How to Build and Grow a Newsletter as a Business Model

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black here's an article discussing why some creators go to the other extreme and do extremely long content:

The video essay boom

Hour-long YouTube videos are thriving in the TikTok era. Their popularity reflects our desire for more nuanced content online.

www.vox.com

This part is particularly relevant:


This is pretty much what I have in mind for my own newsletter and why I write such long articles. Short content doesn't allow you to do that.

I’m not saying to write short articles @MTF. I was suggesting creating short content from your long content and putting that on platforms to drive people to your newsletter.

I was also suggesting you consider shorter emails that link to long-form articles on your website.

 

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[MTF]

I’m not saying to write short articles @MTF. I was suggesting creating short content from your long content and putting that on platforms to drive people to your newsletter.

I researched YouTube. My conclusions:

1. Whiteboard animation is extremely cheesy these days. Well, I've known it for a long time lol. And I'm saying it as a person who produced several dozen of such videos in the past few years.

2. Live action videos produced with stock footage look cheap, cheesy, and generic. If I were to do it, I'd love to achieve this level of quality and this was all shot by the Youtuber himself (who's a filmmaker).

3. I'm not going to invest my time and effort in shooting videos myself since this would be like a separate business. Even if it was a talking head video (which is horribly boring for me to watch), it's still too much work and it's not my strength.

4. A freelancer/agency producing okay-ish videos (nothing spectacular) with stock footage charge at least a few hundred dollars per 1-2 minutes of a video. That's too big of an investment considering it's not really satisfying quality anyway.

So not sure how to approach YouTube. I know that you'll probably say something like "try and see." From my perspective, if I'm going to put out mediocre stuff I wouldn't watch myself, I'd rather not publish anything. Same with writing.

So, yet to decide what to do to scale this newsletter. So far it's been slowly growing almost exclusively with my subtle, organic marketing on Reddit.

 

[Andy Black]

I researched YouTube. My conclusions:

1. Whiteboard animation is extremely cheesy these days. Well, I've known it for a long time lol. And I'm saying it as a person who produced several dozen of such videos in the past few years.

2. Live action videos produced with stock footage look cheap, cheesy, and generic. If I were to do it, I'd love to achieve this level of quality and this was all shot by the Youtuber himself (who's a filmmaker).

3. I'm not going to invest my time and effort in shooting videos myself since this would be like a separate business. Even if it was a talking head video (which is horribly boring for me to watch), it's still too much work and it's not my strength.

4. A freelancer/agency producing okay-ish videos (nothing spectacular) with stock footage charge at least a few hundred dollars per 1-2 minutes of a video. That's too big of an investment considering it's not really satisfying quality anyway.

So not sure how to approach YouTube. I know that you'll probably say something like "try and see." From my perspective, if I'm going to put out mediocre stuff I wouldn't watch myself, I'd rather not publish anything. Same with writing.

So, yet to decide what to do to scale this newsletter. So far it's been slowly growing almost exclusively with my subtle, organic marketing on Reddit.

You seem to talk in absolutes a lot.

Paddy Galloway has a great YouTube channel with whiteboard videos. There’s a handful more channels I know with great videos and great metrics. My subjective view of course.

James Jani uses stock video and his videos doesn’t come across as cheap, cheesy, or generic.

Have you watched any Alex Harmozi talking head videos or listened to the audio on his podcast? Do you find them boring? Even if you did find all talking head videos boring, are you your market?

If you can’t justify paying a few hundred dollars per minute of video, then don’t. I’m sure there’s ways of getting video created without paying that. There’s lots of tools out there to help.

I’m not going to say to try it and see. That’s up to you. It seems your current job is find a path that suits you and that also suits your market.

 

[MTF]

Paddy Galloway has a great YouTube channel with whiteboard videos. There’s a handful more channels I know with great videos and great metrics. My subjective view of course.

Yeah I find this whiteboard style cheesy as it's been used way too many times. It does work for some niches but I don't see it working for mine in a way that would satisfy my standards.

