How to Build and Grow a Newsletter as a Business Model

[woken]

56 days in.

I think Sparkloop knows exactly what it’s doing. Creators understand that they can get subscribers for pennies on the dollar and that’s why they use it.

Personally I do not want any kind of subscriber just for the sake of numbers.

I didn’t want to start a newsletter. It kind of fell into my lap. I decided to stop aiming for the fastlane and thought it’s time for law school. Did what anybody would do: created a Linkedin account to follow in other people’s footsteps.

Turns out lots of lawyers like complicated words and cannot explain things to mere mortals.

So I pulled up Google translator, translated and posted a couple posts. I woke up the next day with 1 million impressions.

People wanted to download the post as a file (lead magnet?!)

At first I thought about uploading it online and sharing the link. Then it hit me:

This is temporary. I do not own any of this traffic. If LinkedIn decides to ban me tomorrow, all I’ll have is a nice story. These people have similar interests to me, so I’d like to stay in touch via email. I can always share files there.

Did that.

Almost 1000 downloads on the first day. Since then I started posted more regularly and yesterday I hit 10k followers on Linkedin and 5k email subscribers.

I’m not making any plans, I’m just letting it flow. I’m tired of planning for months and doing nothing. I’m still using the subdomain provided by beehiiv.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Do you feel your books are valuable?

You stopped writing books because you put your heart and soul into them and thought them to be valuable -- but the saturation of the Amazon ecosystem wore you down. Value became inconsequential. Remember when self-publishing was the hot, du-jour opportunity? Sure you did, you climbed aboard and rode the wave, quite successfully I might add.

I see the same pattern here.

8 months from today: "Hey guys I'm stopped writing my newsletter as I put so much time and thought into them, but the click and open rates are so bad, that it just isn't worth my time any longer."

How is that any different than your statements from 3,4 years ago?

"Hey guys I'm stopped writing BOOKS as I put so much time and thought into them, but the competition on Amazon is so bad, that it just isn't worth my time any longer."

Unless something is different "this time," I only see history repeating.

My only hope is that you in fact do catch part of the wave, and build something that outlasts your motivation like you did with your books.

I need to clarify as I sound like a terrible friend -- I'm not trying to dissuade or de-motivate you, but try to help you see the patterns you continually repeat.

But I have to admit that overall, I'm VERY tired of online businesses. My lifestyle doesn't really lend itself to offline businesses but I really like how they aren't as subject to the dominance of Amazon, Google, and Meta.

Your MO seems to find a hot trend that everyone is talking about, and then try to pigeon hole value into that trend. 2 years ago Goggins and his discomforting philosophy was hot and now it's this newsletter stuff, which is now hot. This statement kind fits that pigeon hole narrative. What can I do that isn't subject to big social media platforms?

Whereas IMO, you should just focus on creating relative, sustainable value regardless of trend or platform or any other preconceived biases (other than you travel a lot, so it must fit there).

Value first, not pigeon holing.

Had you kept up with book publishing (and your email list back then) wouldn't this newsletter trend be great for that business?

I've built my email list over 10 years. I didn't start building it because this trend suddenly appeared, I only started sending out more because the practice has become more normalized.

I guess so. But the truth is that I could no longer compete with other authors who were more famous, more qualified, and more willing to build personal brands.

Why do you think this won't repeat?

The same narrative can be applied to this industry you just decided to hop into.

But the truth is that I could no longer compete with other LARGER newsletters who were more famous, more qualified, and more willing to build personal brands.

You want to sell advertising in your newsletter?

Well the big audiences, big brands, and famous personal brands will attract eyeballs and ad dollars... perhaps leading to an identical conclusion from yourself, and hence, the cycle repeats.

Looking back now, the quality of my books is way worse than the quality of today's top authors.

I've always found your writing here @ the forum top tier, so I'm sure your books have the same quality. Who's to say that your avatar "three feet from gold" is exactly the scenario you backed out on?

 

[DWX]

I do love the simplicity of a newsletter (both as a reader and marketer).

