Build a Claude Skill for Your Weekly Newsletter

Short answer: a Claude Skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file that tells Claude how to do a specific job your way. Write one for your newsletter (your voice, your sections, where the content comes from, and the steps to draft, test and schedule it), upload it under Customize → Skills, and connect Audienceful. Then "run the weekly newsletter" produces a draft in your email editor, a test in your inbox and a send waiting for your approval.

Most people who use Claude for a newsletter repeat the same long prompt every week: the tone, the sections, the word count, the audience, the time. A skill turns that prompt into something Claude keeps and applies whenever it's relevant. Paired with a connection to your email platform, it covers the whole routine, not just the writing.

What you need

• Claude with Skills turned on. Skills work on every Claude plan, including Free. They need code execution, so on Free, Pro and Max turn on Code execution and file creation under Settings → Capabilities. On Team and Enterprise, an admin enables skills for the organization.
• Audienceful connected to Claude. Add https://api.audienceful.com/v2/mcp as a custom connector under Customize → Connectors. Step-by-step: email marketing with Claude. No account yet? Start free.
• Your last few issues, to show Claude what good looks like.

How a skill works with your email platform

A skill is instructions; the connector is access. The skill tells Claude how your newsletter is put together and which steps to take. The Audienceful connector is what lets Claude take them: read your last send, create the draft, send a test, preview the send. A skill on its own can't reach Audienceful, and the connector on its own doesn't know your house style. Together they turn a one-line request into the finished routine.

Step 1: Write the SKILL.md

Here's a complete skill for a weekly product newsletter. Copy it and change the details.

---
name: weekly-newsletter
description: Drafts, tests and schedules our weekly customer newsletter in Audienceful. Use when asked to write, run or prepare the weekly newsletter.
---

# Weekly newsletter

## Voice
- Plain, friendly and specific. Short sentences. No hype words
  ("revolutionary", "game-changing") and no exclamation marks.
- Write to one reader, as "you". Sign off as "Sam, founder".

## Structure
1. One-line opener that says what's in this issue.
2. Lead story: the biggest launch or change this week, 120-180 words,
   one button.
3. "Also new": two or three short updates, two sentences each.
4. One tip for getting more out of the product.
5. Sign-off.
Keep the whole email under 450 words.

## Sources
- This week's posts on our blog and changelog. Ask me for links if
  none are given.
- Never invent features, numbers or customer quotes. If something is
  unclear, ask.

## Steps in Audienceful
1. Look at the last three sends and their open and click rates.
   Mention anything notable in one line before you start.
2. Create a new draft on our default theme with the structure above.
   Subject line under 45 characters; preview text that adds to it
   rather than repeating it.
3. Send a test to sam@example.com.
4. Prepare the send to the "Newsletter" audience for the next
   Tuesday at 9:00 America/New_York. Show me the preview (recipient
   count, sample recipients and time) and wait. Never schedule without
   my explicit approval in this conversation.
5. Finish with a one-paragraph summary and the link to the draft.

A few rules make skills work better:

• The description decides when Claude uses it. Say what it does and when to use it. Keep it under 200 characters.
• The name must match the folder name, in lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens.
• Keep it short. Under 500 lines is the guideline. Put long material, like five example issues, in a references/ folder next to SKILL.md and mention it in the instructions.
• Write the approval rule into the skill. Audienceful already requires a preview before any send, but saying so in the skill keeps Claude from asking you to approve something you haven't seen.

Step 2: Or have Claude write it with you

If you'd rather not write it by hand, turn on Anthropic's skill-creator skill under Customize → Skills and ask:

"Use the skill-creator skill to build a skill for our weekly newsletter. Look at our last five sends in Audienceful to learn the voice and structure, then ask me what's missing."

Claude reads your past issues through the connector, drafts the SKILL.md, and asks about anything it can't infer, like the sign-off or the audience name. It can also test the skill and suggest fixes.

Step 3: Upload the skill

1. Put SKILL.md in a folder named after the skill, for example weekly-newsletter/SKILL.md.
2. Zip the folder, not just the file. A SKILL.md at the top level of the zip isn't recognized.
3. In Claude, open Customize → Skills, click +, then Create skill → Upload a skill, and choose the zip.

The skill is now available in claude.ai and Claude Desktop.

Step 4: Run it

In a new chat with the Audienceful connector on:

"Run the weekly newsletter. This week's posts: [link], [link]. Lead with the new reporting dashboard."

Claude follows the skill: it checks your last three sends, writes the draft in Audienceful, sends you a test, then shows you the send preview and waits. Read the test, ask for changes ("shorten the tip, swap the button text"), and approve when it's right. Your approval works once, for exactly the recipients in the preview.

Step 5: Put it on a schedule

On paid Claude plans, scheduled tasks can run a prompt every week, with access to your connectors and skills. Set one up to run the skill on Monday morning, with the instruction to stop at the test and the preview:

"Every Monday at 8am, run the weekly newsletter skill with this week's blog posts, send me the test, and leave the send waiting for my approval."

By the time you open Claude on Monday, the draft is in Audienceful and the test is in your inbox, and the send waits for you. For a belt-and-braces setup, set Audienceful's schedule_send tool to Needs approval in Claude's connector settings, so no scheduled run can send without you.

Skills for the rest of your email

Once the newsletter skill works, the same pattern fits other routines:

• A launch skill that drafts the announcement, builds an audience of everyone who used the related feature, and prepares a send. See the product launch recipe.
• A monthly report skill that pulls opens, clicks, top links, list growth and revenue, and writes a one-page summary for your team. See the campaign analysis recipe.
• A list hygiene skill that finds hard bounces and long-inactive contacts each quarter and suppresses them after showing you the count. See the list cleaning recipe.

More starting points, each with the Audienceful tools it uses, are in the AI email prompts library.

Why do this with Audienceful

• The skill can run the whole routine. Because Audienceful's MCP server can create drafts, send tests and schedule approved sends, the skill doesn't stop at a block of text.
• Your team sees the work. Drafts land in a collaborative editor, so a teammate can edit the issue Claude wrote before you approve the send.
• Your back issues keep working. Every send gets a web version in your newsletter archive, so readers and search engines can find past issues.
• Simple pricing. Free up to 1,000 contacts, then paid plans from $29/month billed yearly ($37.50 monthly) for 3,000 contacts. See pricing.
• It's on every plan, including Free, and doesn't use Audienceful AI credits. Prefer to stay in the app? The built-in AI agent writes from your best-performing sends too.

Start free, connect Claude, and let this week's issue be the last one you write from scratch.

FAQs

What are Claude Skills?

Skills are folders of instructions, and optionally scripts and reference files, that teach Claude to do a task a specific way. Each has a SKILL.md file with a name and description that tell Claude when to use it. They're available on every Claude plan.

Can a Claude Skill send emails?

A skill can't reach any service itself. Connected to Audienceful through the MCP connector, Claude can follow the skill's steps to draft, test and schedule a newsletter, and every send needs your approval of the exact recipients.

Can I use Claude Skills with Claude Cowork?

Yes. Skills, connectors and scheduled tasks all work in Cowork, which Anthropic is folding into the main Claude app for Pro and Max users. Scheduled tasks need a paid plan.

Can I do this in ChatGPT?

The same idea works with a ChatGPT Project or custom GPT that holds your newsletter instructions, connected to Audienceful as a custom app. See ChatGPT for email marketing.