James Jani uses stock video and his videos doesn’t come across as cheap, cheesy, or generic

He does a mix of talking head and stock, though. And he uses a lot of copyrighted material I wouldn't dare use in case of potential legal problems (though this seems common on YouTube and I don't get how they get away with it).

Have you watched any Alex Harmozi talking head videos or listened to the audio on his podcast? Do you find them boring? Even if you did find all talking head videos boring, are you your market?

Yes, and I always regret watching them and usually can't finish them even at 2x speed. Extremely boring and super inconvenient considering his videos usually come down to what could be condensed to maybe 300 words or 1 minute of reading over 10 minutes of boredom.

I am my market because I'm scratching my own itch for such content

 

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[Andy Black]

I am my market because I'm scratching my own itch for such content

That's cool. Write the type of content you like writing, and see if it attracts people who like that style and format.

How can you get more people to the issues you've already written?

 

[MTF]

How can you get more people to the issues you've already written?

I'm trying to set up Google Dynamic Search Ads but as always I get vague "An error occurred. Please try again later."

Hopefully someone capable will respond to my ticket.

In the meantime, I'm considering writing guest posts for regular self-improvement blogs. I'd rather spend money than time, though, so I hope I can figure out a way to promote without having to write extra articles for other sites.

 

[JoeyF]

Newsletters have been a stable online business model ever since the Internet became popular. For some time overlooked because of social media, they're now making a big comeback.

There are a few reasons why newsletters are now hot:

• Writers are looking for new ways to make money without being dependent on someone else (like a newspaper, website, or Amazon).
• With big social media platforms censoring writers, many shifted to Substack (a popular platform for newsletters) which is committed to minimal censorship. But even if you're not using Substack, newsletters in general are resistant to censorship because you control them and can always take your list elsewhere (unlike with social media).
• Smart content creators realized they're only renting space from social media. A newsletter list allows them to have direct access to their subscribers.
• Big players invest heavily in this industry. Twitter acquired newsletter tool Revue while Business Insider bought Morning Brew newsletter for $75 million.

And here are a few reasons why newsletters as a business model in general are interesting:

• Newsletters are in essence customer lists. So while you're building a newsletter, you're also building a valuable asset.
• Newsletters require very little capital and can be easily managed by one person.
• Once you figure out how to grow a newsletter, it's easy to start another one and scale to a few newsletters or more. The Agora is an example of a big publishing business mostly built through various newsletters.
• Newsletters on topics that appeal to many people can grow into lucrative businesses. Example: mentioned before Morning Brew or Subscribe to The Hustle Daily Newsletter recently acquired for $27 million.
• Newsletters have their own ecosystem. If you're in a popular niche, you can build and grow your newsletter by only interacting with other newsletters, similar to podcasting.

Newsletters can be monetized in many different ways:

• Directly, called premium or paid newsletters. This is most common for finance/industry newsletters where you're writing content that can make people money.
• Through sponsorships. Depending on the niche and your list size, you can make anywhere from a few dozen bucks to a few thousand dollars or more per one ad placement.
• Through affiliate marketing. You have a list and (hopefully) you have their trust so you can recommend products and make money from commissions.
• Through selling your own products and services. As above - you build trust with your audience so it's easier to sell.
• Through creating communities or organizing events - once you have enough subscribers, a newsletter can easily turn into a community. You can sell monthly or yearly access to it or organize events for your subscribers.

In this thread I'll post resources, news, tools, and other stuff related to newsletters. Feel free to contribute!

Note: this thread is ONLY about newsletters as a business model. If you use a newsletter as a traffic channel for your business that's cool but that's not the topic of this thread.

Great post.

I've been super interested in Newsletters for a while, I've been a fan of The Hustle and Sam Parr for years and seeing that exit go down was pretty crazy.

My current idea is an entertaining newsletter with curation of all the cool stuff happening in a certain niche video game community.

It's niche but it has 500k active players and booming at the moment.

