Colin Payne
Email strategist creating newsletters worth opening
Befriending Yourself is my independent mindfulness and mental health newsletter on Substack. I lead editorial planning, topic development, writing and editing, translating nuanced ideas into accessible stories and practical reflections.
The project demonstrates how I build a consistent editorial voice and give readers a reason to return. The publication has grown to 135 followers and recorded 818 views in September 2026 so far.
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MMTCP Alumni Association needed a cleaner newsletter and a more coordinated email program. As a volunteer strategist, I redesigned the newsletter, introduced segmentation, wrote and designed landing pages, and centralized campaigns and reporting in Mailchimp. In a 55-day period around the time I took on more of the strategy, sends fell 33% versus the prior period, while click rate rose 7% to 5.6%. Click-to-open rate also rose 7% to 16.3%; open rate was 34.1% and delivery was 99.9%.
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Led HubSpot email marketing setup for a SaaS company, including segmentation, templates, and lifecycle workflows. Managed copywriting, editing, and newsletter campaigns, while coordinating content and basic design/layout. Handled list management, reporting, and campaign analysis. Supported broader marketing through social promotion. Helped build a structured, scalable email system, improving consistency, targeting, and overall engagement.
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Led email marketing setup and campaign execution in HubSpot for a SaaS platform with 60k+ contacts. Built foundational workflows, launched a recurring newsletter, and supported ongoing campaigns across teams. Focused on creating a consistent, scalable system for communication and engagement. Resulted in improved campaign reliability, streamlined processes, and stronger audience engagement across high-volume sends. Resulted in improved open and click rates, reliable delivery to 1M+ emails, and more consistent audience engagement.:
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