They eliminate a lot of the upfront time/financial investment compared to other online models. That said, I suppose this also makes them a low barrier to entry?

Will be watching this thread.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

One of the few business models that fulfills the CENTS principle, with the possible exception of Entry depending on the industry/niche.

The Hustle acquisition certainly opened a few eyes to the real possibility of creating a sustainable lifestyle with a list of email addresses. Yeah, that will attract a lot of tire-kickers, but the consistent quality players will stay at the top similar to what happened with blogging.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DWX]

It's also important to determine whether you want to create a personal or corp brand. Both have pros and cons (particularly if you want to exit).

 

[MTF]

My biggest weakness is finding stuff to write about. My mind goes blank when I try to come up with topics. I've tried to implement systems I found online (including those in Nicolas Cole's book) to no avail.

I'm trying to write about stuff I know quite a lot about.

I don't know if my brain is trying to sabotage me, or if I'm just approaching it from the wrong perspective. Probably a mix of both.

Any ideas?

Can you post a lit of stuff you know a lot about?

Did you make a list of people who you like talking with and figuring out what content they might be interested in reading?

 

[MTF]

Help people in online communities. Repurpose for your newsletter.

That way you’re not “finding stuff to write about”, you’re “finding people to help, helping them, and then helping your subscribers”.

This is sort of how I started my new newsletter. Some time ago I wrote the thread on discomfort, it resonated with a lot of people and I realized it's something I'm interested in anyway and could write more about it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[p0stscript]

Help people in online communities. Repurpose for your newsletter.

That way you’re not “finding stuff to write about”, you’re “finding people to help, helping them, and then helping your subscribers”.

Thanks Andy, great advice, and a brilliant way to learnt your craft if you intend to write newsletters. Since your post about not lurking I have determined to respond to at least two posts a day, encouraging and helping where I can. This in turn has caused me to review my writing style and language usage, and since this topic began I'm now considering writing a free newsletter to develop and improve my communication skills, and also getting me out of my comfort zone.

you can also pick a topic you'd like to study and use your newsletter as a tool to document your journey. Maybe it'll take off. And if it doesn't, you'll still at least do something and learn

I like this idea, by taking action I can still learn something even if the newsletter doesn't take off.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MTF]

This is something I can do. Do you have any example of newsletters / articles / social media accounts / YT channels of people sharing their learning? I only see people who are already expert at their craft, so I'm having a hard time imagining how to write what I'm learning about in an engaging way.

Share your notes on books/videos/podcasts/whatever you're learning from, post your thoughts as you learn (successes and mistakes) or come up with an interesting challenge that would appeal to your target audience and chronicle it.

One cool example I saw recently on YouTube (100 days of cold therapy):

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQbeMVtYd6E


He doesn't have many views yet but after publicly chronicling his 100 days of cold therapy, would you be way more likely to consider him someone worth listening to in this niche?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

I recently found a newsletter targeting a similar audience to mine. I asked the newsletter owner if he offers sponsorship. Turns out he does. I paid $50 for a shoutout to his 5,000+ list.

So far, 24 hours after he sent it, I got 44 subscribers from it (out of 66 visitors so a super solid conversion rate). I think that at least a few more people should sign up over the next 24 hours so in the end I'll probably acquire 50 relevant high-quality subscribers for $1 per person.

Unfortunately in my niche there aren't countless similar newsletters so this strategy is limited. But even if I can find a few more such newsletters, I'll be able to get to a few hundred subscribers relatively easily and with very little work and financial investment.

A cool thing about newsletters is that word of mouth may eventually account for a lot of growth so the hardest job is probably the first 1000 subscribers or so.

You could submit a story or article for him to send to his list, and then mention how they can pick up a related cheat sheet / checklist at some URL.

I did that about 10 years ago and fell off my chair when 150 people subscribed in 24 hours.