No current newsletters exist within this space yet to the best of my knowledge although the streamer/youtube content creator community is absolutely buzzing with multiple podcasts and some of the most successful streamers on Twitch with this game as their main.

What I don't know is, can I create a good enough product that people would really care about reading each day.

So I'm working on a prototype at the moment.

 

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[MTF]

My current idea is an entertaining newsletter with curation of all the cool stuff happening in a certain niche video game community.

It's niche but it has 500k active players and booming at the moment.

How likely is it to still be played 5-10 years from now?

I don't know anything about video games but just wondering if it's not too much of a short-term idea (unless you plan to exit as fast as possible).

What I don't know is, can I create a good enough product that people would really care about reading each day.

I'd ask myself if you have a good marketing strategy first. A product is IMO way easier to create than figuring out distribution.

 

[JoeyF]

How likely is it to still be played 5-10 years from now?

I don't know anything about video games but just wondering if it's not too much of a short-term idea (unless you plan to exit as fast as possible).



I'd ask myself if you have a good marketing strategy first. A product is IMO way easier to create than figuring out distribution.

My idea is to build up a strong subscribership and if it takes off always be planting seeds and covering new games in the same genre.

The genre is super niche but based on the massive success of this game, other developers are beginning to enter the market and the genre is going to evolve massively over the coming years with serious talks of some of the big triple A studios wanting a piece of the pie.

So there's loads of potential to pivot when this game starts to die down.

But I do think this game's got a solid 5 years in it from now, at least.

It's still in Beta at the moment.

In terms of promotion I was thinking about the following:

- Early days getting the word out on Twitter using a clickable username that tells people about the newsletter and commenting EVERYWHERE people are discussing the game.

- Aiming to help raise awareness about the awesome creators that play the game and let people know about the cool stuff they've got going that people may not be so aware of

- Being a part of the community on a day to day basis, interacting, sharing, helping.

- Creating content on Youtube and TikTok to raise awareness of the newsletter

From all this, I should start to see some traction, get some feedback from readers if there are any, if so, start to improve the product and then:

- Run viral contests using something like UpViral giving away free copies of the game or even gaming pcs to generate massive amounts of subs

- Run ads to generate subscribers

 

[JoeyF]

Hey, @MTF is there a progress thread for your newsletter? I had a search against your name but didn't see anything.

I'm gonna read through this entire thread today, I've read the first page and a half so far.

I'm really curious to know what your growth strategy is with your letter, I'm sure i'll find out by reading through some of these pages.

 

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[MTF]

Hey, @MTF is there a progress thread for your newsletter? I had a search against your name but didn't see anything.

I'm gonna read through this entire thread today, I've read the first page and a half so far.

I'm really curious to know what your growth strategy is with your letter, I'm sure i'll find out by reading through some of these pages.

No, I don't have a progress thread for my newsletter. I post some updates here and there in this thread.

My growth strategy is still under construction. I've found marketing my newsletter way more difficult than I expected.

 

[MTF]

Reposting my post from another thread here:

@MJ DeMarco just learned about another platform for advertising in newsletters:

Swapstack | Where newsletter writers and brands connect for sponsorships.

After browsing through their newsletter gallery for a couple of minutes, this looks way more promising than LetterWell. A much wider variety of newsletters and seems easier to use. If I find a relevant newsletter to advertise in, I'll post about my experience on the forum.

---

In their catalog, each newsletter comes with an exact subscriber count, open rate, and even prices. No need to guess or negotiate - you send them a pitch and I assume they either accept you or refuse you.

The prices aren't that bad - they're around a few hundred bucks for a list with 10,000-20,000 and open rate around 30%.

I've already found one newsletter in which I can advertise. Looks like this may be a pretty good way for me to scale my newsletter.

Edit:

There are currently 647 newsletters on their platform. I'll be going through them all today and will later post some observations.

 

[MTF]

I sent pitches to 17 newsletters on Swapstack, ranging from 21,000 subscribers to just 270. I have a few more, larger newsletters saved which cover broader topics but may potentially work as well (I first want to see how more relevant newsletters will perform).

