Newsletter Crew

Lindsay Gibbs is the author of Power Plays, “No BS newsletter about sexism in sports.” Gibbs writes about the cultural and political context behind women's sports. She was an early writer for Substack Pro, and has been building her newsletter for over a year. Here, she shares her playbook for writing and growing a newsletter—while staying genuine, authentic, and marketing-free. 

Walt Hickey is the author of Numlock News, a daily newsletter with tens of thousands of subscribers. Hickey started working in newsletters as a data journalist in 2014, before creating his own platform on Substack in 2018. Here, he shares his writing process, growth strategy, and more.

How do you make sure your emails aren't marked as spam? What causes your newsletter to go to the dreaded "promotions" tab? How can you fix it? Deliverability specialist Yanna-Torry Aspraki answers all of your email deliverability questions. 

As you start to develop a monetization strategy for your newsletter, a question arises: What should you do with the money? Once your newsletter generates revenue, you have a few options. You can file taxes on that income as a sole proprietor, or you can decide to file an LLC and create a business. This week, I asked Ryan Pitylak, the CMO of ZenBusiness, to answer questions about the paperwork behind the scenes of starting a newsletter business. 

In last week’s panel on B2B media, I asked three experts for their advice on growing a newsletter. I spoke with Mark Stenberg, a media reporter for AdWeek and author of the newsletter Medialyte, Josh Kaplan, who previously helped scale Morning Brew and works with creators like Kinsey Grant and Colin & Samir to develop their brands, and Polina Marinova Pompliano, who writes the wildly popular newsletter The Profile. All three shared their top advice for newsletter writers. 

Abena Anim-Somuah is the co-founder of Food Supply, a two-month old media upstart that includes a newsletter, Le Digestif, a digital cookbook of curated recipes, and coming soon, a community for culinary creators. Here, Anim-Somuah shares her strategies for building a brand from scratch, developing digital communities in tandem with newsletters, and writing creatively. 

When Tim Huelskamp launched his daily newsletter in 2017, he started with just 78 subscribers. Today, 1440 Media has over 700,000 subscribers with an open rate above 50 percent. How did he do it? Here, Huelskamp shares his advice for entrepreneurs starting their own newsletter businesses, and the strategies he used to build the company.

Terrel Johnson started The Half Marathoner as a static directory of half marathon races more than 16 years ago. Today, he's turned The Half Marathoner into a weekly newsletter with more than 50,000 subscribers. Here, Terrel shares his writing process, his monetization strategies, and the long-term vision behind his newsletter.

Dana James is the writer of Black Iowa News, a newsletter focused on providing factual information and unique reporting for the Black community in Iowa. Here, James shares her perspective on writing and reporting news at the local level.

Claire Zulkey is a writer, journalist, and creator of the Evil Witches newsletter, a weekly newsletter about the trials and joys of family life. Zulkey covers everything from parenting advice to recommendations for storebought cookies. She launched her newsletter through a private Facebook group of friends and moms who wanted to share candidly about their experiences, and has since launched paid memberships. Here, she shares her strategies for writing and growing her newsletter.

Christopher Sopher is the co-founder and CEO of Letterhead, a platform that offers business tools for newsletters. Sopher is also the co-founder of Whereby Us, a network of local newsletters in Miami, Seattle, Portland, and Pittsburgh. Whereby Us is profitable and earns over $1.5 million in revenue per year. In this episode, Sopher shares his strategies for developing newsletters, aligning relationships with advertisers to meet the needs of readers, and creating an authentic community through local news.

Yaro Bagriy, the founder of Newsletter Crew, shares the lessons he's learned from thousands of conversations with newsletter writers.

About this episode: Local newsletters are becoming the hottest rage in the newsletter world. This week I had the opportunity to discuss how to build a local newsletter with a local newsletter expert, Ryan Sneddon. In this episode, we discuss the opportunity of local newsletters, how they’re drastically different from the standard newsletter, how to build a successful local newsletter, and so much more.

About this episode: This week I sat down with Mare Dolle, a newsletter creator with over 4k subscribers who is also pushing the edge with newsletter innovations. In this episode, we talk about the unique types of monetization opening up for newsletters and also some of the unique ways newsletters are doing advertising. This episode is great for anyone interested in how newsletters will monetize in the future.

About this episode: This week I had the opportunity to sit down with Andrew Kamphey and Nii Ahene to talk about their recent newsletter acquisition they did. Nii has officially acquired Influence Weekly, a weekly newsletter on the Influencer Marketing industry. Andrew ran this newsletter for 3 years before Nii acquired it. And in this episode we’re going to dive deep into their story. It’s almost going to be a retrospective on this acquisition. This is a highly recommended episode for anyone that’s interested in ever selling their newsletter.

About this episode: This week I had the pleasure to talk to a very interesting individual who knows a lot about newsletter sponsors, Pete Codes. Pete runs two newsletters with a total of 6k subscribers and is earning $1400 per month via sponsorships! In this episode, we’re going to dive into his method of achieving this awesome revenue milestone, how we can apply his methodology to our newsletters, and the mindset you’ll need to land high paying sponsors consistently.

