Free Email newletter for Millennials – Easy, Witty, Timely
Missed the news of the day? NewNeek can relate!
If you have no time to read a newspaper and if you are a Korean, then “NewNeek(뉴닉)” could be your best option. NewNeek is a free email newsletter that caters millennials with important news into easy-to-understand summaries. They send you emails every Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. And its unique sense of humor is a bonus!
How did it start?
NewNeek, a newsletter service startup located in South Korea, started by a few people who had the same concern like us – who don’t have “time,” not interest to read news. In December 2018, they launched an e-mail service targeting young generation who are in their 20s to 35. Then they have grown exponentially. 3 months after the launch, the number of subscribers reached 30,000. And as of August 2019, 71,000. Employees? Only 5. I believe its business hasn’t even started to run wild.
What’s the difference?
Many news publishers in Korea have already been there. With a bitter taste of failure; many media had sent newsletters but most of them didn’t end profitable. NewNeek tried the same newsletter service 10 years later. And they keep rolling.
What was the difference? They targeted the audience specifically. Or in other words, they found their niche. And they think in customer’s shoes. Or in other words, they took a customer-oriented approach.
Millennials say “No time. No background knowledge. But Yes for news.”
NewNeek’s target was specific. Millennials who don’t have much time to read a newspaper. And every moment NewNeek made a decision, millennials were at the very center.
Understand, understand, and understand!
The difference started from a small idea: millennials aren’t indifferent to news. They are just too busy to read them! It many seem trivial, but this different paradigm set the further direction differently.
The NewNeek team studied preferences and psycho-graphics of millennials to understand them thoroughly. They focused on their lifestyle and needs. And they asked why – why they need news; why they are not reading news despite their needs. They dived deeper to customize the service for their target audience.
Ask, ask, and ask!
Since they released the beta version in September 2019, they’ve thrown questions tenaciously. They actually met a few top-ranked users to collect candid feedback. They asked their subscribers about details; tone, writing style, and even how many emoticons to use in a newsletter(Journalist Association of Korea).
And they diversified the channels for feedback. They used a questionnaires, surveys, an open chat, offline meetings, and website comments.
What did they do to win millennials?
A co-founder of NewNeek illustrated its success as the tangible outcomes it has made. “We’ve gathered 7 million people only through Word-of-Mouth. Not only did the number of subscribers increase. We receive hundreds of feedback. And we can see positive comments of our service on social media (MediaToday).”
NewNeek’s magic potion to fascinate millennial generation
Technically, all news services are savvy and smart. But NewNeek has other edges. To interact with millennials, NewNeek made a friendly brand icon – a witty chatterer, “Goseumi.”
Secret ingredients of the magic potion
- They made an icon : Goseumi (a hedgehog)
- They set the tone : Witty, Conversational
- They picked the brand color : Orange
- They named their community of subscribers : NewNeeker
- They even made a catchy song
NewNeek has other design details too. The background texture or the logo in the email remind of the printed newspaper. These detailed touches also strengthen its unique identity.
The each and every element constitutes a powerful brand identity. Someday, when a person sees the orange color from the email, he or she might remind NewNeek. Like whenever we associate green and coffee with Starbucks.
Recently, they had their 1st birthday celebration for Goseumi! 100 fans gathered at the party to celebrate its birthday. This was the opportunity for an online service company to communicate with their customers who know them best.
Customers are the best brand ambassadors
Another secret ingredient for their success recipe is loyal customers. From the beginning, NewNeek has built a bonding relationship with its customers. The email service(I say “modern style letter”) plays a vital role. The platform, letter, goes well with conversational tone and storytelling. Once you read its news digest, you may get the feeling – the feeling that you are listening to someone’s story.
The bond with customers is mutually beneficial. When NewNeek asked their customers to take part in surveys, people gladly helped. Now people are voluntarily sharing and recommending NewNeek through their social media (like I am doing). Nowadays one can easily find user-generated content about NewNeek, which is being created every day and getting viral. In short, they are making fans.
Based on these loyal customers, NewNeek is still expanding their reach. Their goal to reach 500 thousands people within 2019. For your information, the people between 20 to 35 are 10 million. At this rate, it doesn’t seem unattainable.
Even the consumer reactions are witty. Here are testimonial examples :
- Without NewNeek, I wouldn’t even have gone to the job interview.
- Even journalists read NewNeek
Towards a sustainable model
The problem still remains : how to make the mission sustainable?
They are now working to build a profitable business model to gain incentives when they please subscribers(MediaToday). Surprisingly, they don’t earn money from advertising. Their profits are solely based on crowdfunding for now.
Insights
NewNeek is a market disruptor. It earned support from the place where conventional media companies went futile.
Its service has made changes beyond news delivery. It is lowering a psycholgical barrier that millennials had with difficult jargons. Jargon in the news, such as financial derivatives, futures and options, make news content hard to approach. When this happens, millennials might think “this is not my thing.” Then many of them give up. This is why NewNeek focused on making the news easy-to-understand.
Now more of their subscribers consume news articles from traditional media companies. How? Through the hyperlinks attached in the newsletter. Yes, NewNeek is helping people to get over the psychological threshold.
Lessons Learned
- The power of different perspective
- Audience targeting
- Customer-oriented approach
- Differentiation and brand identity
- Loyal customer base
- It may seem simple on the surface, but the process underneath isn’t. Success is not a lottery jackpot. It’s a tower built with stones.
Although similar services might emerge, NewNeek’s service would be hard to emulate. A business model based on solid brand identity has its own authenticity. It maybe easy to copy them but difficult to generate comparable outcomes.
News for Every Week, NewNeek
This post is not an ad but my candid review after subscription. As one of thousands users, I hope NewNeek to be a platform that millennials can band together. A platform that not only delivers news to millennials, but also the one that millennials interact and share news through.
Further ideas for pioneering moves
NewNeek could make pioneering moves consistently. It can try a fact check system by tapping into its NewNeeker community. This “knowledge crowd-sourcing” system could be the start of profit model that NewNeek is seeking.
If you want to know more about NewNeek
If you are a Korean who are skeptical of newsletter services, try NewNeek. Once you find Goseumi chattering the news of the day to you, you can’t help falling in love with the it. And you might say, “Oh, I would be the most knowledgeable person!”
- Brand mission and goal(the teams)
- Work process and business model(Byline Network)
- The service platforms(Stibee, I’mweb)
뉴닉, 밀레니얼, 뉴스레터, 고객중심, 고슴이, 브랜드, WOM, 소셜임팩트
Ideas for Social Impact 