Targeting only men with my newsletter makes advertising a bit more complicated since there are very few men-only newsletters (and none of the ones I pitched to are for men only).

Maybe I should ask my audience whether they'd want more inclusive content or stick with the men-only idea? My gut tells me it's a bad idea to broaden my target audience as I think the content (and potential future community) is way stronger if it's aimed at men only.

Any thoughts?

 

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[JoeyF]

I sent pitches to 17 newsletters on Swapstack, ranging from 21,000 subscribers to just 270. I have a few more, larger newsletters saved which cover broader topics but may potentially work as well (I first want to see how more relevant newsletters will perform).

Targeting only men with my newsletter makes advertising a bit more complicated since there are very few men-only newsletters (and none of the ones I pitched to are for men only).

Maybe I should ask my audience whether they'd want more inclusive content or stick with the men-only idea? My gut tells me it's a bad idea to broaden my target audience as I think the content (and potential future community) is way stronger if it's aimed at men only.

Any thoughts?

For your subject matter I would think having the male only distinction is better from both a content and marketing perspective.

It seems there's a bit of a crisis of identity for men going on right now (toxic masculinity etc) and something like what you provide could be an attractive solution for the many who are uncertain about how to navigate the choppy waters.

 

[Andy Black]

I sent pitches to 17 newsletters on Swapstack, ranging from 21,000 subscribers to just 270. I have a few more, larger newsletters saved which cover broader topics but may potentially work as well (I first want to see how more relevant newsletters will perform).

Targeting only men with my newsletter makes advertising a bit more complicated since there are very few men-only newsletters (and none of the ones I pitched to are for men only).

Maybe I should ask my audience whether they'd want more inclusive content or stick with the men-only idea? My gut tells me it's a bad idea to broaden my target audience as I think the content (and potential future community) is way stronger if it's aimed at men only.

Any thoughts?

Are newsletters a channel to get off the ground and maybe achieve critical mass? I’m wondering what happens after you’ve advertised in all the newsletters.

I’m curious whether there’s decent daily search volume on Google (and maybe YouTube) you can tap into. What search terms indicate the searcher might be interested in your content?

If there are searches on Google, then is it only men doing the searches?

What are people selling to those searchers?

What proportion of your current subscribers are women?

Currently:

1. Who do you help?
2. What do you help them with?
3. How do you do it?

 

[JoeyF]

Update from me, I've taken some big action in the past few days and created a couple of initial newsletters.

My idea is for this to be a daily newsletter that goes out each morning, which I realise is a big undertaking and could be difficult to maintain without some help.

Yesterday, I put about 5 solid hours of work into researching ideas and creating this from start to finish:

Is Tarkov's Cheater Problem Getting Out Of Hand Again?

+ Veritas Opens Up About His Recent Struggles With Streaming...

tarkovd.substack.com

It's certainly not perfect, but overall, I'm pretty happy with how that one turned out, it's got enough tidbits to be interesting and a nice way to engage with the game for people who are at work/commuting/on the toilet lol

Today I'll put another one of these together and look to get the amount of time it takes down a bit.

Promotion wise, I posted to my twitter account created specifically for this game which has 10 followers or something and tagged all of the main streamers mentioned in the article.

But very much tumbleweed which is OK.

I was feeling bold, so I decided to post to the game's reddit asking for feedback.

That was tumbleweed too which may not be a good sign, but it's early days, going through this process should be great experience even if this isn't the newsletter that sticks.

Anyone know how to build followers up on Twitter? Is it still the done thing to just follow tonnes of relevant people in the hopes they might follow back?

Do lots of interacting on relevant tweets would be the most legit way I guess, even if it is time consuming.

 

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[JoeyF]

This is a good tool to see what questions people are asking in your niche: Search listening tool for market, customer & content research - AnswerThePublic

Could create a well SEO'd blog to answer these questions and funnel traffic to your newsletter

 

[Andy Black]

Update from me, I've taken some big action in the past few days and created a couple of initial newsletters.

