- Newsletter Blueprint
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- Forget sponsorships. Do this
Forget sponsorships. Do this
Plus: 80K subs in one year, instagram to newsletter, community, and more
Newsletter Blueprint
October 19, 2023
There’s an old saying “never work with children or animals and never send polls when you have few subscribers”.
Might have made up the last part but it’s true - last week’s poll results were, ummm, statistically insignificant.
For what it’s worth, there was an even split between making money from sponsorships and own products.
Maybe this week’s poll will get a better response (that’s a massive hint).
BLUEPRINT
Zero to $1M revenue in one year (and 80,000 subscribers)
Michael Houck grew his creatively titled “Houck’s Newsletter” to 80K subs and is hitting $1M annual revenue. In a year.
Takes me that long to come up with a newsletter name. And you’re telling me I could’ve just used my surname??
Anyway, this guy is flying.
He did an interview with Ciler at Newsletter Circle and I love how it’s straight to the point.
MONETIZE
Forget Newsletter Sponsorships. Do This Instead.
Newsletter sponsorships are great but… if you’re still small and don’t have inbound leads queuing up with bags of money to throw at you, it may not be worth the effort. Yet.
In the meantime, there are other ways to monetize your newsletter.
QUICK HITS
A guide to the perfect sponsor pitch.
Tool to enrich subscriber data with LinkedIn data (useful to create a sponsor kit or find sponsors in your audience)
ConvertKit announced a deep integration with Mighty Networks (course + community tool).
You might have noticed links on X/Twitter no longer include title and description. This tool is a quick fix to make your links stand out.
GROWTH
Get your Instagram followers reading your newsletter
Build an email list is wisdom as old as the internet.
And for us newsletter people, it’s a key part of the game we play. So if you’ve got a following on Instagram, how do you get them onto your newsletter list?
You need to do a little more than mention the “link in bio”.
(h/t to Evan at Newsletter Alchemy for sharing this)
POLL BREAK
Let’s talk about you, in this week’s poll…
What newsletter tool do you use? |
See the results in next week’s issue.
ENGAGEMENT
Is it worth adding a community to your newsletter?
Maybe. Maybe not. Sounds like a good idea - engage with your subscribers, learn what they want and if you charge for it, you’ve got an extra income stream.
Of course, there’s a but…
Communities are hard to get going so you’ve got to be all in.
A half-assed community is either a barren wasteland or a spam infested dystopia. There’s no middle ground.
But maybe it’s worth it.
AD BREAK
Want to hang out with other newsletter operators in the best newsletter community that ever existed?
You need to check out the Newsletter Blueprint community.
Some recent conversations:
Newsletter niche ideas
Using Reddit to get subscribers.
Medium as a source of subscribers.
FB ad creative getting $0.60 per subscriber (vs $2+ normally)
And… members hitting milestones, cross promotion opportunities, sponsorship opportunities, and more.
NEWSLETTER LIFE
How was it for you? |