 

[MTF]

That's a great tip. Although I am wondering, is there a way to validate an idea for a specific topic?
At the moment, I'm pretty torn between different topics I could write about. It would certainly be a help if there was a way to measure potential interest and so on, and then make a decision based on that data.

Is there any way you can write about all of them in the same newsletter or are they too different?

A trick I highly recommend is to write at least 5-10 issues in advance before you do anything with the newsletter (don't even buy a domain name).

After writing just a few issues you'll probably know which topic is easier and more interesting for you to write.

Remember that writing new issues may be your job for a long time. If after 5 issues you're already tired of the topic or can't find ideas for new issues then it's better to go with a different topic.

Other than that, you can guesstimate potential interest by:

• Finding similar newsletters and trying to figure out how many subscribers they may have.
• Finding relevant subreddits and seeing how engaged people are.
• Finding relevant blogs and trying to figure out their traffic and engagement.
• Finding Twitter profiles of people who write about this topic and checking out their engagement (not just followers by how many replies and retweets they get).
• Finding anything else, ideally text-based, that may give you an idea of how many people are reading it.
• Checking out YouTube channels or podcasts about this topic but this may not give you the best idea as people who watch videos or listen to podcasts don't necessarily sign up for newsletters.

Would you recommend writing in your native language if that's not English? My mother tongue is German for example. Would it be better to write in that language? The potential audience would be bigger in English, but of course also the competition, I figure.

As long as your topic is broad you can go with German as there are many German speakers and all German-speaking countries are rich. If it's more niche then I'd go English.

But...

You also need to consider a potential exit strategy and in general how newsletters are perceived in the German-speaking world. It may be much harder to potentially sell it, find sponsors/places to advertise it, etc.

In my case, I use English almost 24/7 online anyway so this is the only choice for me (English isn't my native language, either).

 

[MTF]

Funny you say that, I've been subbed to fs for some time, and I also read their blog a lot. It all makes so much sense suddenly.

Sometimes we're blind to the things right in front of us. We also tend to discount them just because they're so obvious.

If you got the unmistakable feeling "it makes so much sense suddenly" I believe that's your gut telling you it's something aligned with you. I remember having this feeling when I committed myself to self-publishing. I'm feeling something similar with newsletters now.

The only question that remains is whether you'll stick with it or find a way to talk yourself out of it. I'm happy to keep you accountable to pursue this.

The simple fact that you speak English so damn well considering you're from a country notorious for terrible English proficiency shows you're a very driven and dedicated person.

I'm afraid I won't find ideas / insights worth sharing. I feel like when I find insightful stuff it is common knowledge for everyone else (even though it OBVIOUSLY isn't). I can't believe I'm having writer's block at this stage.

I think that you answered your doubts here. You know that this isn't common knowledge. You know it's writer's block. You also know that writer's block is bullshit and goes away as soon as you decide to write whatever and take it from there.

And even if it is common knowledge, you can always give it a unique spin, offer more examples, explain it more simply, write more beautifully, write more concisely, write longer content, focus on a different audience (men vs women, young vs old, entrepreneurs vs freelancers vs employees), etc.

Also, the more you write, the easier it gets to find new ideas and insights worth sharing.

My new newsletter is about discomfort as a personal growth tool for men. You could say it's common knowledge that when you expand your comfort zone, you grow. Yet there are hundreds of topics I can cover under it, including angles nobody else thought about because everyone only thinks about it superficially.

For example, everyone talks about discomfort when working out at the gym or maybe dieting. This is the superficial level and common knowledge.

But how many people write long form quality articles on learning to be comfortable with death? Or learning to be comfortable when on a crazy adventure in the wilderness? Or learning to be comfortable when you're fighting for months to recover from an accident or a sickness? Or learning to be comfortable when attending to your stressful duties from a Roman emperor? Or learning to be comfortable walking barefoot? Or learning to be comfortable sharing your creative work?

I'm only sharing this to help you see that there's a ton of ideas you can explore even for a fairly "specific" topic. In your case, you can discuss a lot more, which can be both a blessing and also a curse (because sometimes limitations help us get more creative).

