Opt In Weekly

Prologue

“I’d rather have 1 new email subscriber than 1,000 more followers on Facebook.” —Rand Fishkin, SparkToro.

I’m assuming this quote is going to resonate with you, dear newsletter creator. Because you understand how wonderful it is to know the message you want to share will be seen by at least 20%, maybe even 60 or 70%, of the people who expressed interest in seeing it.

Editorial email newsletters win inbox attention. Period.

And part of the reason is because big tech and algorithms have stifled creator incentive to publish outside of platforms.

Rand recently published this piece on just how frustrating it is to try to use social media to drive traffic to a website. And he’s right.

The options he offers to navigate our current plight are helpful: find ways to benefit from platforms, link off-platform less frequently, FOCUS ON EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS, and try to achieve amplification from established brands/personalities with large followings.

It’s not that he’s saying SEO is dead. But he does seem to be saying it’s not your strongest play right now if you’re hoping to build an audience.

I, a newsletter sender, obviously want to lean into the idea that newsletters are a way to combat the algorithm giants we love/hate. But I think it’s important to understand that a creator has to balance the challenge of being discovered (aka marketing, which all but requires we have a social strategy of some sort) and publishing something worth discovering.

That means learning to adhere to the finicky demands of social platforms: like placing links to your site in a comment so that the post performs better or choosing to forgo site traffic and delivering a valuable message in the feed.

At the same time, you’ll need to exert the effort required to actually reward the people on that email list you’re building with reasons to open and engage.

They don’t necessarily have to be drastically different actions. You can repurpose and adapt content from email to platforms and vice versa.

Both serve a purpose.

Social helps you build a brand presence and engage.

The newsletter should deliver content they don’t want to miss.

Does yours?

My life news that impacts you: I’ll be away for the next 2 weeks in England metal detecting. We’re going to skip next week (Sept. 16) and Seth is going to send an issue on Sept. 23 that includes links but minimal commentary. I have full confidence he’ll include some goodies to hold you over until I return.

Now, on to the interesting thoughts I’ve pulled together for this week.

Screen Share

How Transitioning To Daily Worked For Josh Spector

Josh Spector of For The Interested joined me for a conversation about how his newsletter continues to evolve.

He recently increased sending from weekly to daily and has seen great success in publishing short-form content and ads.

“The open rates were really high. The link clicks when I shared a link were massive.... I get more total link clicks on a weekday addition that has one link than I do on a Sunday edition that has like 12 or 15 links.”

In this interview, he explains the benefits of adding weekday editions, his curiosity strategy for drafting high-click sponsored content, and his advice for newsletter creators.

It was a really insightful conversation that will give you some good ideas. Promise.

Connect with Josh by subscribing to his newsletter and/or joining his Newsletter Creators Facebook group.

Newsletter Tips

2 Possible Ways To Increase Newsletter Readers

AWeber and Newsletter Crew released this article about increasing newsletter readership and I’m half-impressed, half-meh about the fact that it promotes using older, non-email-related, content distribution techniques: RSS and Push Notifications.

Esmé Ara'resa breaks down these lesser-known methods for making sure people who want to see your content actually see it:

“Web push notifications are a real-time way to engage people with your content. Think of them as triggered alerts for web browsing.”
“An RSS Feed stands for “Really Simple Syndication,” it’s a process of taking content from an RSS feed and automatically delivering it to subscribers in the form of an email.”

Both are somewhat antiquated web approaches to allowing a reader to be alerted when you post new content, but each serves its role in giving your audience a choice in how they want to be notified when you publish something.

My take? While providing these options is nice (I’m a big fan of letting people choose how they want to consume content), I consider them “extras.” As a newsletter creator, your ultimate goal is winning the inbox, which means producing something people intentionally choose to receive. I’m not convinced many people want to get newsletters this way, though. Do you opt in to push notifications? I only do for really urgent news.

Discovered via Publisher Weekly.

Curated note: If you’re not aware, every Curated newsletter with a publication site has RSS (along with the option to show or hide it) and we had some people using Safari push notifications for a while, but they weren’t very popular so we haven’t prioritized other browsers.

Thinking Outside The (Algorithmic) Box

Instead of focusing on what’s viral or letting algorithms dictate your scrolling, Clive Thompson stresses the need for seeking out diversity, uniqueness, and idiosyncrasy.

“If you want to have wilder, curiouser thoughts, you have to avoid the industrial monocropping of big-tech feeds. You want an intellectual forest....”

Clive’s piece brings together valuable modern thoughts on the benefits of prospecting beyond the incomplete suggestions you’ll get if you allow platforms to dictate your content consumption habits. For newsletter creators, especially those of us who curate, this should mean going beyond a set of standard sources and finding the obscure news that can prompt fresh ideas.

Is it time for you to “rewild your attention”? I’m in!

Discovered via Really Good Emails.

How To Establish Newsletter Sending Habits

Beth Carter and the GoSquared Weekly marketing team just sent out their 300th issue. Learn how the secret to their consistency lies in rooting their habits in what they value.

Discovered via Inbox Reads.

Related: Hoping to make an impact with your newsletter? This article looks at the best times to send. Discovered via Really Good Emails.