About this episode: This week we have Ryan Sager and Jesse Watkins from Email Revenue Solutions. These two are the experts on newsletter sponsorships. In this episode, we’re going to discuss the secrets to finding newsletter sponsors, how to increase sponsor fill rates, how to price newsletter sponsors, and when to increase prices.

About this episode: This week we have Caroline Porter & Joseph Lichterman, two successful newsletter creators and journalists who, with their friend Emily Roseman, are running a course called Newsletter Strategies for Journalists: How to Create, Grow & Monetize Newsletters. In this episode we're going to discuss how to find the right monetization strategy for your newsletter, growth tips, and their thoughts on Substack.

About this episode: This week we have Sam Parr, the founder of The Hustle, a massively successful newsletter with over 1 million subscribers. In this episode, we're diving deep on The Hustle's main growth channels, how The Hustle got its first 150k subscribers, how Sam would grow a newsletter to 1 million subscribers today, optimizing the overlooked parts of your newsletter, and so much more.

About this episode: A few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting Blake Ellison on Twitter. He mentioned he runs an analytics service called Analysts Now and actually helped Kevin Conti, who was on episode 31, grow to over $10k MRR with his newsletter Softwareideas. I got Blake and a member of the Newsletter Crew community, Stefan from Alternative Assets, to hop on a call and analyze Stefan’s newsletter.

About this episode: In this episode, I have the pleasure of talking with one of the most successful newsletter creators. Maximillian Rofagha of Finimize. Finimize has over 1 million subscribers and has expanded into a community and mobile app. We'll be discussing the best growth channels for your newsletter from 0 to 1k, 1k to 10k, and 10k to 100k subscribers. We're also going to dive into Finnimize's newsletter format and why Maximillian chose to structure in that fashion.

About this episode: This week we have Ernie Smith, a veteran in the newsletter space. Ernie has been running his newsletter Tedium for over six years and is also the founder of the Newsletter Nerds Facebook group. In this episode, we discuss what makes a newsletter successful, his newsletter tech stack, and the future of newsletters.

About this episode: This week we have Nick Frost, the expert on newsletter directories. Nick runs two of the most popular newsletter directories, newsletters.co and inboxstash.com. We've been hearing a lot of questions about what newsletter directories are, what they're used for, why you should submit to them, and what benefits they provide. So we wanted to bring Nick on and have him answer them all.

About this episode: This week we have Codie Sanchez, a successful newsletter creator who runs multiple newsletters. Her most popular being Contrarian Thinking, which currently has over 100k subscribers. In this episode, we're going to discuss the exact steps she took to get her newsletter from 0 to 50k subscribers and how you can go from 0 to 10k subscribers in 30 days.

About this episode: This week we have Simon Owens, a successful independent journalist running a paid newsletter on Substack. Simon also runs a popular podcast called The Business of Content, which is about how publishers create, distribute, and monetize digital content. In this episode we're going to dive into the pluses and minuses of publishing on Substack and when it makes sense to switch. We're also going to dive into the paid newsletter best practices and Simons weekly newsletter workflow.

About this episode: This week we have John Saddington who's been running newsletters for over 10 years now. John is currently running his newest newsletter called Yen.fm, a daily newsletter for community-minded professionals. I wanted to bring him on the podcast because he wrote a really interesting deep dive called Build, Test, and Launch an Email Newsletter From Scratch. In that deep dive, there's a section on how to build a publication workflow that won’t burn you out. So in this podcast, we're going to dive deep into this workflow to help you in your newsletter journey. We're also going to talk about the writing process changes over the years.

This week we have Kevin Conti of Softwareideas.io, a newsletter that's generating over $8000 in MRR in just over 4-months. Software Ideas is a newsletter that sends you hand-picked, validated SaaS ideas every week. On this episode, we're going to cover how Kevin was able to get this newsletter to $8000 MRR, his newsletter pre-sale strategy, and the unique metrics he was tracking during his pre-sale to verify his idea was going to be profitable. We're also going to cover how he's dealing with plagiarism with his newsletter.

On this episode, we have Alex Hillman from stackingthebricks.com. Alex is an expert in email lists and newsletters. We'll dive into some interesting topics such as the common misconceptions with email lists and a type of newsletter called evergreen newsletters, which is essentially a fully automated newsletter.

On this episode, we have the talented Anne-Laure Le Cunff. She runs a newsletter called Maker Mind that currently has over 20k subscribers. We'll cover topics like lead magnets, monetization, sponsorships, affiliates, growing to 20k subscribers and more!

In this episode, we have Peter Cooper, the god-father of newsletters according to Chris Osborne. Peter runs over 10 newsletters, so we're going to discuss how he's managing a newsletter empire. We'll also discuss how your newsletter can survive in the long term.

In this episode, we have Steph Smith, who's a part of one of the most successful newsletters The Hustle and Trends, which is read by millions of subscribers. We'll talk about some interesting topics such as the secret to creating a successful newsletter and how The Hustle went about pricing their subscription newsletter and community called Trends.

On this episode we gathered a few members from the Newsletter Crew community to discuss the problems with building on Substack. Now it won't be an hour of straight bashing but a conversation about who's it really built and the pitfalls newsletter creators can fall into when using it.

