Guest post guidelines

Writing for the Mailsoftly blog.

You received this link because we agreed to publish a piece from you, or we are writing one for you. Everything below is what makes a draft go live without a round of edits: what we publish, how to format it, and how links work.
Original and unpublished · 1,500 to 2,200 words · Practical over promotional · Sourced claims only
The short version

We publish practical, original articles for people who run email for growing businesses, agencies, nonprofits and public sector teams. A good guest post answers one real question early, backs every number with a primary source, links to your site where it genuinely helps the reader, and reads like advice from a practitioner rather than a brochure. We add the internal links, the featured image and the final polish on our side.

What we publish

Topics our readers come for

Every post on the blog belongs to a topic cluster. Pitches that fit one of these land fastest.
Deliverability

Getting into the inbox

List hygiene and verification, authentication, sender reputation, warming up a domain, bounce and complaint handling, spam filter behavior.

Automation and lifecycle

Journeys that run themselves

Welcome series, onboarding, re-engagement, drip sequences, event and behavior triggers, segmentation that actually gets used.

Lists, forms and growth

Building a list worth emailing

Signup forms, landing pages, consent and compliance, migrations between platforms, keeping data clean as the list grows.

Design and copy

Emails people read

Subject lines, email design, personalization, newsletters, testing, accessibility, templates by industry.

By audience

Vertical playbooks

Email for nonprofits, schools and PTAs, government teams, agencies, professional services, retailers. Real constraints, real examples.

Not a fit

What we turn down

Pieces about your product, listicles that exist to place a link, content published or spun from elsewhere, anything with unsourced statistics, and topics with no connection to email.

Format

The shape of a post that goes live as written

Search engines and AI assistants both reward the same thing: a direct answer early, clear headings, and claims that can be checked.
Structure
1,500 to 2,200 wordsLong enough to be complete, short enough to be read. Comparison pieces may run to 2,700.
Direct answer in the first 10 percentA 40 to 60 word paragraph that answers the title's question before any background.
Question-style H2 and H3 headingsStrict hierarchy, one H1 (the title), no skipped levels. Headings should make sense read on their own.
Short paragraphs, one table where it helpsTwo to four sentences per paragraph. Use a table for any side by side comparison.
FAQ block at the endThree to five questions, each answered first, in two or three sentences.
Substance
Original and unpublishedNot on your blog, not on Medium, not a rewrite of a piece that ran elsewhere. We check.
Every number has a primary sourceLink to the study or the official documentation, not to a blog that quotes it. No stat, no claim.
Practitioner voiceSpecific steps, real examples, honest trade-offs. Say what you would actually do.
No years in the title or URL slugWe keep posts current, so titles and slugs that carry a year are out. Dates belong in the body when they matter.
Plain punctuationCommas, full stops and colons. We do not publish em dashes, and heavy bullet lists read as filler.
Links

How links work on a guest post

Links are for the reader. A link that helps someone finish the task stays; a link that exists for its own sake is removed in editing.
Link typeAllowedHow we publish it
To your own siteUp to two, in body text, where they genuinely help. One may sit in the author bio.Followed for agreed partners, opens in a new tab. We may shorten the anchor text.
To primary sourcesAs many as the claims need. Studies, standards, official docs.Followed, new tab.
To other email marketing platformsOnly when citing their own pricing or documentation.Nofollow, new tab.
Affiliate, sponsored or tracking linksNot accepted.Removed in editing.
Internal links to Mailsoftly pagesYou do not need to add any.We add four to seven from our own cluster map during editing.
Images and author

What to send with the draft

Images
We make the featured imageEvery post gets a designed square featured image from us. You do not need to supply one.
Screenshots welcomeYour own product or real examples, at least 1,600 pixels wide, PNG or WebP, no heavy overlaid text. Send them as separate files, not pasted into the doc.
Alt text for each imageOne descriptive sentence per image, in the doc where the image goes.
RightsOnly images you own or are licensed to publish. No stock photos of people at laptops.
Author
Name, title and companyA real person with a real role. We do not publish under a company name alone.
HeadshotSquare, at least 600 pixels, plain background.
Two-sentence bioWhat you do and why you are qualified to write this piece. A LinkedIn URL is welcome.
DeliveryA Google Doc with editing access, plain formatting, headings marked as headings. No PDFs or design files.
Process

From pitch to live URL

Four steps. Most partner posts are live within two weeks of a clean draft.
Step 1

Pitch

Email a working title, the question the post answers, and a three to five bullet outline. We reply within a few business days with a yes, a no, or a tweak.

Step 2

Draft

Send the Google Doc with images, alt text and author details. We read it against these guidelines and send one round of notes if needed.

Step 3

Edit

We edit for style, add internal links and visuals, build the featured image and set the metadata. The narrative and your links stay; the polish is ours.

Step 4

Publish

You get the live URL the day it goes up. Share it wherever you like. The post is marked as a partner contribution on our side and kept current with you, not over you.

When we write for you

What you can expect from a Mailsoftly article

The same standard, in reverse. If we contribute to your blog, this is what arrives.
Delivery

A Google Doc, on the agreed date

Original, unpublished, 1,500 to 2,200 words unless you ask for a different length, with headings marked, images as separate files with alt text, and an author bio with a headshot.

Links

Two links to Mailsoftly, at most

Placed where they help the reader and using the anchors in our media kit. Every statistic links to its primary source. We never link to your competitors.

Edits

Edit freely, keep the substance

Adjust for your house style, add your internal links and answer blocks. If a change alters a factual claim or removes a Mailsoftly link, send us a note before publishing.

Send a pitch

Pitch first, draft second.

A working title, the question the post answers, and a three to five bullet outline is all we need to say yes. Paste a Google Doc link if the draft already exists.
A real person repliesUsually within one or two business days, from the Mailsoftly team, not a ticket queue.
Read by the teamYour message goes to the people who run partnerships and content at Mailsoftly, and the reply comes from them.
Prefer email?[email protected] reaches the same people. The form just saves you the subject line.

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FAQ

Guest posting, answered

Do you accept paid or sponsored posts?

No. We publish contributions from partners and practitioners because the content is useful to our readers, and the links inside them are editorial. There is no fee in either direction, and we do not place sponsored or affiliate links.

Can I republish the post on my own blog later?

Not as a full copy. You are welcome to publish a short summary that links to the original on mailsoftly.com, and to share it in your newsletter and social channels. The full article stays exclusive to our blog.

Will you change my links or anchor text?

We keep the links we agreed on. We may shorten anchor text to two to five natural words, move a link to the sentence where it helps most, and we always open external links in a new tab. We will not remove an agreed partner link without telling you.

Can I mention my product in the post?

Yes, where it is the honest answer to the reader's problem, and no more than a competitor's product would be mentioned in the same spot. A how-to step that uses your tool is fine. A section that reads like a feature page is not.

How long does it take to publish?

Most posts are live within two weeks of a draft that meets these guidelines. A draft that needs a second round of edits takes longer. Tell us if you have a date in mind and we will say whether it is realistic.

Where do I send the pitch?

Use the pitch form on this page, or reply on the thread where you received this link. Include the working title and outline so we can answer in one message.

Ready when you are

Send the title and outline first. It saves both of us a full draft when the topic needs a small turn.

Send a pitch Open the media kit
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