Either way, there ARE examples of successful newsletters you could emulate. You yourself said that you read their stuff a lot so I assume you enjoy it. Nobody is paying you to do it and you're spending your free time reading it. This shows that you're much more involved in it than an average person. And you also understand what your potential audience may be interested in as well because you're a part of them.

The Marginalian (previously Brain Pickings) is another example of a successful newsletter/blog covering something very broad, yet having a big, loyal audience. Curiously, her business model is donations which proves that it may work even with, arguably, a very bad monetization method.

 

[Madame Peccato]

What's the first step?

The next step is...I guess actually writing and publishing something? I'm going with Substack, I don't want to agonize over little details.

What is stopping me? I can see myself agonizing over which topic to write about, but I guess that's to be expected at the beginning.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[GSF]

I'm wondering about approaching this market from a different angle, the Scott's Cheap Flights model. While not quite a newsletter, SCF provides value to his email subscribers by finding flight deals from the subscribers list of preferred airports and sends out daily emails. His monetization strategy is offering a premium subscription which gets access to the amazing fares like price mistakes.

Reminds me of this great article I have bookmarked, some great newsletter article examples;

Get the SEO Secrets Our Industry-Leading Clients Pay Us to Find

I hope you’ll be inspired by the potential of this business model and see an opportunity for something you can build in your preferred industry.

gaps.com

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

I may look into Ghost if I’m to create a free newsletter.

I like the idea of the email content being published online too.

This was good:

What I learned from James Clear on list building

createandsell.co

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

I think that the percentage of profits is terrible for newsletter creators

I think it’s terrible for the platforms too. As their most successful publishers grow so does their business case for leaving the platform.

 

[MTF]

that's pretty cool! How much time are you putting into the newsletter?

I primarily spend time writing new issues. To write them, I first need to read a lot because they're based on the books that I read.

It's usually up to a couple of hours spent reading a day and then 5-10 hours to write and edit (countless times) each new issue.

I also write some comments and posts on Reddit but that's no more than a couple of hours a week.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MTF]

When running paid ads for clients I live by cost, revenue, and ROI. My job is to get profitable asap, and then scale the heck out of it.

You're selling products/services directly. I'm building an audience. I know you aren't that big of a fan of this model.

For me, this newsletter is sort of like a real-world marketing lesson. I don't have confidence in my marketing skills so this it also a learning project. My priority is to focus on getting more subscribers rather than making a few bucks. My costs are very low now.

Also, it's possible this newsletter will never be my primary money-maker but it will uncover needs in the newsletter industry I'll be able to solve with something else. So it's mostly an educational "let's do it and see what happens" kind of a project.

Oh, and by the way, I'm making some pennies off the newsletter already. I created a Resources page with affiliate links and have made $1.64 so far lol.

Is there an argument for finding out sooner rather than later what your subscribers are willing to pay for? And could you find that out with just 160 subscribers?

I don't think it's going to help me much. Even if people say they would be interested in an online community, it makes no sense to launch it now. Same with virtually every low-priced product except for maybe coaching and that's something I'm not interested in.

Or could you just ask people what they’d like to see next and get into email conversation with those that reply (let’s call them your hyper-responsives)? Maybe even hop on a quick call with your most responsive subscribers and get to actually meet them?

if I asked people what they'd like to see next I'd feel obligated to write what they tell me they want to see. I don't write well when I follow someone else's instructions and prefer to trust my own judgment in this.

I went through a period of sending personal Loom welcome videos to people who signed up to my paid memberships. Can you do that with your free subscribers? It will make you stand out from the crowd, get you into amazing conversations, and build deeper relationships with your subscribers.

I send a personal (non-automated) email to each new subscriber asking about their thoughts, suggestions, etc. I had a few conversations already but the response rate is generally low (a few people out of 100+ emails).

(I didn't send one to you because you said you signed up out of curiosity).