This week we're speaking to Isaac Saul, who is running an $80k/year Substack newsletter called Tangle. In this episode, we'll discuss Isaac's radically different philosophy of free versus paid newsletter offerings, how Isaac decided to start a paid newsletter, what his plans are with his newsletter after the election, and much more.

In today's episode, we have 3 amazing guests from the Newsletter Crew community. Our first guest is Chris Osborne who was on episode 7 and has 4 newsletter acquisitions under his belt. He's definitely the guy I look up to when it comes to selling your newsletter. Our second guest is Ivy Lee the founder of LetterXchange.com, an online marketplace for buying newsletters. LetterXchange has been really pushing the bounds on newsletter evaluations. Our third and final guest is Jonas the founder of Duuce.com, another amazing marketplace that connects newsletter sellers and buyers. These 3 are some of the most well-versed people within the newsletter valuation space currently and I'm excited to have them on the show.

This week we're speaking to Uri Bram, a publisher at The Browser, which is literally the number one curation based newsletter on the internet today. In this episode we'll cover some juicy topics such as why The Browser moved from Substack over to Ghost, how they were able still be around after 10 years, their pricing plans, and so much more

About this episode: This week we have Monica Lent, a successful newsletter creator, and developer. She runs Blogging for Devs which has over 1800+ subscribers and also achieved Product of the Day on ProductHunt. In this episode, we’ll discuss her welcome emails and email course challenge that has seen very impressive retention rates for her newsletter.

In this episode we talk with Josh Spector about how to grow to 10k subscribers, niching your newsletter down, and top subscriber sources.

