🚌The struggle bus

Prologue

For 4 mornings in a row, my family has been uncomfortably anxious.

Why?

The school bus tracker app, which shows us exactly where the elementary school bus that picks up our youngest daughter, HAS NOT BEEN WORKING.

Y’all.

It’s glitched every once in a while throughout the year, but never for 4 consecutive, frustrating days.

“But, Ashley,” you say.

“Can’t you just take her to the bus stop a little before the time when it should arrive?”

And this feels logical.

But 6:37 is rarely when it actually makes the stop.

Some days it’s 15 minutes ahead.

Some days, 15 minutes later.

And, I don’t know about you, but making educated guesses at the crack of dawn (sunrise was 6:41 a.m. this morning) isn’t my strongest skill set.

I err on the side of DO NOT RISK MISSING THE BUS.

Because missing it means an hour of your life shot sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on 2-lane roads that weren’t planned to accommodate thousands of frustrated parents and little ones.

So, for the past 4 mornings, we’ve been checking the app (which, for some reason, works like magic in the afternoons and gives us false hope for the next morning), complaining that it’s not working again, and feeling absolutely blind without its guidance.

“So, how does this help me make my newsletter better?” you ask (clearly the repetitive rough start to the day has me hearing voices).

Here’s how:

If you stopped sending (just as the tracker has stopped working reliably), would your subscribers feel anxiety or frustration?

Or would they not really notice?

Aim to be critical, or at least semi-critical.

Or, perhaps, enjoyably episodic?

Enough so that they’d notice your absence.

I’m not saying go wreck their mornings with a no-show every so often.

But, it’s actually healthy if your readers depend on you for a specific reason.

It strengthens your relationship with subscribers when you send what you say you’ll send.

When you… actually deliver, right?

Your newsletter should provide a value they’d rather not live without.

Be the reason they don’t miss the bus.

Newsletter Tips

Ann Handley Shares Lessons From Her “Best-Performing” Newsletters

In her recent Valentine’s issue of Total Annarchy, Ann Handley shared some excellent advice for newsletter creators, including an analysis of nominees for the “best” of her newsletters in categories including:

Best CTR
Most opens
OWBR aka Open to Write Back Rate (her new made-up but extremely helpful metric)
And more

Plus, she asks, “What lessons can we learn from these?” and shares some findings:

You can't let one metric mean success
The From field ultimately matters more than the Subject Line
And 4 others worth checking out

What can you learn from your “best” newsletter issues?

P.S. I personally contributed to her OWBR on this issue and let her know how much I loved it... to which she responded, “I literally thought of you with the rhyme ‘newsletter’ & ‘knew better.’” ...so I’m feeling incredibly special this week.

How Readable Is Your Newsletter?

Writing a newsletter is easy. Writing a newsletter people actually want to read and share is harder. Blake Emal shares some tips in this Copy.ai article.

Good Newsletters Require Effort

Just ask Phil Adams, who wrote this article about getting started for Mailjet. It’s fairly candid about how much effort it takes to build a successful newsletter. Plus, he provides some lists (towards the end) of content ideas for different types of newsletters.

My only qualm is his advice that you or your team likely has plenty of content worth sharing just sitting around.

“So, when it comes to brainstorming your next newsletter, the email content should be there, ready to go. Leaving you more time to focus on creating eye-catching subject lines and sculpting beautiful newsletter designs.”

Hmmm.... not really. Unless the newsletter audience you hope to attract is crazy interested in what’s going on at your company. I’d adjust this bit to encourage newsletter creators to seek out topics their audience actually cares about and to strategize content they can’t find elsewhere. This could easily be confused for “Just share what’s important to you and people will read it.” And we all know that’s not always true.

Discovered via Really Good Emails.

This Also Applies To Unsubscribes

How do you feel about unfollows? Maybe this viral tweet from Tobe Nwigwe will help to give some perspective.

Discovered via For The Interested.

Marketing

3 Experts Weigh In On Marketing Operations

In this Raisin Bread article, Mae Rice shares how 3 different experts approach “marketing operations” for startups.

Discovered via Raisin Bread.

Is SEO Worth It?

Tom Critchlow breaks down the cost and return of SEO in this issue of the SEO MBA.

Content Marketing Tools You Might Like

Check out this list of 30+ content marketing tools Kristi Hines put together here.

Discovered via Social Media Today.

Curation

Improve Your Curation With Data

How much do your metrics affect your curation? Iskra Evtimova shares what role data should play as well as other best curation practices here.

