Hey, it's the first holiday edition of The Hungry. Here's a true story:​

I subscribe to several junk emails

I had this thought randomly this week about some of the dozens of emails I get from different brands and publishers because I believe in their product or the person, but many people would consider them junk.

Junk emails are only junk if the senders' content and reputation are junk.

Here are three examples:

1. True Classic​

I’ve bought over two dozen shirts from. They hooked me with their “fit right” advertising, and they deliver a solid product. Their shirts are pricey, but the quality is so good they’re hard to ignore. Plus, they hand out good deals all the time.

Email frequency: daily or more.

2. Liquid Death​

Why would anybody subscribe to the newsletter of a water company? Because the company has both a sense of humor and knows its target market better than any company I’ve seen recently.

Frequency: 1-2 per week

3. VANS​

Truthfully, I buy more Nike than VANS, but I don’t enjoy Nike emails nearly as much. VANS is nostalgic for me, and I identify with everything the company represents.

Frequency: Multiple times per week

BONUS - Newsletter I should love but don’t: Patagonia​

I’ve bought from Patagonia and believe in the founder’s mission to leave this planet a better place than we found it, but their emails leave me flat. Uninspired and dull, their messages often are just sales push.

Unsubscribed after a few weeks.

Frequency: Daily

When it comes to email marketing and newsletters, quality content and stories trump everything else. People don't unsubscribe from lists that provide value, and that value is subjective to the people or brands that send the messages.

Marketing can be dull and ignorable, or it can be artful. The choice is yours.

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Small Bites

💩 - By now, you may have seen that Pantone shared its color for 2025, and as it goes lately, everyone has something to say about the choice, which is precisely what Pantone wants. Everything is marketing.​

🤝 - Want to grow your Instagram followers? Manychat transforms the IG algorithm into your biggest cheerleader, showing your content to an ever-growing new audience as your follower count rises day by day, for free! [Partner]

📖 - It was late, and I was walking into an AutoZone to find a replacement for a burned-out headlamp. Two minutes later, the young female cashier cowered behind me with her face pressed into my flannel jacket to avoid looking at the faceless man pointing a gun at us.

✏️ - Illustrator Mike Rohde sent me an email introducing himself and his blog/newsletter called Sketchnote Lab, where he talks about the art and process of creating sketch notes. Draw your thoughts for fun and profit (no profit guaranteed).

🎙️ - In 2017, Kevin Chung interviewed me for an episode of his podcast, and it was a good conversation, but a couple of years later, he lost the fire for publishing…until now. Kevin has returned to the mic with a new name, renewed focus, and a dedication toward helping creative people launch.

🩲 - Would you name your newsletter Big Undies? Well, it's a thing, and apparently, it's quite popular. Naming a newsletter is an art in itself, and Newsletter Operator shares some stories about how others came up with the name for their publication.

Dessert

• ​Keep Trying!​