Might be worth checking out this newsletter about newsletters:

• Discover the secrets to building a profitable newsletter - NEWSLETTER BLUEPRINT

Thanks, I subscribed to it.

 

[MTF]

I know it's early days, but how do you plan on scaling the traffic side of things?

Not yet that big of a concern for me to scale it fast as I still need to find my unique voice for this project but here are a few ideas:

• Promoting my newsletter a bit more often in the David Goggins subreddit where I'm active.
• Using Reddit Ads for bigger subreddits where I don't want to post but where an ad could work.
• Buying more ads in relevant newsletters.
• Sponsoring YouTube creators in my niche.
• Sponsoring podcasts in my niche.
• Play with SparkLoop — The #1 Referral Tool For Newsletters (referral marketing). At $99/month it doesn't make sense now but may be useful in the future.
• Google search should account for some traffic soon as my articles are very long and should be eventually found when people search for the books I cover.

I also just answered all Reddit posts I could find in the top results of Google where people ask for books similar to David Goggins's Can't Hurt Me and linked to my heavily upvoted post in r/davidgoggins. That post in turn leads to my website. Since I linked to this Reddit post and not directly to my website I hope my comments won't get removed and will drive some consistent traffic.

I think that the biggest challenge for newsletters is to get to 1,000 people. After that, word of mouth should help grow faster.

 

[p0stscript]

Done it

Postscript's ponderings - Issue #1

Photo by Markus Winkler from PexelsAre you just dreaming?Do you have goals and dreams that remain just that, dreams? Are you not sure what you want in life? How do we know our goals are what we really want? The simple answer is, we are actively involved in getting them, otherwise we are just...

www.getrevue.co

I've used Revue, but also signed up for Substack so may try it on there to see which is best.
I am doing this for self-development at the moment, getting out of a comfort zone and taking action on something I don't like doing, viz. writing, with no thought yet of taking it further.

Thank you one and all for the push.

 

[Madame Peccato]

I posted my 2nd issue last night at 11:30 PM. If you told me a month ago I'd spend my Saturday night writing a newsletter I'd have laughed at your naivety. Looks like I was the naïve one. Looks like I care about my newsletter more than I anticipated.

Some observations:

• Writing was way easier this time. I felt more comfortable with my thought process.
• It still took me too long to find a topic. Like last time, I started writing 3-4 different articles before settling on a topic. It's not the end of the world as I think the other topics have good potential, just need more thinking and research from me before turning into a published article.
• I need to figure out how Substack actually works. This time I sent the issue as an email, but the stats are different compared to the one I had access to with posts. I surfed around looking for more detailed stats but couldn't find anything.
• While writing on a Saturday night was unexpected and sort of cool, I need to organize myself better and not end up writing it all at the last minute, lol. Go monkey brain.

 

[MTF]

Just secured my first YouTube sponsorship / a "brand ambassador"

I'm really curious whether it will translate into any growth for the newsletter since these are two different mediums.

Still, I think it's a pretty rewarding kind of marketing as you're working directly with a fellow creator instead of a faceless corporation.

Also, I had a plan to hire someone to customize my Ghost theme once I hit 500 subscribers since the website looks basic and perhaps a little cheap. Maybe I'll do it sooner as I think that my opt-in rates could be much higher. A more professional custom brand design would help build more trust and show that it's not just another similarly-looking newsletter.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MTF]

Update on this:

Just 8 newsletter owners responded:

1. One newsletter didn't consider it a good fit.
2. One newsletter approved my pitch and then didn't reply to my questions (I just followed up).
3. Another newsletter also didn't respond until I followed up. But I'm not sure about this one as it's a very small newsletter and the owner doesn't seem to be particularly interested.
4. Discussing the deal with one tiny newsletter. Probably doesn't make sense considering low subscriber count and a terribly low open rate.
5. Tried negotiating with a newsletter that could be a good fit but the newsletter owner changed his prices and charges way too much.
6. One approved my pitch today and hasn't responded to my questions since (I followed up).
7. Almost done finalizing a deal with a newsletter with 7,000 subscribers.
8. One deal with a 9,000+ subscriber newsletter is finalized and ready to go this weekend.

