---
title: Creating an Email Course
description: Learn how to create an email course to introduce new readers and create loyalty to your publication.
---

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December 16, 2025

# Creating an Email Course

## Learn how to create an email course to introduce new readers and create loyalty to your publication.

An email course is a series of articles sent out as emails that ends with a financial ask. It’s a middle-of-funnel tactic that showcases your reporting, introduces new readers to your publication, and primes readers for donations.  
​

### **Deliverables**

- The publisher is responsible for writing or adapting the articles to be used in the email course. Once we have the content, Indiegraf will support with:
- Mailchimp customer journey (the automation)
- Landing page and UTMs
- Promotion

    - Lead generation campaign over 2-3 weeks
    - Onsite ads (Optinmonster or ConvertPro)
    - Social posts
    - Newsletter CTAs
    - \[Optional\] Standalone announcement email

### **Choosing a topic for your course**

You could survey your audience and create a new series from scratch.

- Ex. The Discourse *[asked their readers](https://thediscourse.ca/nanaimo/curious-in-nanaimo)* what they wanted to know about their community. They turned those responses into a series, *[Curious in Nanaimo](https://thediscourse.ca/nanaimo/curious-in-nanaimo)***.**

*[Email 1](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=a08f1ba003)* | *[Email 2](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=932c3eac99)* | *[Email 3](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=2a8eca1fc9)*<https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=2a8eca1fc9>| *[Email 4](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=093d7700dd)* | *[Email 5](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=29fabfa719) | [Email 6](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=4211af1785) | [Email 7](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=bca49e5752) | [Email 8](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=6caf6f466a)*

But that can be a heavy lift, so if you already have a series that got a lot of interest, you can repurpose those articles for an email course.

- Ex. Peterborough Currents repurposed three articles into ***[Creek Week](https://peterboroughcurrents.ca/creek-week/creek-week-walking-guide/)***. They hired a writer-illustrator to rewrite the original series as a walking guide, and produce original illustrations.

    - *[Email 1](https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=c729a26a39e01143c8f6f567d&id=51abd397d1)* (confirmation) | *[Email 2](https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=c729a26a39e01143c8f6f567d&id=4e3078b84e)* (intro) | *[Email 3](https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=c729a26a39e01143c8f6f567d&id=1ad8b05922)* | *[Email 4](https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=c729a26a39e01143c8f6f567d&id=fab99384b9)* | *[Email 5](https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=c729a26a39e01143c8f6f567d&id=922cd3156b)* | *[Email 6](https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=c729a26a39e01143c8f6f567d&id=1407c9b4f4)* | *[Email 7](https://us17.campaign-archive.com/?u=c729a26a39e01143c8f6f567d&id=90774e15cb)* (financial ask)
- Ex. The Discourse also repurposed articles about their community into a ***[History of Cowichan](https://thediscourse.ca/history-in-cowichan)*** email course. In this case, they didn’t adapt the original articles much — they just added a short introduction to each email.

*[Email 1](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=fb8c6e150f)* | *[Email 2](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=8dda59d0fd)* | *[Email 3](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=4e404aaf8c)* | *[Email 4](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=6fb6ba297d)* | *[Email 5](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=f07d77da2e)* | *[Email 6](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=d430965aad)* | *[Email 7](https://us4.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf1967463da0ebc469d5c943c&id=34bbe84d0c)*

### **Measuring success**

Not only do we want to grow your mailing list, we also want to encourage donations. We will benchmark and evaluate the course’s impact on:

\# of subscribers

\# of superreaders (\>3\* contact rating on Mailchimp)

\# of supporters  
​

### **Recommended sprint schedule**

| **Schedule** | **Activity** | **Responsible** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Week 1-2** | Assign writer to create new series OR adapt existing series | Publisher |
| Provide creative assets | Publisher |  |
| Set email course goals | Publisher, with support from Indiegraf |  |
| **Week 3** | Optimize email course copy and put into Mailchimp | Indiegraf |
| Prepare promotion collateral: Draft landing page copy ​ Set up UTMs ​ Draft onsite ads ​ Draft lead gen ads ​ Draft newsletter CTAs ​ Draft social copy | Indiegraf, with approval from Publisher |  |
| Benchmark key metrics | Indiegraf |  |
| **Week 4** | Launch the course! Publish landing page ​ Activate onsite ads ​ Activate lead gen ​ \[Optional\] Send standalone announcement email | Indiegraf |
| Launch the course! Share social posts ​ Include CTA in regular newsletter | Publisher |  |
| **Week 5 onwards** | After the first cohort of sign-ups complete the course, analyze key metrics to see if we have met our goals. | Indiegraf |

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