The Cut email examples

The Cut begins with a welcome email on signup day. Its subject line, “Welcome to the Cut’s Daily Newsletter. Let’s Get Started.”, explains the promise directly, while the preview text sets expectations for curated stories, shareable content, and shopping picks. A newsletter arrives the same day, so the subscriber moves immediately from explanation to the recurring content experience.

After a pause, the emails settle into frequent editorial sends, with the newsletter as the default kind. The subjects keep changing with the lead story, from “It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl” to “What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now.” The digest appears on day 5 and follows the same broad editorial structure as the newsletters. By the end of the sample, some days carry more than one email, including a focused promotion for another newsletter.

Six of the ten emails use the preview text “Today in style, self, culture, and power.” This repeated line acts like a compact description of The Cut’s editorial territory, even when the subject centers on fan fiction, college life, sex, or New York culture. It creates continuity across varied lead stories without repeating the article angle in the inbox preview.

The exceptions make the immediate proposition more specific. The West Village email uses a preview about a new generation reshaping New York City living. The serialized-story email says, “Preview the first installment of a six-part short story in 'Dinner Party.'” The Old Navy email uses its preview to add a timely shopping angle about Prime Day deals. For your own program, a reusable brand promise can handle regular sends, while occasional previews clarify a special format, recommendation, or signup ask.

The Cut does not separate every commercial or subscription prompt into a standalone sale email. The welcome explains the newsletter, the regular emails include shopping advice and links to related newsletters, and the Cornell email includes subscription prompts. The “The Hater From Feeld, by Lauren Oyler” email narrows to one action: signing up for weekly chapters of the Dinner Party story. That focused ask gives a serialized editorial idea a clear next step.

The visual treatments also change with the content rather than applying uniformly. “The Man Sexting His Husband From 5,000 Miles Away” uses illustrations. “The Hater From Feeld, by Lauren Oyler” is the single email with a single CTA, while “We Tested Old Navy x Altuzarra’s Affordable Collaboration” uses a product grid. Red appears across several of the later emails, including these focused examples. Copy the principle by matching the format to the job: a story-led layout for reading, one CTA for a single signup, and a product grid when several shopping recommendations need to be scanned.