All in all, Swapstack was very promising when I first saw it but now I see it's not as game-changing as I thought it would be. Perhaps it works better for bigger and sexier niches like marketing and tech.

Update on this and a general update later:

I spent $57 on an ad in the only newsletter deal that has worked out so far. Just 5 people visited my website from that ad. As far as I know (my analytics aren't perfect with conversion tracking), nobody subscribed.

So in the end, at least for my niche, Swapstack is a complete waste of time.

50% of newsletters you pitch will ignore you. From the ones that accept the pitch, some will not continue the conversation (so they click a button and then stay silent). Those that respond once will drop the ball after your response. Yes, I could follow up with them but if that's how they treat potential sponsors I bet they also treat their subscribers like shit.

General update

About 6.5 weeks since starting, I'm at 170 subscribers now with average open rate of previous issues at around 60%.

Reddit and this forum are the main sources of growth (that past effective $50 newsletter promo doesn't generate any subscribers anymore but brought about 50 people).

I sent out emails to about 15-20 bloggers/YouTubers/websites that may have a similar audience to mine. I got zero responses even though many of these were email addresses specifically for sponsorship inquiries.

I find it strange that I'm not getting any responses. Feels like my emails don't even reach them. My guess is that they'd rather work with proper big brands.

Edit: right before posting this, I got an email from one YouTuber I emailed today. He asked what kind of promotion I have in mind. And another one (whom I also emailed today morning) replied he doesn't do sponsorships.

I set up Google Ads again on Saturday targeting specific keywords but the ads are still under review.

Other Newsletter Thoughts

I'm tempted to start a curated newsletter in a broad niche that offers more marketing opportunities.

My plan was to launch a new business as a sort of a investment, to add a new asset to my portfolio and diversify myself. But in the case of this newsletter, I can't do that as I have zero sensible options to do that.

I ran into a similar problem with my previous newsletter for vegan athletes. In hindsight, that was way too niche to ever work. I guess I have a talent of coming up with obscure topics lol.

So far my experience building newsletters has taught me that choosing the right topic is BY FAR the most important growth factor.

From my experience exploring the newsletter industry, here are the hottest niches:

• finance/crypto,
• tech/future,
• general curated news newsletters,
• general "best of the web" curated newsletters,
• marketing/business.

Everything not on this list, even if otherwise a big niche (for example health/fitness), is way less popular.

I'm pretty sure I could have hit 1000+ subscribers in a big, popular niche already. Just a few ads in big publications would have helped me get there.

For example, if I had a newsletter about the future, I could advertise it in The Futurist. They charge $3,500 for an ad sent to their 760,000 subscribers. Their open rate is 26% and they say the ad has a CTR between 0.4-0.6%. So assuming you have a high-quality relevant newsletter, you pay $3,500 to expose it to about 197,600 people (views) and have between 7,904 and 11,856 people visiting your website.

My current opt-in rate from ALL traffic sources is roughly 10%. I'm pretty sure that for that hypothetical newsletter about the future, with people coming from a very similar publication, that rate would be at least 20-30%, if not more. So by placing just one $3,500 ad I'd acquire between 1,580-3,556 highly-relevant subscribers.

Since these are just theoretical calculations maybe my math is off. But how off could it really be? Even if by 50%, with just a few thousand dollars invested I could have 1000+ subscribers already. This would be enough to create a referral program (a strategy that helped build some big newsletters) and start monetizing the list.

 

[stjoad]

Hi everybody! I'm new here but have been voraciously reading this thread over the last 2 days. What a great community.

I've been brainstorming newsletter ideas for a few months. Would love some feedback on my ideas! But first, here's a quick introduction so you're familiar with my skillset and experience:

Introduction
I've been working for 12 years at a junk removal franchisor as Director of Marketing. I've spent probably $4 million+ on Google Ads and Facebook Ads growing our franchisees, so I like to think I'm a bit of an expert in this niche.