About this episode: This week we dive deep into Manu Cinca’s newsletter Stacked Marketer, a newsletter that is earning $14k/month. We’ll discuss topics such as finding advertisers, inbound and outbound advertisers, Facebook ads, and newsletter ads. We’ll also discuss Stacked Marketers three main reader acquisition channels, the effectiveness of ads written in the newsletters own voice, and so much more! This episode is critical for anyone interested in really building a profitable newsletter.Episode sponsor: InboxReadsNewsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCAST Membership to the Newsletter Crew includes access to successful newsletter creators, helpful vibrant community forums and chat, amazing private content, AMAs, webinars, ability to be on the community podcast episodes, and so much more.Show Notes & Insights:The best time you sell your newsletter is when you don't need to sell your newsletter.Find a niche that's underserved. Create your newsletter around that niche and fill that value-gap that's there. You'll see great success!Once you have content nailed down your newsletter tends to become nicely scaleable.The more cash you have in the bank, the more options you have to make a sizable bet on your newsletter.Your newsletter reader acquisition strategy should include the following: a referral program, paid marketing (other newsletters,  Facebook ads, etc),  and cross-promotions.  Stacked Marketer's referral program brings in about 20% of the newsletter daily newsletter subscribers.Something many new newsletter creators may not know, but It's common for Facebook ads to completely shoot-up in price around the New Years time.Take a shot at advertising in other newsletters adjacent to your niche.Newsletter advertising generally has a lower reader acquisition cost than other channels (i.e. media buying).Newsletter ads > Facebook adsIf you're looking to advertise in other newsletters you don't need to go super niche. As long as the general audience has some overlap with your newsletter.Usually newsletters that are competing with you probably won't want to cross promote or even take money from you for advertising. Find adjacent niches to target.Actively have benchmarks you're working toward.1/3 of the advertisers book more ads with Stacked Marketer.The click quality matters more than click-through rate.When you're starting with advertising you'll hit good months and bad months. Once you've been well established, then you'll start seeing a stead stream of advertisers.Don't focus on outbound advertising acquisition. Most newsletter creators get their advertisers inbound.Finding advertisers outbound is high effort with little reward.If you're looking for advertisers simply focus on subscriber growth. First, it gets you more inbound advertisers (more informed too). Second, you're able to charge more to that advertiser as you grow.It's too difficult to convince someone who's not familiar with newsletter advertising or your newsletter specifically to sponsor it.Inbound advertisers > outbound advertisersIf one week you don't have a sponsor slot filled, replace it with " This could be your ad here" or something similar. Remind the readers that they have an opportunity to advertise in your newsletter.Never place a word-for-word advertisement by the advertisers. Make sure to write it in such a way that it fits naturally into your newsletter. This will help conversion rates as well as makes it pleasant for the readers.Newsletter + Guest Info:Manu Cinca: https://twitter.com/emanuelcincaStacked Marketer: https://www.stackedmarketer.com/_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: This week we have the successful Casey Botticello with us. Casey is a very successful blogger and newsletter creator. He’s one of the few recipients of the Substack Writers Grant, creator of the Substack Writers Facebook group, and has over 10,000 subscribers on his newsletter called Blogging Guide. In this episode, we’ll cover his perspective on blogging versus newsletters, open rates, and optimizing paid conversions on Substack. We also have a second part of this podcast which will cover how to create digital content to increase ROI and revenue and creative uses of newsletters. To get access to this second part, join the Newsletter Crew community.Episode sponsor: SparkLoopNewsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTMembership to the Newsletter Crew includes access to successful newsletter creators, helpful vibrant community forums and chat, amazing private content, AMAs, webinars, and so much more.Show Notes & Insights:The funding a16z gave Substack makes them a company to be taken seriously with especially with larger publications.Newsletters have been around since the internet was been around, but Substack was able to create a platform where it had everything a publisher would need to be successful.Substack was able to combine WordPress (CRM) and any email marketing platform into one.Blogs are great to get surface area. You have access to SEO, longer-form writing, and generally more eyes on it. While a newsletter is great for building an audience.Even an archived newsletter probably won’t get as much SEO traffic as a blog.Blogs are mostly meant to be useful pieces of content. While newsletters tend to convey more of the personality of the creator.The medium is the message.There really is no definitive answer on when and what day is the best to post your newsletter.The real difficult part to establish is the date and time for a paid newsletter.Most of the top business newsletters (Stratechery, Sinocism, etc) send their newsletters out between 9 am-10 am, where most business professionals are at their inbox.Some newsletters see higher open rates and free-to-paid conversions around 6 pm. Each newsletter is unique and you should experiment with when to send your newsletter.Send more newsletters to the free subscribers. This will encourage more paid conversions.Deviating from your standard schedule might entice a higher open rate since subscribers could see this as something more actionable than the standard.To increase free-to-paid conversions on Substack, utilize the subscriber welcome page and point them to your best content.On Substack optimize the unfinished email subscription page. This is the email that free subscribers of Substacks get when they haven’t upgraded to a paid version. This should be your professional sales copy page.Provide your paid subscribers clear and demonstrable value with their subscription.Give away and include content upfront with a paid subscription. Show the value of the subscription. This will increase paid conversions guaranteed.Every paid subscriber’s expectations are different, so the safest way to provide value is to over-deliver.If less than 10% of your new subscribers are paid subscribers then you should focus on converting your list more.If over 10% of your new subscribers are paid subscribers then you should focus on more content.Newsletter + Guest Info:Casey Botticello: https://caseybotticello.com/Blogging Guide: https://bloggingguide.substack.com20% discount to Blogging Guide: https://bloggingguide.substack.com/newslettercrew_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: This week we have the first Newsletter Crew community episode. We’re going to start doing community episodes frequently now. These episodes will consist of having 3-4 members of the Newsletter Crew community come on and discuss hot topics within the newsletter space. And this week we’re discussing a very interesting topic. Are we in a newsletter bubble? This week we have Zahid, Reza, Rohan, and David joining us! Zahid is a newsletter publisher and maker of Mereku, a discovery platform for newsletter content. Reza, who is a writer and startup growth strategist and Head of Growth at Sorted and writes a weekly newsletter called Out of Curiosity, which promotes mental models to help you get 1% better every day. Rohan runs the Bootstrapped Branding newsletter which helps all kinds of early-stage entrepreneurs build killer brands without big budgets, personal connections, or prior experience. and David who runs The Land of Random, a newsletter rediscovering the magic of the internet.Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vnL75CsSKAEpisode sponsor: SparkLoopFeature Newsletter Growth Story: This week we’re featuring Victor Lei, creator of The Average Joe newsletter. Victor’s newsletter is growing 30% faster with a SparkLoop referral program without having to lift a finger.