it can also be great for those in surrounding areas or anyone planning a vacation.
The hip style of this newsletter certainly appeals to a youthful audience, but Concrete Playground can be for any age, as long as you enjoy experiences in an urban atmosphere.
What you can learn from it:
Concrete Playground has a wide variety of lessons to teach, both for readers and email marketers.
As a reader
Many of us are so busy reading global news or industry highlights, we often forget to catch up on what’s happening near us. Concrete Playground attempts to bridge that gap by bringing the information to your inbox. Readers have agency over their time, and CP recognizes that.
These instant updates allow city-dwellers to do more than plan fun nights or try new restaurants. People can feel pride about where they live and always be up-to-date, empowering them to be experts on their city.
As a marketer
From a marketing perspective, Concrete Playground reminds us of the importance of a localized experience. Marketing tends to have a global push, but by having a centralized focus with a loyal group of subscribers, you can achieve success with interested subscribers.
Even if your company is global, you can easily localize your efforts with a little research and email segmentation. By segmenting your list into sections based on country, city, or region, you can write emails specifically for certain audiences and increase readership. Just make sure your copy is translated correctly and your content is localized, too.
Wrap up
Concrete Playground provides region-specific to-dos for subscribers looking to soak up their city’s unique opportunities. So, if you’re looking for city-specific news about Sydney, (or Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, or Wellington), it might be time to visit Concrete Playground.
Are you thinking about building a newsletter? Already have one? If so, consider how you can incorporate the tactics used by Concrete Playground into your own work.
Want to see your favorite newsletter listed here? Tell us in the comments below. Or start your own newsletter by signing up with Campaign Monitor today.