6 Content Curation Tools To Try

Curating is easier with the right tools in your toolbelt. Lejla Hadzimahovic shares 6 tools that might just help here.

Publishing

Morality, Marketing Strategies, And More

Just how knowledgeable are you as a publisher? This week’s insights help to shed some light on everything from online subscriptions and subscription marketing to morality and URLs.

Online subscriptions are doing more than providing a pathway to revenue. Marc Tracy shares how they are creating hope for local papers here.
Real question: are paywalls morally ethical? In this article, Alexandra Borchardt examines the dilemma and forecasts 2 different worlds of journalism.
In this Adweek article, Mark Stenberg writes how Industry Dive is set to break $100 million in revenue as it reaches 2.5 million free email subscribers.
Are you playing Wordle? The NYT recently spent 7-figures to buy the free, online game and Jakub Parusinski with The Fix is speculating what this means for subscription marketing.
As a publisher, just how much do you know about URLs? Barry Adams is sharing his wisdom on everything from HTTPS protocols to trailing slashes here.

Money Matters

Are You Advertising In Other Newsletters?

The 1440 Daily Digest newsletter has been advertising in other newsletters and has seen 15,000+ new subscribers using Swapstack. Anangsha Alammyan has the full story here.

Discovered via Inbox Reads.

Your Content Needs Promotion: Here’s How

Armando Roggio shares 5 ways to promote a paid newsletter.

Discovered via Inbox Reads.

Curated News

In The Quest To Show, Not Tell

I often get questions about my newsletter-building process.

So, this week, I took some time to screen record a part of it. Then I realized watching it would make me yawn, so I asked Seth to speed it up, kind of like a time-elapsed sunset.

While this video isn’t as beautiful as watching nature do its thing, it does show a few of the steps that go into creating Opt In Weekly each week.

Here, I'll outline our weekly routine (the steps in bold are the ones captured in this 6-minute video).

Samantha and I collect links directly to Curated using the Chrome extension or emailing them to the OIW account. She goes through a list of Google Alerts we have set up to follow keywords, and subscriptions to resources we’ve found to deliver content that might be valuable to our subscribers. We categorize most as we go, but some sneak in unassigned.
On Tuesdays, I import the links that look interesting into that weeks issue. They are officially contenders for inclusion. I assign categories to those without them, assess the number of links in each category, check out the articles, reorder the links within each category highest value to lowest, and curate by deleting until I have it down to a reasonable amount of valuable content.
I add assignment notes right in the builder and let Samantha know they’re ready for her to draft copy. She comes up with headlines and writes copy intended to define why each piece of content we’re including could be valuable to a newsletter creator.
On Wednesdays, I edit Samantha’s copy and tweak some bits if I want to take a slightly different tone or add something personal. She gets it 90% there and I do the rest.
On Thursday mornings (or Wednesdays if I’m able to carve out the time), I write the final pieces. Yes, I wait that late to draft the Prologue. It’s always rough and of-the-moment. I try to let the topics in each issue and the events of my life inspire me. This is typically a 20- to 45-minute activity between 7 and 8 a.m. (after the girls are on their school buses). I also write the subject line and preheader text and bring in any bits we repeat each week (the signature, that day's Curated Crash Course announcement, etc.)
I send Seth a draft and we go through making final copy edits. He sends me Slack messages pointing out embarrassing typos that I clean up. I track what I've done by adding emoji reaction checkmarks in Slack. We feel very much like a news team racing toward a deadline at this moment. And then... we send.

Let me know what you think.

Curated Crash Course Today At 4 PM Central

Curated Crash Course is today at 4 PM CT!

As usual, the first 30 minutes include a tutorial on getting started with Curated followed by a Q&A session that begins at 4:30.

This is built to be a come-and-go Zoom call, so feel free to hop in whenever you can and leave when you have to.

If you have any questions about Curated or newsletters, we created a Google Form where you can submit them.

Seth will answer them live at Curated Crash Course during the Q&A segment of the session, but if you can't make it, he’ll send you a recording so you can see your questions answered.

New to Curated? Make a copy of this Getting Started with Curated Checklist to help launch your newsletter (public, private, or paid).

Opt In Challenge

Ask Yourself These 12 Questions

Why do you want to be a creator? Josh Spector encourages creators to not only ask themselves this question, but to ask 11 others as well. This week’s Opt In Challenge is to take some time to read through the 12 questions and answer as honestly as possible.

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.

Happy newslettering,