My idea is for this to be a daily newsletter that goes out each morning, which I realise is a big undertaking and could be difficult to maintain without some help.

Yesterday, I put about 5 solid hours of work into researching ideas and creating this from start to finish:

Is Tarkov's Cheater Problem Getting Out Of Hand Again?

+ Veritas Opens Up About His Recent Struggles With Streaming...

tarkovd.substack.com

It's certainly not perfect, but overall, I'm pretty happy with how that one turned out, it's got enough tidbits to be interesting and a nice way to engage with the game for people who are at work/commuting/on the toilet lol

Today I'll put another one of these together and look to get the amount of time it takes down a bit.

Promotion wise, I posted to my twitter account created specifically for this game which has 10 followers or something and tagged all of the main streamers mentioned in the article.

But very much tumbleweed which is OK.

I was feeling bold, so I decided to post to the game's reddit asking for feedback.

That was tumbleweed too which may not be a good sign, but it's early days, going through this process should be great experience even if this isn't the newsletter that sticks.

Anyone know how to build followers up on Twitter? Is it still the done thing to just follow tonnes of relevant people in the hopes they might follow back?

Do lots of interacting on relevant tweets would be the most legit way I guess, even if it is time consuming.

My experience on Twitter was that if you do not post then you get no engagement or new followers. Content disappears within hours so you’re on a daily treadmill of posting.

Is there a more evergreen channel where you can post once and people keep finding that content for months to come?

That’s a load of content you posted to one newsletter. How long would it take to post one thing a day and do a roundup once a week?

Those articles you’re creating on Substack… Will they get visitors via SEO? Would it be worth putting them on your own domain and/or platform? MTF uses Ghost but I bailed on it as it doesn’t have an autoresponder and proper ThankYou pages. Plus I’m using New Zenler.

I’ve a long and meandering progress thread about paid email newsletters in my signature that might help.

 

[MTF]

For your subject matter I would think having the male only distinction is better from both a content and marketing perspective.

It seems there's a bit of a crisis of identity for men going on right now (toxic masculinity etc) and something like what you provide could be an attractive solution for the many who are uncertain about how to navigate the choppy waters.

Thanks for your thoughts. That's exactly my thinking and a deeper problem I want to help solve.

 

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[JoeyF]

My experience on Twitter was that if you do not post then you get no engagement or new followers. Content disappears within hours so you’re on a daily treadmill of posting.

Is there a more evergreen channel where you can post once and people keep finding that content for months to come?

That’s a load of content you posted to one newsletter. How long would it take to post one thing a day and do a roundup once a week?

Those articles you’re creating on Substack… Will they get visitors via SEO? Would it be worth putting them on your own domain and/or platform? MTF uses Ghost but I bailed on it as it doesn’t have an autoresponder and proper ThankYou pages. Plus I’m using New Zenler.

I’ve a long and meandering progress thread about paid email newsletters in my signature that might help.

Good points Andy.

Twitter, Reddit, Twitch, Youtube, TikTok and Discord are the main channels of communication among this audience.

I think Twitter is a useful channel for growth but probably more effective would be working on the Youtube channel and looking to get more traffic that way.

Also, I have a domain which I started posting some SEO'd articles to last year, some of those articles are actually getting a small amount of traffic now that I check back, like 90 visits in the last month which is pretty cool.

So I must add the newsletter signup to those pages.

I used the tool above for long tail article ideas that are being searched.

Not sure about the SEO possibilities with Substack, I don't think it does that but I could start posting entire newsletters or snippets to my blog with that purpose in mind.

 

[MTF]

Are newsletters a channel to get off the ground and maybe achieve critical mass? I’m wondering what happens after you’ve advertised in all the newsletters.

The idea is to reach at least 1,000 engaged subscribers and start a private community then. I don't want to start it until there are at least a few dozen possible founding members. With some money flowing in I'll be able to reinvest in bigger sponsorship deals.

