Tough night. I'm one of the invited judges for List-Universe's annual competition for the 10 best email newsletters on the planet. They started sending over the 20 finalists (culled from almost a thousand submissions) a few minutes ago. My personal faves so far are Betty Bowers is a Better Christian Than You and Killer Plants.
But judging is not about my skewed sense of humor. It's about who really is the best.
Luckily contest-organizer Janet Roberts sent over a fairly scientific list of 13 attributes to score by. It's a great list to judge your own newsletter by as well -- whether you publish one as a promotional vehicle for your company or as a business in and of itself. They are:
1. Usefulness to readers/industry 2. Design 3. Clarity of mission 4. Writing quality 5. How well can a reader figure out who else is reading the newsletter? 6. Overall originality 7. Origin of content 8. Value to readers (could be collapsed into usefulness) 9. Does this newsletter build a community? 10. Any annoyance factor? 11. Does this newsletter have a recognizable personality that distinguishes it from other newsletters offering similar information? 12. Timeliness 13. Unique subject matter
