The value of launching small

Prologue

This past weekend, we were visited by two critters:

The Easter Bunny: A loving and kind animal that leaves plastic eggs stuffed with candy in your yard

&

The Easter Raccoon (or Opossum?): An animal that pries open those candy-stuffed eggs and indulges on sweets until he gives up, goes home, and (we assume) suffers through the ensuing tummy ache

Don’t panic.

We’re fine.

The girls are ok.

There was a five-minute window of “This is the worst Easter ever,” then the realization that the 10-15 eggs our Easter Raccoon ravaged (leaving a candy wrapper mess in the backyard) was a small percentage of the loot they divided in the end.

The newsletter lesson here?

Someone is going to be your Easter Raccoon and make you feel like you’re not going to be successful. They’ll try to defeat you with claws. But they usually don’t have the energy to destroy a good thing.

Don’t let them make you forget about all the goodies waiting for you.

Focus on serving the bunnies who love you (yes, they multiplied… because that’s what rabbits do, right?).

And by this I mean don’t get distracted by failures. Learn from them. Consider them tests that taught you a lesson and move on to the candy part.

Thank you for enduring my Easter tale.

This week’s issue has several treats, including some very wise people who preach persistence and tenacity.

Enjoy.

Screen Share

Dan Oshinsky On Launching Small Then Going Big

Sometimes what you should be doing takes a while to become obvious.

That’s ok. In fact, it’s better.

You are the collective sum of your experiences.

If you are public about what you are learning and test how people respond when you offer helpful tips, you might find that there's an audience hungry for much more than just free advice.

That’s what happened to email newsletter consultant Dan Oshinsky of Inbox Collective.

The former Director of Newsletters at The New Yorker launched a free Google Doc with newsletter resources and advice, expecting maybe 10 people to be interested, but instead 400 people quickly subscribed for updates.

It’s smart to put out an MVP of your ideas.

To see if the fish are biting.

To let an audience’s response help you shape things and tell you what they need.

Become that resource.

In this short video clip (it’s 2 minutes) Dan explains how he discovered he could provide a solution to an audience’s problems.

Dan will be presenting at Newsletter Fest.

His session is about 4 different newsletter models.

“Whether you’re a writer, a reporter, or an expert on a particular topic, there are strategies worth implementing that will allow you to get the most out of your newsletter. Let’s explore four types of newsletters and identify monetization opportunities that work for each.”

It’s going to be a good one, y’all.

Register here.

Newsletter Tips

Not Boring’s Not Boring Journey To 42K Subscribers

Packy McCormick of Not Boring recently published this recap of the past year’s Not Boring growth and how he’s monetized his newsletter (hint: sponsorships). Pay attention to the section where he bullets the pros and cons of paid subscriptions and advertising and see where you land.

“I Don’t Think Newsletters Are A Fad”

Listen to this podcast interview with Yaro Bagriy, founder of the Newsletter Crew community. He talks about what he’s learned from interviewing and interacting with newsletter creators, including how to get started writing one.

Marketing

Turns Out Emails From Real People Get Real Results

“I’m shifting my mentality from, ‘don’t pester people!’ to ‘don’t ignore people who said they want to hear from you!’”

Rand Fishkin of Sparktoro breaks down how soliciting customer feedback with an email that asked for direct responses worked for his company.

No Cookies? Don’t Panic. Email Could Solve This

Jeff Kupietzky thinks email is the answer to the death of cookies for digital publishers. Why?

“By turning drive-by visitors into logged-in subscribers through email, publishers can begin to track user interests and behavior to better understand the type of content they want. Data shows consumers have no problem being tracked when it creates a more personalized experience, and they’re more likely to engage with content from publishers they know and trust.”

So... leverage email for personalized experiences across channels by creating content so good people opt in for more.

Related: Learn about how this is not a drill: The loss of third-party cookies is bigger than GDPR and CCPA from the Litmus blog.

Seth Godin Teaches Us How To Get Better At Marketing

Seth Godin speaks wisdom about sticking to a plan long enough to see if it’s going to work in this video interview.

On planning for when to give up on a strategy:

“You should plan before you spend a dollar when you’re going to give up. So if I was building a brand that sold, I don’t know, sweatshirts or microphones, I’d say, all right, I’m going to run these ads for six months and I’m not going to change my plan for six months. I’m going to show up and show up and show up because people need to see a message twenty-seven times before they even begin to register with it on the Internet. It’s even more than that because there’s so much noise. And so if you’re going to spend this money, it’s got to begin with a commitment. You don’t want to spend your money on one ad and then decide.”

Curation

Not A Purple Cow? Don’t Worry.

In this article, Natasha Zo writes about how to get press coverage and lists three approaches that can achieve results, saying that you don’t need to be a purple cow to garner attention.

One is using content curation to pitch stories that are well-rounded and save journalists time by finding information to counter balance anything that might seem overly promotional. Use curation to do your research, find good stories to tell, and earn a writer’s appreciation by giving them a framework instead of a sound bite.

Publishing

Last Week In News About News

Money Matters

Medium Offers 75 Publishers Still On Staff The Option Of An Agreed Exit

This story explains what Medium was, became, and may never be: profitable. Paid leave layoffs were announced last week and question marks loom in the air.

Curated News

We’re Grabbing Images And Meta Data Now

Exciting news, Curated users:

The Curated Chrome extension and all bookmarklets now automatically bring in more data when you collect a link.

We know you’ll love the automatic image grabber (because you’ve been asking). Now, when you save a link to your publication, it will automatically pull in the social share image associated with the link (if there is one).

For articles and blogs, it will pull the social share image. For videos, it will pull the thumbnail.

You’ll also get the meta text of the link you’re saving, which you might use to jog your memory as you draft your commentary or description. Note: if you highlight copy before you collect that copy will replace it.

Also, if you don’t use photos, you’ll just click Remove either as you collect or as you draft your next issue.

ICYMI: We now have a Curated Public Product Roadmap! Check out our recent releases and what’s up next.

We Just Launched A Newsletter Fest Community

Even if you’re not attending Newsletter Fest (why not?), you are welcome to join this Slack community we’ve created to be a live resource during the event but also serve as a place to engage after it’s over.

Any channel suggestions? So far we have some for use during the event (discussion, support, etc.) but we’ve also added an introductions and a newsletter jobs channel to allow people in this industry to interact and share. Let us know if you have ideas.

Opt In Challenge

Find Your Niche

Have you figured out a niche you can serve? The Hustle’s Brad Wolverton recently tweeted, “In the newsletter game, niches make riches.” Then he goes on to describe how to find yours.

Your Opt In Challenge this week is to follow Brad’s advice and dive into the process David Ramos provides in The unexpected (but proven) way to find your niche in the creator economy and niche down.

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.

Also, I’d appreciate it if you shared it with fellow email newsletter creators. All archived issues will be available on OptInWeekly.com, so you can send them the link to check it out.

Have a great week sending, y’all.

Thanks for reading,