As it is now, I find it a bit awkward and not enticing for influencers to be the face of a free newsletter (it's a basic website after all). But once I have a real product (a paid community with a nice sales page) I think it should be easier to find a few content creators in the niche who will represent the brand and advertise it in every piece of content (thus saving me from this effort). This will be sort of like fitness companies sponsoring athletes.

I’m curious whether there’s decent daily search volume on Google (and maybe YouTube) you can tap into. What search terms indicate the searcher might be interested in your content?

I launched Dynamic Search Ads and kept them running for two days. There were zero impressions and I paused the campaign. Maybe I should try targeting specific keywords.

Each time I try advertising on Google it never works. It feels like it's designed in such a way to be so confusing and difficult that only agencies can use it (which would make sense for Google).

What proportion of your current subscribers are women?

As far as I know, 0. I interacted with one woman on Reddit who liked my posts there but I don't think in the end she signed up for the newsletter.

 

[MTF]

Update from me, I've taken some big action in the past few days and created a couple of initial newsletters.

My idea is for this to be a daily newsletter that goes out each morning, which I realise is a big undertaking and could be difficult to maintain without some help.

Yesterday, I put about 5 solid hours of work into researching ideas and creating this from start to finish:

Is Tarkov's Cheater Problem Getting Out Of Hand Again?

+ Veritas Opens Up About His Recent Struggles With Streaming...

tarkovd.substack.com

It's certainly not perfect, but overall, I'm pretty happy with how that one turned out, it's got enough tidbits to be interesting and a nice way to engage with the game for people who are at work/commuting/on the toilet lol

Today I'll put another one of these together and look to get the amount of time it takes down a bit.

Promotion wise, I posted to my twitter account created specifically for this game which has 10 followers or something and tagged all of the main streamers mentioned in the article.

But very much tumbleweed which is OK.

I was feeling bold, so I decided to post to the game's reddit asking for feedback.

That was tumbleweed too which may not be a good sign, but it's early days, going through this process should be great experience even if this isn't the newsletter that sticks.

Anyone know how to build followers up on Twitter? Is it still the done thing to just follow tonnes of relevant people in the hopes they might follow back?

Do lots of interacting on relevant tweets would be the most legit way I guess, even if it is time consuming.

Nice work!

A daily newsletter does sound very overwhelming and not only for you the creator but also for the reader. I think that only short newsletters curating news work well in a daily format. More niche topics are IMO not the best fit.

As for Twitter marketing, a lot of people recommend this course (I never tried it):

Create 24/7 (Edition X): The Blueprint for Building a Million Dollar Business

Discover the proven methods I used to earn over one million dollars on X. This is everything you need to know to build a social media empire. This is the blueprint.Introducing: Create 24/7 (Edition X): The Blueprint for Building a Million Dollar BusinessLet me explain...Millions fail on social...

creation247.gumroad.com

As Andy said, Twitter is a daily hustle though. Definitely way less effective than SEO in the long term.

This is a good tool to see what questions people are asking in your niche: Search listening tool for market, customer & content research - AnswerThePublic

Could create a well SEO'd blog to answer these questions and funnel traffic to your newsletter

That's pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

 

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[JoeyF]

Nice work!

A daily newsletter does sound very overwhelming and not only for you the creator but also for the reader. I think that only short newsletters curating news work well in a daily format. More niche topics are IMO not the best fit.

As for Twitter marketing, a lot of people recommend this course (I never tried it):

Create 24/7 (Edition X): The Blueprint for Building a Million Dollar Business

Discover the proven methods I used to earn over one million dollars on X. This is everything you need to know to build a social media empire. This is the blueprint.Introducing: Create 24/7 (Edition X): The Blueprint for Building a Million Dollar BusinessLet me explain...Millions fail on social...

creation247.gumroad.com

As Andy said, Twitter is a daily hustle though. Definitely way less effective than SEO in the long term.



That's pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

Thanks !

