Do You Have An Unsubscribe Strategy?

In this CMI article, Ann Gynn explains why it’s crucial to have an unsubscribe strategy and details how to create one that works well for your audience.

Issue 94 • Sep 8th 2022 •

Stuff You Can Steal From The Steal Club

Ever wish you could get a behind-the-scenes look at how another newsletter works? The Steal Club is pulling back the curtains to show you everything from their content creation process to future plans.

Discovered via Growth Marketer Weekly.

Issue 93 • Sep 1st 2022 •

Insights From A Newsletterer

In this 35-minute YouTube video, Larry Cornett asks For the Interested’s Josh Spector these 3 questions related to boosting your business via a newsletter:

1. How do you make your newsletter a must-read?
2. How do you balance paid advertising and organic marketing?
3. How do you structure your business?

Issue 93 • Sep 1st 2022 •

New Best(ish) Practices

Chad S. White of Oracle Marketing Consulting reports on new best practices his team are adopting as they overhaul newsletters for clients. He lists and explains 9 tactics you might want to consider.

My quick takes on a few of them:

1. Personalizing newsletter content (aka letting subscribers subscribe to select topics instead of everything you send). Big fan of this if you’re covering a variety of topics and can send separate newsletters. Alternatively, you can clearly label categories so your readers recognize mileposts and scroll to their favorites.
2. Teasing website content instead of delivering the goods in the email so you can count clicks. This is a post Mail Privacy Protection play to gather insights by measuring clicks more closely. But it’s not something I support because I feel requiring clicks to get to the good stuff is self-defeating. Try to create a balance if you’re employing this.
3. Creating read magnets (burying your most popular content near the bottom of the email but calling it out in the subject line / table of contents to entice the scroll). I'm lukewarm on this. I like the idea of including a fun kicker section that readers enjoy, but I don’t think it makes sense to make people scroll too far before they get to a highly valuable / popular piece of content. I think of the first 1-3 pieces of content in the newsletter as alpha content and consider it a shame if you’re willing to risk it not being seen. Don’t tease me. Deliver—before I get a distracting notification and shift focus.

Issue 93 • Sep 1st 2022 •

How Harry Jowsey Grew A Massive Audience

Australian viral content creator Harry Jowsey has figured out some organic growth tips that newsletter creators should pay attention to. Christian Anderson shares Jowsey’s top 5 tips.

1. Be consistent
2. Monitor your analytics
3. Collaborate with other content creators
4. Look at yourself as a brand
5. Focus on posting exciting content that engages your audience

Discovered via Smart Brief on Social Business.

Issue 92 • Aug 25th 2022 •

A Look At The Past

In this issue of Tedium, Ernie Smith takes readers through a newsletter history lesson, starting in 1704.

My take: Newslettering isn’t easy, but the challenges we face aren’t “new” or as bad as we think. Stay strong and newsletter on, y’all.

Discovered via Inbox Reads.

Issue 92 • Aug 25th 2022 •

Should You Treat Your Newsletter Like A Homepage?

“The new content homepage isn’t a site or a social platform—it’s your inbox”

Are you treating your newsletter like a homepage? Jason Schulweis explains how media is evolving and that now is the time to shift your newsletter strategy.

(Fair warning: you need to create an Adweek account to read the full article)

Discovered via Inbox Reads.

Issue 92 • Aug 25th 2022 •

Lessons From A Year Of Newsletter Publishing

Ashley Janssen has been publishing The Every Intention for a year now. In this issue, she shares some reflections including:

• Consistency is key
• Just because you love it, doesn’t mean it isn’t work
• We are all the same, we are all different
• You never know how something you share is going to hit
• The end of one thing allows for the beginning of another

Discovered via The Rebooting.

Issue 91 • Aug 18th 2022 •

Newsletter Advice From Peter Houston

“I saw a quote the other day that said everyone and their grandmother has a newsletter. Is it even worth me starting one? ...I saw that quote too and I thought, ‘Yes, but you’re going to have to do it differently from everyone else, especially their grandmother’.”

Learn what else Peter Houston, co-host of Media Voices, thinks about starting a newsletter now here.

Discovered via The Media Roundup.

Issue 91 • Aug 18th 2022 •

Grow Your Subscriber Count

In this Tiktok, Nicholas Scalice of Growth Marketer offers 5 tips to get more subscribers:

1. Pick a niche
2. Test your opt-in pages
3. Cross-promote with others
4. Have a referral program
5. Create a lead magnet

Note: He and I align on making sure the lead magnet is an asset that will be highly relevant for someone who would also be interested in the newsletter and to make sure they acknowledge or opt in to receive the newsletter.

In other words, don’t grow a list of people who get the newsletter but don’t open it because they didn’t want it in the first place.

Issue 90 • Aug 11th 2022 •