I've explored non-newsletter ideas: building/managing Google Ads + websites for junk removal companies. I've just been stumped on how to start.

Moving on to my newsletter ideas...

Newsletter ideas

• Proof Marketers – I found tips.ariyh.com, a Substack newsletter where this guy summarizes academic studies related to marketing & advertising. He seems to be doing quite well (9000+ subscribers as of this moment) and is monetizing with sponsorships, a job board, and selling his own product(s) and services.
  
  I think there's room for another competitor in this space. This stuff is fascinating and there are a ton of promotion opportunities on Reddit, Twitter, marketing forums, Facebook Groups, etc. I have proofmarketers.com and am exploring the toughest part of this model: combing through thousands of studies for "real/practical" nuggets, and then summarizing them for the layman.
  
  
• RFP Newsletter – Again, this is based on another newsletter called Folyo, which is a weekly set of website design RFPs (Request for Proposals) sent to agencies. He charges $97/month and appears to have $10,000/month in revenue. It doesn't seem hard to find these RFPs (just need a decent knowledge of how to use Google/LinkedIn + access to a few RFP marketplaces). Seems pretty lucrative.
  
  Pitfalls: RFPs are often high-budget, but notoriously difficult to win – so they're not very appealing to small agencies and freelancers. Since there's a finite number of RFPs out there, you don't want the paying subscriber list to grow too big – hence why he's charging $97/month. If it gets too big, then subscribers have more competition if they're bidding on the RFPs. Also not sure how I'd promote something like this...possibly directly emailing marketing agencies?
  
  This one has promise.
  
  
• Website Design Leads – This idea branches off the RFP Newsletter idea and, admittedly, has major issues. There are many, many businesses driving paid traffic to shitty websites. Huge opportunity for businesses to improve revenue and cost-per-lead. I thought about putting together a weekly list of website "leads" for agency subscribers – businesses driving paid traffic to shitty websites.
  
  Pitfalls: despite being in a prime position to improve their websites for more $$$, these leads are cold. And the bigger the list gets, the more competition there is for each lead. On top of that, the businesses would probably be super annoyed if they suddenly were hit with dozens of pitches from agencies out of nowhere (might make them dig their heels in even more).
  
  Still, I think there might be something here. Just with a different model?
  
  
• A/B Tests Newsletter – This idea branches off the Proof Marketers idea. Basically, I'd love to curate a list of real A/B tests every week for marketers. This would include the results (screenshots), the actually creative/copy being tested (screenshots), and analysis. I even created this popular Reddit post on r/marketing, which I feel proves that marketers are (1) interested in A/B test results and (2) not too shy from revealing their results.
  
  Pitfalls: Brainstorming a way to reliably cultivate these A/B test results. Most of the replies to the Reddit post were anecdotal – I'd want real results with evidence (screenshots at least).
  
  
• Junk Removal Marketing Newsletter – I'm not even sure what kind of content I'd produce, but curious to hear any thoughts since this is my expertise. And given an audience of junk removal business owners, I could totally monetize by selling my services (Google Ads setup/mgmt, website buildouts, Google Ads keywords, Facebook Ads setup, etc...).
  
  I just have a hard time coming up with something tangible to offer subscribers on a weekly basis – once I'm done giving them my marketing plan, there's not much else to discuss. Or is there? Perhaps a weekly interview with a junk removal business (like Starter Story)? Would love some ideas.

As you can see, my brain has been in overdrive but I haven't figured it out yet. I think my greatest money-making opportunity is using my junk removal marketing expertise.

P.S. Another newsletter I love is MarketingExamples.com. So good.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

I suppose I can jump in here nowadays.

I've relaunched "The Path" (you guys were both part of) as a newsletter + coaching. Instead of 4 coaching calls, it's now 2 newsletters and 2 coaching calls.