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTShow Notes & Insights:We’re still early in this newsletter cycle. The bubble is far out but coming.A lot of people will drop off after they either go back to work or their circumstances change.Are we really in a “bubble” or simply a hype cycle?Newsletters are becoming what blogs were ten years ago.Our tastes are shifting, we all want to go straight to the source.The ways, means of creation, and barriers are entry have been changed. It’s so much easier to start a newsletter today.Newsletters are a medium that will get more popular due to the sea of content that’s here.Newsletters get the keys to the kingdom.Most people who start a newsletter will drop off.There is something inherently human about newsletter type of communication.Newsletter fatigue is only happening in our own newsletter bubble. Normal people probably are only subscribed to one or two newsletters.Practice in public.Newsletter Crew Community Guests:Zahid Lilani: @ZahidLilani, MerekuReza Saeedi: @rezsaeedi, Out of CuriosityRohan Gandhi: @timesnewrohan, Bootstrapped BrandingDavid Nichols: @land_ofrandom, Land of Random_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: This week we have the rising-star Brandon Zhang. His newsletter Weekly Wisdom has over 1050+ subscribers and is growing insanely fast. In this episode we’ll cover what Gen Z thinks of newsletters and if they’re even reading them. We’ll also dive into the importance of mastermind groups and the structure of the mastermind group Brandon is in. Then we’ll move into Brandon’s 25 newsletter growth tips.Episode sponsor: SparkLoopFeature Newsletter Growth Story: This week we’re featuring Nicholas Platt. His newsletter Lifespan saw growth from 0 to 50,000 subscribers with SparkLoops referral program.Announcement: Newsletter Crew has just recently acquired InboxStash, one of the largest email newsletter directories on the internet. We just recently relaunched and invite you to submit your newsletter to the directory. It’ll be an amazing passive growth channel for any newsletter. Also, for members of the Newsletter Crew, you’ll have an exclusive spot on the featured section on the front page. Check out InboxStash here.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTShow Notes & Insights:In the current state page views don’t matter, it’s all about how much of your audience you control.A small percentage of Gen Z are reading newsletters. Most of the newsletters they’re reading are in the business space. They get started on the bigger newsletters like The Hustle or Morning Brew. This opens them up to the more niche newsletters out there.The basic structure of the mastermind group should ask everyone is “What did you ship this week?”, “What do you want to change for the next week?”, and what was one newsletter that you really enjoyed, what made it so enjoyable, and what was one thing that they did right in that newsletter.The main function of a mastermind group is to hold everyone accountable and to share ideas.“A+ consistency with B+ quality beats out A+ quality with B+ consistency.”6-8 people are the perfect number for a mastermind group to have.There needs to be a balance between depth on how each person goes but also try to keep meetings between an hour and an hour and a half. With 6 people everyone gets around 10 minutes to talk. With a group too big you won’t have the depth necessary to make the mastermind group effective.A great place to start to find a mastermind group is Twitter. You can also join the Newsletter Crew mastermind group if you become a member.A mastermind group should have everyone with around the same following as everyone else. You don’t want one person to have 10x the followers and experience. The value each person gets and gives will be disproportionate.Make sure to have a structure for each mastermind meeting. This helps the whole group be consistent and move forward.Consistency is not just about frequency but also about the quality of writing.Encourage communication. Make your audience feel like your someone they can empathize with.Try not including the issue number in your newsletter and see how open rates respond.If your newsletter is long-form, blog style, with new content you may simply not want to start with numbering your issues in the header. Make it personal from the beginning.Unsubscribes should be celebrated, it hones down the audience even further.Your newsletter is a reflection of you.A newsletter should be constantly evolving.Newsletter + Guest Info:Brandon Zhang: https://www.brandonzhang.com/Weekly Wisdom: https://www.brandonzhang.com/newsletter_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: This week we have Elijah Murray the founder of GritList. Elijah set an extraordinary commitment recently. He’s committed himself to publish a newsletter every week for 10 years! In the digital age, 10 years is an absolute eternity, and Elijahs going until the end. In this episode, we’ll discuss why Elijah committed to 10 years, why the opportunity isn’t always better, why execution is the key to success, and so much more. If you’re serious about building a newsletter you won’t want to miss this episode.Episode sponsor: Hecto.io. Hecto is the platform for newsletter creators and internet businesses to buy and sell ads.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTJoin the Newsletter Crew and get access to a community of successful newsletter creators that know what it takes to build a newsletter business. You’ll get access to the forums, chat, and the private podcast stream. There are some amazing things happening that you don’t want to miss out.Show Notes & Insights:Newsletters are a great way to build an audience, find out what they need, and sell to them. No matter what product you’re building, you have that audience always.When your time horizon is years or even a decade, you aren’t as discouraged as much if you’re not seeing the growth you’ve set for yourself.If you’re committed to doing your newsletter, it doesn’t matter if the growth isn’t there right now because you have years to build.Set the bar really low with a very long time horizon.Keep focusing on the next article. And then the next, and the next.The problem that comes with more opportunity is jumping to the next thing that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be successful. Seeking out the next opportunity maximizes your exposure to opportunities, but jumping too often doesn’t allow you to capitalize on that opportunity.It doesn’t matter what you do. All that matters is how you do it and how long you commit to it.According to Derek Sivers, a brilliant idea is worth about $20 (and if you’re @levelsio an idea is worth $99). The execution is the deciding multiplier on how you can grow it.Push yourself past the executing of starting on a new idea.By jumping from one decision to the next you’re undermining your progress in any direction.Every newsletter creator should set a goal to commit to their newsletter for at least 5 years.Set your goal to a much simpler level to achieve.If you’re going to start a newsletter and commit to it for 5+ years, make sure it’s something you want to write about and do for that long.Just contemplating committing to 10 years of a newsletter, you’ll very quickly figure out if you’re wanting to do this. It’s a great thought experiment.Memorable Quotes:“More Opportunity prevents you from making progress.”Important Links:The 10 year ruleDerek Sivers MultiplyRadLetters interview with Yaro BagriyWhy you should be more unlikeableNewsletter + Guest Info:Elijah Murray: https://twitter.com/elijahmurrayGritList: https://www.gritlist.co/_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: This week our guest is the amazing Terry Godier of IndieMailer. Terry and I dive deep into the 3 types of formats newsletters fall into, monetization strategies for these 3 types of formats , and how to name your newsletter. This is a great episode for anyone who’s interested in starting a newsletter or has just recently started a newsletter and wants to better understand the newsletter landscape.Episode sponsor: SparkLoopFeature Newsletter Growth Story: This week we’re featuring the amazing and well-known newsletter creator Andrew Kamphey. He runs a newsletter called Influence Weekly – the newsletter report which the Influence Marketing industry reads every Friday. With SparkLoop he’s been able to grow at a 50% faster rate than before. Now he has his subscribers out there finding him new subscribers.Announcement: Newsletter Crew has just recently acquired the IndieMailer community and has converted it over to the Newsletter Crew community. We recorded this episode weeks before the acquisition. But we’re excited to bring you the new Newsletter Crew community. The community includes forums, chat, and private podcasts. We’re so excited to have acquired the IndieMailer community. This is a huge step and forms one of the largest newsletter creator communities on the internet. We’ve opened registration back up. For only $19 per year, you can become a member and have access to successful newsletter creators, a helpful vibrant community, and amazing private content. All of this will help you become a more successful newsletter creator. You can join by going to newslettercrew.com and clicking subscribe in the header.