I think I mentioned in the other thread, I'm a big fan of The Hustle and read it each day, so looking to emulate something similar to that.

Would you class the letter I linked above as short?

There's not a tonne of reading there I don't think but hitting quite a few points of interest for people who are in this scene.

The goal is definitely a quick, fun read where you get some actionable info to help you in game as well as giving you entertainment and maybe some thought provoking ideas about the community at large.

I think with the marketing, the plan always has to be multiple channels.

Twitter & SEO are probably must have but it would be very good to be able to draft in some PPC.

I'm wondering if running pre-roll ads on Youtube with some of the creators in the space would be a potential win.

I know advertising revenue for video games is seen as very low compared to other niches on Youtube which being on the advertising side, could work in my favour with cheap, hyper relevant ad space.

 

[MTF]

I think I mentioned in the other thread, I'm a big fan of The Hustle and read it each day, so looking to emulate something similar to that.

I'm curious if that's possible with smaller niches than what The Hustle covers as they're super broad.

By the way, I'm not sure if I missed this: how do you plan to monetize this newsletter? It seems like a hard niche to make good money in (unless your plan is to eventually sell it to a game developer).

Would you class the letter I linked above as short?

At about 1100-1200 words I'd classify it as medium length.

IMO:

short: up to 500-750 words
medium: ~750-2000 words
long: 2000+ words

I wouldn't dare write a daily newsletter, even a short one. But some people are really awesome at doing that so it's certainly an option.

I think with the marketing, the plan always has to be multiple channels.

Yes and no. I think there needs to be balance so that you don't forget that ultimately only your newsletter subscribers count, not your multiple channels.

This article explains it well:

The Two Ways To Grow Your Audience: Do More or Do Less

How to figure out what's holding you back from growing your audience and what to do about it.

fortheinterested.com

This part in particular:

The more you do, the more difficult it becomes to promote yourself.


Let’s say someone watches your video and enjoys it.


What are you asking them to do at the end of the video?


If you ask them to follow you on six platforms, post a comment, tag a friend, join your email list, and call your mom, do you know what they’ll do?


Nothing.


The less you ask your audience to do, the more likely they are to do it.


This also means the less you do, the more successful your promotional efforts will become.


To help you wrap your head around this, check out my One-Action Strategy outlined in one of the links at the bottom of this post in the related resources.


The more you do, the more confusing it is for an audience or industry to “get” what you do.


You paint, sing, write novels, and do stand up comedy.


Good for you.


But…


If you don’t have a clear main “thing,” it makes it difficult for others to spread the word about you and tougher for your audience to grow.

I'm wondering if running pre-roll ads on Youtube with some of the creators in the space would be a potential win.

I think in such a visual niche it's a great idea.

 

[Andy Black]

I agree with the advice for less CTAs. But we can use multiple channels and have one CTA for each piece of content.

I like the advice from “Ready, Fire, Aim” of “one avatar, one channel, one product” if we’re under $1m/year. I was reminded of it by a Alex Hormozi video and it’s helped me focus better this year.

At the start we’re figuring out our one avatar, one channel, one product, so could test different channels.

I worry you’re both writing too much in your newsletters @MTF @JoeyF, and maybe not spending as much time getting that content in front of new people?

How can you get the content you’ve already created in front of more people?

“Don’t tell different things to the same people. Say the same things to different people.”

 

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[Andy Black]

I’ve just read that article.

I personally don’t like having a regular schedule for content. Various YouTube creators have videos saying a regular schedule doesn’t work for them.

I also don’t like the public accountability advice.

Just bringing both up in case you’re similar.

 

[JoeyF]

I'm curious if that's possible with smaller niches than what The Hustle covers as they're super broad.

By the way, I'm not sure if I missed this: how do you plan to monetize this newsletter? It seems like a hard niche to make good money in (unless your plan is to eventually sell it to a game developer).



At about 1100-1200 words I'd classify it as medium length.