Plus I'm just giving members all of my programs, checklists, and stuff that I use as a consultant. So basically I've narrowed it down to 2 products. 150k for consulting (for the year obviously), or 297/month for the newsletter with all the stuff. A "here's how to do it" or a "done with you"

I love the newsletter model much better. It lets me actually give a lot more value. And then the 2 "clarifying" coaching calls let me answer questions, help people, and all that. It also makes sure I don't have to constantly launch new programs, products, services, etc. to make money. Turning it into a business instead of a promotion.

I'm on the higher end here at 297/month. I haven't launched the annual for $2k (but I'll sell that via webinar).

I did a couple copywriting projects for Agora years ago. We did a big launch at one point. I always liked their business model.

Anyways. Willing to share my progress if y'all want!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I tested Substack years ago

I asked because one of the newsletters I subscribe to posted this:



They recently went over 100k subs.

 

[MTF]

I've heard good things about Beehiiv but didn't play with it enough.

I'm testing it now. I'm using it both for a new project as well as will move my author newsletter there from AWeber.

The move by itself will save me about $3,000 a year plus I want to monetize through their boosts (recommending other newsletters).

Their calculator says I could make around $40k a year just through the boosts. Even if it's extra $10k, that will be a new income stream with zero work.

As for the new project, the built-in discovery tools are what makes it so interesting. I'll be testing them all and will report once I have some data. They're growing like crazy and many big players are using them so there must be a reason why.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MitchC]

The deal included equity but it was sold for at least $1 million and I imagine perhaps even more. You can't really be more Fastlane than that lol. Granted, they didn't start from zero. They had all the assets and experience to make it a success.

I believe it was 8 figures, and they sold it early because they were bored, they could have made way more

Yeah the article fails to mention his cofounder has a podcast and massive following, and his cohost on that podcast is the founder of The Hustle, the newsletter that started this entire newsletter trend

Still incredible execution though

I liked one quote from him recently when he said they tried to post a newsletter about something one day because all the crypto news was talking about it, and he asked the guy who wrote it, do you care? Would you text your friend about this? And that became how they decide what to write about each day, would you text your friend about this?

Also I remember him talking about how good the Beehiiv founders are, they would ask for new features and the founders would ask a bunch of questions to understand what they wanted and why, then ship the updates almost straight away, and if they couldn't do it that fast they would come up with some kind of workaround for the meantime

They also focused on subscriber quality not quantity, they said the goal would be to eventually launch their own product and not rely on sponsorships, so there was no point in having a huge number of low quality subscribers

 

[Madame Peccato]

Can you post a lit of stuff you know a lot about?

• Writing
• Content marketing (SEO, writing, research, etc.)
• Technology (especially helping people fix their PC issues)
• Philosophy
• Literature
• Gambling (lol)
• Gaming

I think the real problem is that I don't particularly care about any of those. I'm more of a "know a little bit about everything" person.

Did you make a list of people who you like talking with and figuring out what content they might be interested in reading?

I talk to lots of people on the daily (thanks Internet), but they're mostly "casual" friendships. We talk about whatever happens to be the topic at hand. They are mostly interested in consuming entertaining content.

Help people in online communities. Repurpose for your newsletter.

That way you’re not “finding stuff to write about”, you’re “finding people to help, helping them, and then helping your subscribers”.

This is an interesting idea. As I said earlier, my biggest hurdle is that I don't really care about any subject in particular. I have a lot of horizontal knowledge so to speak, but in-depth...meh. Maybe in content marketing, but even then I'm not a fan of it.

 

[Andy Black]

I think I already mentioned that I had a paid email newsletter that was like a progress thread of me growing my business. I wasn't consistent about sending emails, but easily managed it for over a year. It was fun to write, and I'd get the occasional reply from people who got inspiration from various issues.

I used Substack, and subscribers only paid $5/mth. I had maybe 15 subs at one point.

I noticed that I paid way more attention to it even with just one paid subscriber.

I discontinued it because I wanted to move to New Zenler which I think could be a great platform for paid email newsletters.

I documented my journey here:

• Figuring Out Paid Email Newsletters