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTShow Notes & Insights:There are three types of newsletters. The blog by email, curation based, and product-based newsletter.The difference between a paid newsletter and a free newsletter is what you’re asking of someone else.Blog by newsletter format is for creators who are thought leaders and cover a particular beat to talk about it frequently.With a curation based newsletter, you can easily build authority in your space without having to produce a lot of content.No matter what type of format your newsletter is, there needs to be that personal aspect to it.There has been an increase in curation based newsletter because they are providing a real value add. They filter out all of the content that isn’t worth reading. Individuals simply don’t have time to do this themselves.Scott’s Cheap Flights, Chris Osbrones’s BitList, Dru Riley’s Trends.vc, and Softwareideas.io are some prime examples of a product based newsletter.Most people starting a newsletter won’t have enough traffic to do solid A/B testing on price.If you’re completely stuck on newsletter pricing, make it free then start asking your subscribers what they think it’s worth.Affiliate sales within newsletters is another legitimate way to monetize. This type of monetization model works well in a product or round-up based newsletter.Content is by far the hardest part of having a paid newsletter.Promise less, do more. Keeping up a cadence is hard. Start with less, then start increasing the frequency.Quality is the most difficult and most important part of a newsletter.When naming a newsletter you want it to be memorable, easy to spell and pass the elevator test. Shorter is better.Newsletter + Guest Info:Terry Godier: https://twitter.com/TerryGodierIndieMailer (Now part of Newsletter Crew): https://indiemailer.com/_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: This week we have Nic Getkate from The Slice, a curated newsletter for solopreneurs, bootstrappers, and indie founders. On this episode we’ll dive into Nic’s recommendations on how to improve your newsletter deliverability and shield it from the dreaded spam box. As we know having our newsletters hit the spam box is one of the worst things that could happen. So you don’t want to miss this episode if you’re interested in how to improve it. We’ll also talk about his monetization strategy as being a curation based newsletter. Then we’ll touch on the marketing channels he’s been using to grow his newsletter to what is not over 500 subscribers.Episode sponsor: SparkLoopFeature Newsletter Growth Story: This week we’re featuring the amazing newsletter Your Weekly Whine, a weekly newsletter to brighten up your day with a cute dog picture and some wine tips. Your Weekly Whine has seen 80% faster growth since starting to use SparkLoop for their referral program tool. Check our SparkLoop if you’re looking to achieve those growth numbers.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTJoin the Newsletter Crew and get access to a community of successful newsletter creators that know what it takes to build a newsletter business. You’ll get access to the forums, chat, and the private podcast stream. There are some amazing things happening that you don’t want to miss out.Show Notes & Insights:Don’t be afraid to pivot your newsletter and try different formats and topics out until you find what resonates with your subscribers.There has been an uptick in popularity with curation based newsletters and they’re much easier to create versus pure new content based newsletters.A newsletter doesn’t need to be some professional text, it can be casual. Many subscribers love that! It’s more personal.Stick to a deadline and plan exactly what you need to do every week. It takes time to create a newsletter.If the UI of your newsletter isn’t compelling people aren’t going to read it.Your newsletter looks the same as everyone else’s with Substack. There’s no personality with Substack.EmailOctupus plans are amazing and so easy to use.Make sure to be verified with whatever email service provider you’re using. This will help with your newsletter’s credibility.You must have certain levels of encryption for your emails to add extra credibility. Such as your SPF, DMARC, and DKIM.If your email sounds like it’s trying to sell something, it could hit the spam inbox.Don’t include words like sale, 50% off, discount, coupon, or anything that may sound like you’re selling something.Having your newsletter on our own domain will help with spam and deliverability.If you’re adding sponsors make it flow and fit with your newsletter so the subscriber doesn’t even notice.Sponsorship is better for a curation based newsletter. Subscriptions are better for original content based newsletters.Newsletter + Guest Info:Nic Getkate: https://twitter.com/NicWonderingThe Slice: https://theslice.co/_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: On this episode we’ll cover topics on how timing is crucial for newsletter success but absolutely doesn’t matter in the lifecycle of your newsletter. We’ll also cover how being prepared with help you catch as much luck as you can and monetize when the timing does happen. Then we’ll dive into using Twitter to grow your newsletter. How cross-posting and SEO can create a passive stream of new followers. And so much more! This was such an amazing and content filled episode that we had to create two part. So for all of the listeners who get to the end, we’ll tell you about how to get access to the second half where we dive into Stefans other acquisition channels.Episode sponsor: SparkLoopNewsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTJoin the Newsletter Crew and get access to a community of successful newsletter creators that know what it takes to build a newsletter business. You’ll get access to the forums, chat, and the private podcast stream. There are some amazing things happening that you don’t want to miss out.Show Notes & Insights:Don’t live and die by your subscriber numbers. You must have other metrics. That could be the positive feedback per subscriber you’re receiving.Growth is an idea whose time has come.If you’re looking to build a large community you do need other people talking about your niche.Timing matters but writing your newsletter for long enough, its time will come. In the life of your newsletter, timing absolutely does not matter.Opportunity is at the section of luck and preparation.You must have at least 2 reasons for doing any major project.You should be in the mindset that a newsletter is a big project. It requires consistency. One is about the business itself. The other must be more personal.Stefan chooses @Substack still as his newsletter platform of choice is because it simply does it all for you. You just need to publish. No tech skills required. All of your dedication is focused on writing.Tweet ahead of time with a little drip of content from your newsletter to excited people into subscribing.When your newsletter publishes a new issue manually DM any follower that would genuinely like it. Tweet it out and add a quote or @ anyone that was mentioned in the newsletter. More Twitter tips in the podcast.Self-syndicate your newsletter by posting them as blogs on other websites. Effectively using SEO to drive subscriber growth.Cross-post between your blogs and your newsletters.The one big downfall of Substack is that you don’t own your domain. You can utilize guest posting, guest linking, and self-syndication to get around that and drive brand awareness through Google.Newsletter + Guest Info:Stefan Palios: http://stefanpalios.com/Remotely Inclined: https://remotelyinclined.substack.com/Pulse Blueprint: https://pulseblueprint.com/Mentions:Newsletter Crew Episode 5 with @KampheyShelly Spiegel @ShellyJSpiegelHamish Mckenzie @HamishmckenzieThe Subtle Art of Not Giving a * by @IAmMarkMansonAtomic Habits @JamesClear_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: This week will cover topics on repurposing your newsletter content, creating sales funnels that work for you, and the importance of having a sales funnel. Jens is an expert in email marketing and he’ll discuss in the detailed importance of repurposing newsletter content as well as why it’s beneficial to every newsletter creator to have at least a basic sales funnel. The best newsletter creators are able to repurpose their newsletter content in many ways, effectively maximizing their surface area on the internet. Every week newsletter creators spend hours upon hours creating unique content. Why not repurpose that in as many was as possible? Content repurposing also expands the top of your sales funnel with little to no work.