Lessons From 1440’s Growth To 750,000 Subscribers
When 1440 Media’s newsletter launched in 2017 it was sent to 78 people. It now reaches over 750,000 subscribers and maintains an average open rate of 50%. Learn which growth strategies worked from 1440 CEO Tim Huelskamp in this interview from Newsletter Crew.
Tim’s number one piece of advice?
“Stop thinking about growth and monetization. Just absolutely nail the customer experience. Listen to your customers. We live in this awesome world where your customers can email you right back.”
Insights From Indie Publishers
Check out these 5 lessons from independent publishers on better serving your audience.
Number 4 is a favorite of mine. It emphasizes the merits of personal touch:
“Another small (but you know I mean big) thing is when you subscribe to a newsletter from an independent creator, you will get an e-mail from a certain person.
Most media publishers just use their own brand. Yes, that’s safe but at times obsolete especially when you have star writers writing your newsletters, which is more and more an industry standard that you turn a weekly column of a popular writer into a newsletter.”
Are we really in a newsletter boom, or is history just repeating itself in digital disguise?
Check out this quick piece about the history of newsletters (which predate newspapers) and consider the cycles journalists go through: write for a media company, leave to write independently, then be acquired or enticed to bundle and join a media group.
From handwritten letters to emails and websites, newsletters and newspapers continue to engage in a balancing act.
Related: Learn about 6 types of newsletters you can create.
Need Inspiration? Check Out These 12 Newsletters
Producing a newsletter week after week can feel like a grind. Trust me, I get it. But, what if all you need is just a good cup of coffee, a little motivation, and a big dose of inspiration to get the creative juices flowing?
These 12 examples are good, but what’s even better is Kelly Forst’s breakdown of what makes them good. Dare you to find something to try in your next edition.
Related: Learn How To Create a Newsletter Design in 7 Steps. Note: Curated users have the luxury of customizing a template built to look good in all email clients and less “extra code,” which results in less to Gmail clipping.
Does Your Newsletter Have These 4 Key Things?
It’s not all about an attractive design and helpful content these days.
Check out this advice from Liviu Tanase, CEO of Zerobounce, who recommends combining smart content strategy, technology, and responding to every reply.
Author Newsletter Advice You Can Borrow
Book writer David Gaughran thinks
“Email isn’t just good at bringing you new readers, it’s uniquely good at deepening engagement with your audience.”
It makes sense. Creating a deeper connection with readers keeps them coming back. In this article, he offers 7 newsletter tips for deepening the author/reader relationship. It includes sage wisdom like taking it slow on the first date and creating a classy goodbye.
Related: Find out how 12 writers snagged 1,000 subscribers and got their message to the masses. Discovered via For the Interested.
Is It Time To Clean Your Email List?
“The average email list depreciates by about 30% a year. People switch email providers, jobs, and abandon old emails, just to name a few reasons why. Quality matters more than quantity, and having a smaller lister is something you shouldn’t be ashamed of. Small but mighty fine.”
Newsletter Readers: Fad Or Smart Solution?
Looks like some more newsletter readers have launched to help us free up our inboxes. How do you feel about these?
I’m torn. On one hand I like that my newsletter subscriptions are mixed in with my emails. On the other, I spent a full hour recently unsubscribing and resubscribing with a different address so I could make them part of a team workflow.
Check these out and let me know what you think:
Web Smith of 2 PM looks back on 5 years of newslettering in this open letter. It’s a story of starting small and taking risks, plus listening to his daughter.
Discovered via Publishing Weekly.
2 Things We Learned Launching An Event-Specific Newsletter
Today’s Prologue was partly inspired by the engagement we saw with the Newsletter Fest newsletter. We definitely brought people along for the journey with that one.
We launched a landing page, promised we’d update subscribers as speakers and sessions were added, and published about once a week for six weeks leading up to the event.
The screenshot you’re seeing is from the week of the event. Our average open rate was 62% and average click rate was 18%. In other words, people welcomed this newsletter and clicked to sign up for sessions.
What we learned:
