How to repurpose a newsletter into video
Your newsletter is better video material than your blog, because it already has a voice and a format. Here is which issues convert, and what the Substack data says about who this actually helps.
8 minute read
The recurring format is the asset, not any single issue
Read your last ten issues and find the repeating skeleton: the cold open, the main argument, the two or three things you always link, the sign-off. That skeleton is a show format, and you built it by accident over months. Video audiences reward formats for the same reason readers do, because a predictable container tells people what they are getting before they commit and removes the weekly question of what the thing should be. The common mistake is to convert one exceptional issue as an experiment, judge video by how that single upload performed, and stop. One video from a newsletter is a test of that video. The same format run weekly for two months is a test of the idea.
Your open rate is not your reach, and it is drifting
Before you size the audience you are about to tell, be careful with your own numbers. beehiiv's State of Newsletters report, covering 28 billion emails and more than 255 million unique readers in 2025, put the platform-wide open rate at 41.24 percent, up from 37.98 percent the year before, while click-through went the other way, falling from 4.74 percent to 3.23 percent. Mailchimp's cross-industry benchmarks sit lower again, around 35.63 percent opens and 2.62 percent clicks. Both carry the same caveat, which Mailchimp states directly: Apple's Mail Privacy Protection loads images on the recipient's behalf and registers opens that did not happen. Opens have inflated while clicks have fallen. For a video, the click is the number that matters, and it is the one moving the wrong way.
The video will not play inside the email
A constraint that catches people out on their first attempt. Litmus lists HTML5 video support in Apple Mail, iOS Mail, Outlook for Mac, Thunderbird, and Samsung Mail, and no support across webmail, which covers Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Outlook.com, along with the older Outlook desktop releases. Webmail is where most of your list reads you, so the practical pattern is the one every operator lands on: host the video elsewhere and put a still or a short animated GIF in the email that links to it. Litmus recommends the GIF fallback specifically. Put a play triangle on the image so it reads as video rather than decoration, and repeat the link as text underneath, because a meaningful share of readers have images switched off entirely.
Which issues convert and which ones should stay written
The filter is simpler than it looks. Issues built on one argument you were willing to defend convert well, because there is a claim to state and a case to walk through. So do teardowns, walkthroughs, behind-the-scenes issues, and anything where you changed your mind and can say why. Link roundups and curated digests convert badly, for the same reason listicles do: the value sits in scanning and choosing, and speech removes both. If your newsletter is mostly curation, do not narrate the links. Take the single item you had most to say about, make that the video, and leave the roundup in the email where it works. One good argument beats a spoken table of contents every time.
Tell your list, then cut the video back down
The advantage a newsletter has over a blog post is an audience you can address directly, and it gets wasted constantly. Put the video where the main piece normally sits rather than in a postscript, say plainly that this week is a video and roughly how long it runs, and keep a short written version underneath for people who will never click a player. That alone means the upload is not launching to nobody, which is the usual reason a first video looks like a failure. Then run it back the other way: the strongest ninety seconds, reframed vertical and captioned, becomes a clip that can carry a subscribe link home. FrameOS handles that cutting pass in one go, which is what stops a weekly issue costing a weekly afternoon in an editor. 300 credits for 3 days · no card.
FAQ
Should I turn my whole newsletter into a video?
No. Convert issues built on a single argument, a walkthrough, or a change of mind, and leave curated link roundups written. The value of a roundup is that readers can scan and pick, and narrating it removes exactly that. If a digest issue has one item you had a lot to say about, make that item the video and keep the rest in the email.
Can I embed a video directly in my newsletter?
Usually not in a way most readers will see. Litmus lists HTML5 video support in Apple Mail, iOS Mail, Outlook for Mac, Thunderbird and Samsung Mail, and none across webmail including Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.com. Since webmail is where most lists are read, host the video elsewhere and link a still image or short animated GIF to it, with the link repeated as text.
Does adding video to a newsletter actually grow it?
It depends on size, at least on Substack. Subalytics' analysis of more than 58,000 accounts over the first half of 2025, reported by Digiday, found video-heavy accounts with 500 to 5,000 subscribers grew 47 percent against 36 percent for text-focused ones, while among accounts over 50,000 subscribers the pattern reversed to 11 against 19 percent. It is correlational, so treat it as a signal rather than a rule.
How long should a newsletter video be?
Match the issue rather than a platform norm. A single-argument issue usually lands between five and twelve minutes spoken, because a natural reading-aloud pace runs at roughly 183 words a minute. If your issues run 800 words of actual argument, that is around four to five minutes of video, and padding it to hit some assumed minimum is the fastest way to lose the people who came from your list.
Sources
- The State of Newsletters 2026 · beehiiv
- Email Marketing Benchmarks and Industry Statistics · Mailchimp
- Substack's video bet could be a growth hack for small creators · Digiday
- Substack's video push sees modest bump, but a long road remains to win over creators · Digiday
- How to Embed Video in Your Email Marketing Campaigns · Litmus
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