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTJoin the Newsletter Crew and get access to a community of successful newsletter creators that know what it takes to build a newsletter business. You’ll get access to the forums, chat, and the private podcast stream. There are some amazing things happening that you don’t want to miss out.Show Notes & Insights:Email is the only platform you own.You don’t own your Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc. It’s on rented land.Email is a very intimate way to communicate with your fans, followers, and customers.Repurposing content is huge when you’re running multiple newsletters.Ways to repurpose your newsletter: create a twitter thread out of it, visual tweets, blog post, create a podcast episode for every issue.If you’re spending hours doing research for your newsletter, you should always repurpose is in as many ways as possible.The main goal for any company is to get people on your mailing list.You don’t want to sell stuff publicly. Sell privately in your newsletter.If you’re looking to repurpose your content as a podcast but aren’t the best at it, you can simply read your email newsletter as an audio version.If you’re looking to launch a paid version of your newsletter, it’s crucial to build trust with your subscribers before you do that.Building trust is all about creating value-first content.Choose a niche where you’re the only one doing what you’re doing.The best way to turn your audience into subscribers and subscribers into pay subscribers is to visualize the marketing funnel.Creating an even basic sales funnel will be enormous for your email list and business.It’s much easier to improve something that already exists than it is to create something from scratch.Newsletter + Guest Info:Jens Lennartsson: http://jenslennartsson.com/, https://twitter.com/JensLennartssonMake & Market Newsletter: https://makeand.market/Twitter for No-Coders: https://gumroad.com/l/nocodetwitter_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to build, run, and grow your newsletter. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: On this episode we have Ari Lewis talking about newsletter bundling. As we’ve seen the rise of the independent newsletter creator, we’re also now seeing the next phase of bundling happening. There are already many examples of newsletter bundling today and as you’ll hear in this episode that it’s a great way to capture a whole new audience. This is an episode you don’t want to miss if you’re interested in the future of newsletter monetization.Episode Sponsor:GoodBits: https://goodbits.io/?ref=newslettercrew, use code newslettercrew to get 25% discount off any plans.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTJoin the Newsletter Crew and get access to a community of successful newsletter creators that know what it takes to build a newsletter business. You’ll get access to the forums, chat, and the private podcast stream. There are some amazing things happening that you don’t want to miss out.Show Notes & Insights:Newsletter fatigue is real and has been ever increasing.In the past, there was not enough content and the distribution was limited. Today we have too much content and the distribution is abundant.Newsletters pose a value trade-off vs attention trade-off. If the newsletter provides enough value subscribers will give their attention to it.“Bundling produces value for both consumers and providers by giving access for and revenue from casual fans.”By bundling products you’re actually getting access to a whole new group of consumers who may have not paid for your newsletter in the first place.Bundling allows gaining access to revenue from consumers you may have not had access to in the first place.Bundling is an art more than it is a science.At some point, there’s a transition that occurs where the value of the brand is more important than the value of the writer.With newsletter building, it all comes down to the author and bundle on if the author will own the audience.Medium and Substack differ only in that with Medium they own the audience and with Substack you own the audience.Ultimately the bundles that will succeed are the ones that will provide value.It doesn’t matter how big your user base is, all that matters is that you’re adding value.Guest + Newsletter Info:Ari Lewis: https://www.arilewis.com/, https://twitter.com/amlewis4Important Articles:Why Bundling is the Future of Paid Newsletters?: https://www.arilewis.com/aris-posts/why-bundling-is-the-future-of-paid-newsletters_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to build, run, and grow your newsletter. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: Today we have Louis Nicholls. I’ve known him on twitter for quite some time now and I have to say he’s an amazing founder and newsletter creator. Louis runs two newsletters. Sales For Founders, which is a newsletter but also an in-depth course as well. His second newsletter is Five Minute Founder, which is a passion project newsletter with actionable, concise advice to improve your startup/company by 1% each week. Only what you need to know, in five minutes, with examples. In this episode, we’ll dive deep into growth and referral programs. Louis is an expert in referral programs since he founded a referral program tool for newsletters called SparkLoop. If you’re interested in if referral programs are right for your newsletter then you won’t want to miss this episode.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTJoin the Newsletter Crew and get access to a community of successful newsletter creators that know what it takes to build a newsletter business. You’ll get access to the forums, chat, and the private podcast stream. There are some amazing things happening that you don’t want to miss out.Show Notes & Insights:Louis says newsletters are not a good business to start. What a newsletter is good for is to connect with an audience that wants to buy something from you at a later point in time.Sales for Founders newsletter is not the business itself but is a tool to build trust and get in front of the right audience to sell his course.Newsletters are a great way to have conversations at scale with your audience.There are two schools of thought in newsletter monetization. Either the audience is the product via sponsorship, ads, and affiliates. Or the audience is the customers via subscriptions, courses, ebooks that directly come from you.Having the audience as the customer for your newsletter is a much easier and more fulfilling way to monetize. You don’t need to worry about what a third party cares.Every newsletter has its own monetization strategy. It all depends on the creator. Some like sponsorships and ads, while others use their audience to sell a course or ebook.IndieHackers, Twitter, cross-posting, answering questions on Reddit or other communities, SEO, and a referral program are all amazing ways to market and grow your newsletter.You don’t simply want to build an audience, you want to build an engaged audience.Word of mouth referrals require little time and costs little but has huge growth potential. It’s a great middle growth channel for any newsletter.Referrals thrive on your audience reaching out to their audience to build your newsletter for you.A great subscriber number to have when starting a referral program is around 500 subscribers. This makes it worthwhile in terms of the amount of time needed to set up the referral program versus the return you’ll receive. At around 2000 subscribers is when you should absolutely have a referral program.Referral program growth is based on 3 levers. The incentive the subscribers receive, the frequency you’re doing the referrals at, and how easy is it for your subscribers to refer others.The more general your newsletters are the faster your newsletter will grow. It’s much harder for a subscriber in a small niche to find 10 others to refer that would be interested in that niche. In the end, it’s all comparative growth versus absolute growth.Info products are a great and cheap referral product to give away for high-reach growth.Reuse your content as a reward for your referral program.Facebook ads are low effort marketing channels. The downside they cost a lot of money to get subscribers in the door.Twitter and posts are high effort but low cost. SEO is a high effort but a scaleable way to grow. Referrals are right in the middle of all of these three.Guest + Newsletter Info:Sales for Founders: https://salesforfounders.com/Five Minute Founder: https://www.fiveminutefounder.com/SparkLoop: https://sparkloop.app/Louis Nicholls: http://louisnicholls.com/_____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to build, run, and grow your newsletter. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

