Plan Content Like A Showrunner
Robert Rose encourages content strategists to stop fruitless brainstorming sessions and instead approach their content marketing strategy like a TV showrunner: create an overarching story that unfolds over time.
John Bonini is launching his Good Content! newsletter soon.
What you should know:
Are you on the verge of creator burnout? Many newsletter creators experience it.
Tamilore Oladipo explains how to identify it and offers tips from other creators on what you can do to avoid it.
Discovered via Really Good Emails.
Billy Oppenheimer has seen The Daily Stoic grow from 50,000 subscribers to 500,000 subscribers, and is sharing 11 of his biggest takeaways, including
Check out his Twitter thread for the rest.
Discovered via The Tilt.
Newsletter > Social Media? One Architecture Marketing Consultant Says Build On Your Own Land
“Much valuable content is simply lost on social media platforms, whereas with newsletters you always know exactly where the information is going and that, for the most part, it is being received with interest.”
In light of the ever-changing Instagram algorithm, marketing consultant Dave Sharp is encouraging architects (though this applies to any industry) to focus efforts on newsletters. Check out the how and why here.
Discovered via Inbox Reads.
Listen, Y’all: Newsletters Get Better When You Master Tone Of Voice
Esther Kezia Thorpe explains how newsletters like The Morning Brew find success in cultivating a unique tone of voice.
Discovered via The Media Roundup.
Fun fact: Esther and Ann Handley are thinking alike these days. Ann actually mentioned Morning Brew in her Content Marketing World session Voice is the New Logo. Further proof that a unique voice speaks volumes. Or... gets amplified?
In this slide deck, growth.design explains the Zeigarnik Effect: why people hate the tension created by incomplete tasks. Creators have tapped into this to build user journeys that compel us to take each next step in those journeys.
In the newsletter world, this looks like creating episodic content. TL;DR: employ content hooks that make opening and reading more like binging a Netflix series.
Psst: One of the best parts about email is it lets people consume when they want to instead of RIGHT NOW. You want readers immersed, not just clearing notification dots.
Discovered via Growth Marketer Weekly.
Advice From A Newsletter Creator
Jack Raines, creator of the finance newsletter “Young Money”, has grown it to 15k+ subscribers. In this interview with Jakob Greenfeld, he shares insights into his process, tools he uses, monetization strategies, and this advice for getting started:
“Don’t overthink it, just start writing… Your likelihood of success is driven by your willingness to suck for an extended period of time. Monotonous consistency is a superpower, especially in our dopamine-heavy era.”
Discovered via Inbox Reads.
RocaNews decided to shake up their newsletter growth strategies and try something new: spend the marketing budget away on grocery shoppers if they could get 1,000 subscribers in a day. They hit their goal in 3 hours, then gained a total of 16k subscribers in 4 days. Check out the full story by Esther Kezia Thorpe here.
Discovered via The Media Roundup.
Growth Strategy Round Up
These 3 newsletters are all actively growing and are sharing what’s working. Check out their stories and growth strategies here:
The NOLA Business Insider (3,200+ subscribers as of the end of July) is a daily email newsletter featuring the New Orleans business community’s challenges and opportunities. In this RJI article, Sydney Lewis reports on how they reached 1,000 subscribers on June 7…the same day they launched.
Their growth strategies included:
Pay attention to their willingness to pivot:
“Our ability to pivot when we noticed the sign up numbers trailing off helped us get back on track towards our goal of reaching 10,000 sign ups within three months.”
In 2019, Packy McCormick started the Not Boring newsletter sharing business strategy, pop culture links, and commentary. He now has over 145K subscribers and is the #1 business newsletter on Substack. Arthur Takeda details his journey and growth strategies, including the way he:
Key takeaway:
“His approach to writing is what I believe any content creator in any medium should work towards 1. Keep the audience’s trust; 2. Keep them engaged; 3. Put your best stuff out there”
In this episode of Simon Owen’s podcast, The Business of Content, Simon interviews Boye Fajinmi, creator of The Future Party. It’s a witty business, entertainment, and pop-culture newsletter. Fajinmi started out hosting parties in 2012 and over the years turned that into a mega media company with 150K subscribers.
In the podcast, they discuss shifting from parties and events to becoming a media company; transitioning from a weekly newsletter to a daily newsletter; how they’re working to create, curate, and provide content for their niche; and the growth strategies they employ, including:
I appreciated this truth bomb:
“Media is telling stories on different mediums… it doesn’t take a rocket science to see all the possible places we can tell stories on, but it does take a businessman to see that we can’t do all of those things at once. Right now we are focused on internal excellence.”