Curation

From The Basics To The Benefits Of Content Curation

Keyhole has created a guide to all things content curation that’s worth checking out. They break down:

What does curated content mean
How much you should curate
Curation and social media
How to curate content the right way
Curation myths (It’s true: really good curation does not save you time)
Benefits of curation

Related: This LinkedIn article by Murage Gichuki explains creation, curation, and the relationship between the two.

Marketing

Does Your Business Have An Enemy?

Batman and Joker.

Peter Pan and Captain Hook.

Your company and _____.

Lynn Power explains that your company needs an enemy: someone or something to give you focus and to push against.

In this article she explains how identifying your enemy can help your business.

Discovered via theCLIKK.

Report: The State Of Content Creation

Lucidpress conducted a survey on the state of content creation and the findings are in.

MediaPost summarized key findings of the report here.

Why it matters

“The study found that out of 452 professionals, 85% reported an increase in demands for content over the past year, while effective personalized content could increase brand revenue by 48% on average.”

The article offers insights into why companies find it so hard to create brand-relevant content at the pace an audience expects it (constant).

Discovered via Smart Brief on Social Business.

How To Create Better Content

Are you stuck creating stuffy content? Olivia Adkison identifies our (marketers/newsletter creators) problem and offers a solution.

The problem:

“We don’t always know good content when we see it, but we always know it when we feel it. For some reason though, B2B marketers, specifically content folks, are notorious for forgetting to entertain, enlighten, and encourage our audiences.”

The solution:

Act like a human.
Write like a 6th grader.
Ask “What would ______ do?”

Discovered via Really Good Emails.

Writing

Write Simpler From The Start

Wes Kao offers an interesting approach to writing in this article: simplify first.

This involves:

Writing differently from the beginning
Asking, “can I write this in three sentences?”
Deciding what to do in complicated situations ahead of time

If you try this out, let me know your thoughts!

Discovered via For The Interested.

Related: If you’re looking to bring a little life to your writing, these 5 techniques plus examples might help.

Publishing

What Does It Take To Achieve Success As A Publisher?

What is the secret to publishing success? This week’s publishing insights look at success in terms of: starting on the right foot, maintaining readers and subscribers, and companies who have paved the way.

Austin Rief, co-founder of Morning Brew, is sharing how he built up his newsletter to 3.5m readers.
Just how did Politico get to the place where it’s being sold for $1 billion? This article is identifying the smart moves they made.
Looking to add to your reading list? Here are 19 newsletters every journalist should read.
At the recent Digital Media Asia conference, 3 publishers discussed how they increased subscriptions using the audience funnel.
One good thing the last year brought was new subscription revenue, but how are publishers planning on keeping those readers? Take a look.
Local newsletters are on the rise, and David Ramos explains just how to start one in 6 well-thought-out steps. Should you be concerned an independent creator or media group will start one in your town, or do you have the market cornered?

Money Matters

5 Ways To Monetize Your Newsletter

There’s no question that newsletters have the potential to become powerful income streams. Swapstack (which provides a service that pairs newsletter creators and sponsors) published an article about 5 ways you can monetize including:

Sell your ad space
Offer premium content at a subscription fee
Sell your product or service
Become an affiliate
Sponsorship from readers

Doing any of these? I’d love to know what’s working for you.

Curated News

Reminder: First Crash Course Is Today!

Hey everyone, Seth from Curated Success here.

I just wanted to remind you that we’re launching a new live tutorial series TODAY at 4 p.m. Central. Join me for Curated Crash Course.

This will be a live Zoom meeting that will run every Thursday. Each session will be broken into 2 parts:

1. Curated 101, 4-4:30 p.m. CT

2. Advanced Curated Discussions (Q&A), 4:30-5 p.m. CT

Curated 101 will focus on getting started with Curated and include how to create an account, the different ways to collect links, and a walkthrough of the settings needed to launch a newsletter.

Advanced Curated Discussions will be the time for Q&A. This is the perfect opportunity to ask any questions you have about Curated, newsletter creation, or your specific newsletter.

We can also cover newsletter positioning and strategy during this section if you’re looking for some feedback.

We want this Crash Course to be a come-and-go experience. If you’re already familiar with how Curated works and just want to ask me a question, feel free to join the call after Curated 101. No hard feelings for popping in and out!

Interested? Here’s a link to join and another to add it to your Google Calendar.

I’ll see y’all this afternoon!

P.S. If you can’t make it you can always check out these super fancy Getting Started with Curated tutorial videos.

ICYMI: You can always check our Curated Public Product Roadmap to catch up on recent releases and find out what’s up next.

Don’t want to click through? Our recent bigger releases include Paid Subscriptions and a Free Tier.

Opt In Challenge

Recreate This Winning Instagram Strategy

This week, your Opt In Challenge is to read this article and consider using James Clear’s Instagram strategy for growing his newsletter. Want to try it? It worked for Karolin Wanner.

Discovered via For The Interested.

Like this newsletter?

Let me know. Reply, email me at Ashley[at]optinweekly.com, or find me on LinkedIn to hit me with some feedback. I’d love to know what you think.