About this episode: On this episode of the Newsletter Crew podcast we have Rosie Sherry. She’s the expert on community building, community manager at IndieHackers, founder and unschooling mother to my 5 children. As a community builder myself, I really look up to Rosie and her insights. I’m so glad I had the chance to speak with her. We’ll discuss Rosie's newsletter called Rosieland, value adds to premium newsletter subscriptions, how newsletter creators can expand on their newsletter by building a community around it, and the ways they can accomplish that goal.Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCASTJoin the Newsletter Crew and get access to a community of successful newsletter creators that know what it takes to build a newsletter business. You’ll get access to the forums, chat, and the private podcast stream. There are some amazing things happening that you don’t want to miss out.Show Notes & Insights:Many people think they know how to build communities by adding a lot of tech to it. Rosie does not believe that’s what creates sustainable communities.The easiest way to break into any subject is to create a curation based newsletter around it.A weekly newsletter creates accountability for the creator to produce something weekly and keep up with their niche.Rosie has a weekly free curation based newsletter. Her paid version has more in-depth blog typewriting and also a private notion board.Rosie has been considering doing chats, meetups, and podcasts to bring more of a community gathering around her newsletter.It is not essential to build an audience first before you can start building a community.A premium subscription makes the newsletter creator accountable to deliver content weekly.Rosie wouldn’t have gotten her paid subscribers if she hasn’t spent the 43 weeks prior to sending out her free newsletters.To create more community with your newsletter start adding extra dimensions to it. Virtual meetups, podcasts, webinars, etc.The most successful newsletter creators turn their following into a community.Substack is moving into a more community-centric platform.If you’re looking to start a community from your newsletter you need to start knowing who they intimately are.You don’t need to be an expert to create a successful newsletter in your niche. You simply need to want to be an expert.Results will come with the habits you build.Guest + Newsletter Info:Rosieland: http://rosieland.substack.com/Rosie Sherry: https://www.rosie.land/____________________________________If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixbNewsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to build, run, and grow your newsletter. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrewPatreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.