IMO:

short: up to 500-750 words
medium: ~750-2000 words
long: 2000+ words

I wouldn't dare write a daily newsletter, even a short one. But some people are really awesome at doing that so it's certainly an option.



Yes and no. I think there needs to be balance so that you don't forget that ultimately only your newsletter subscribers count, not your multiple channels.

This article explains it well:

The Two Ways To Grow Your Audience: Do More or Do Less

How to figure out what's holding you back from growing your audience and what to do about it.

fortheinterested.com

This part in particular:





I think in such a visual niche it's a great idea.

Great conversation in here everyone.

Good point regarding the size of the niche.

This subject matter is so deep and evolving that there's probably content there for a daily newsletter.

The question is, can I cover content in an original and interesting enough way that it's interesting for both me to write and subs to read.

That's what I don't know.

Right now I'm going through a process of trial and error.

Today I couldn't get going, I just wasn't sure what to write about and procrastinated instead.

Regarding the multiple channels, I have a different take.

I see the social channels as entry points to the funnel.

The newsletter is always the flagship piece of content that you're driving people to.

The message is the same regardless of the channel, you just adjust your content so that it fits with the vibe of the channel your on.

Rather than trying to get people from Twitter to sign up for your Youtube, Instagram and Newsletter - that would be weird.

You're simply creating the same valuable content in the appropriate format per channel, so it's not even necessarily taking much extra work to do and everyone is being funnelled to the newsletter.

At least that's the way I see it working in my mind.

@Andy Black to your point, I think you're damn right.

I am really struggling to get my head around creating a load of content and not doing much with it.

I'm very motivated by action that gets results. If i'm taking action and there is no possibility to see results from that action, I'll lose motivation.

So, I'm going to work more on my website and repurposing the content I've already created as well as working on more and looking more at the promotional side of things.

Where the rubber meets the road.

 

[MTF]

I worry you’re both writing too much in your newsletters @MTF @JoeyF, and maybe not spending as much time getting that content in front of new people?

From my perspective, unless you have a lot of excellent content on your website, many people will not treat you seriously enough to consider joining your newsletter (this is assuming that you're starting from zero with no audience and reputation).

I recently published issue #11 and am only now feeling a little bit more comfortable with the amount of content I have. But ideally, I think it would be good to have enough pieces of content for the subscriber to not be able to read it in one afternoon.

Ultimately, what's the point of sending a person to your newsletter if you only have 1 or 2 articles there? That's too little to build initial trust and will deter many people from signing up. Same if your existing issues aren't as polished as they could be yet (this comes with practice only).

Of course, this is my opinion and it would be easy to come up with counter arguments. Still, that's how I see it and I 100% stand by my opinion that it's the right way for me (but NOT for everyone) to approach it.

By the way, I read something similar today in an interview with the guys behind The Publish Press:

• Focus on your content before you think about growth. We didn’t think about growth until the newsletter was in our minds an A+ product

How can you get the content you’ve already created in front of more people?

Well that's what I'm working on now and what I spent the last several posts talking about

Just setting up my first ad through Swapstack and will hopefully set up a few more this week.

Also just sent a sponsorship request to one small but promising YouTuber with an engaged audience.

I personally don’t like having a regular schedule for content. Various YouTube creators have videos saying a regular schedule doesn’t work for them.

I like a regular schedule and would consider a creator without one a person who doesn't treat their business and their subscribers seriously. I see it sort of like a physical store that doesn't keep regular opening hours.

 

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[Andy Black]

I like a regular schedule and would consider a creator without one a person who doesn't treat their business and their subscribers seriously.

Just be careful with that belief - it can lead to burnout.

 

[MTF]

Just be careful with that belief - it can lead to burnout.

As long as it's a sustainable pace over the long term, there's little danger of that.

This week I wrote a guest post for a blog and I've realized that if I were to do this often, it would indeed lead to burnout quickly.

I work on each issue for at least a couple of days before it's ready to go. If I have another article to work on as well, it makes me less focused and uses up too much creative energy.