Has anyone done any paid advertising in newsletters? Results?

[MJ DeMarco]

There are a ton of newsletters out there with mega lists, for example, 1440 which tries to aggregate "news" without agenda or spin. These newsletters earn their revenues from advertisers who are interspersed in the newsletter content.

Question is, has anyone paid to advertise in a newsletter?
How were your results?
Where did you do it?
Would you do it again?
Can you share your advertisement?

Please share your stories.

 

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[MTF]

I recently paid $50 to be featured in a newsletter similar to mine. The guy gave me a brief shoutout in the middle of the newsletter and it has generated about 40-50 new subscribers to my list.

If I could find more newsletters like this one, I'd happily keep spending as I don't think you can get a more relevant subscriber than someone already subscribed to a similar newsletter.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Bump, hard to believe no one here has tried this...

 

[MTF]

Letterwell | Advertise in email newsletters seems to be the biggest platform for this. They don't have that many newsletters and I think this is actually a huge Fastlane opportunity (a platform for booking ads in newsletters).

 

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[Zwelethu]

I haven't tried this but I am planning to create it for my customer, selling a new service. Although I delete newsletters a lot because I only subscribe to what I need and may not need what I have just bought. There are other people who will save a newsletter to purchase in the near future.

So, it is worth trying and figuring it out for your own market to get the proper dynamics in order to reach profitablity.

 

[Andy Black]

It wasn't via a paid ad, but I got about 150 new subscribers in a 24 hours when someone emailed their list about 10 years ago.

There was a guy who did the copywriting module in one of Perry Marshall's Google Ads courses. I didn't buy Perry Marshall's course but that's how I ended up on the copywriter's newsletter. I think the copywriter's name was Bnonn.

Anyway, one of Bnonn's subscribers had asked him a Google Ads question and Bnonn sent an email out saying he wasn't a Google Ads expert but described what he'd do. I replied with some tips and Bnonn said he'd be happy to email something out if I sent him more details.

So I wrote this story and he said it was great but needed a CTA at the end to send people to a page where they could opt-in to get some lead magnet.

So I signed up to Aweber and then wrote this lead magnet and put it behind a simple opt-in page.

I promptly forgot about it and a few weeks later my inbox blew up with new subscriber notifications. I started sending personalised welcome emails and that's where I learned how they'd found my opt-in page. I had to stop sending those by the end of the day because too many were signing up.

One subscribers said he signed up with two different email addresses because he was so keen to get the lead magnet. If you check it above, you'll see the title was "The Single Biggest Reason People Lose Money With Google Ads". A different marketing coach I had at the time advised me to write that rather than "10 Reasons People Lose Money With Google Ads". Incidentally, I ended up emailing that guy back and forth a few times with advice about his Google Ads campaigns and he insta-hired me to do about $3k in consulting work.

I proceeded to write a new newsletter issue every Sunday evening till I had a library of content. I loaded all of them into the forum when I joined which explains why they come across like "articles". (You can see them as the first dozen or so threads linked to here.)


My learnings:

1) Bnonn's subscribers likely also came via Perry Marshall, who was known as The Google Ads Guy back then. So my content was different from Bnonn's but very much aligned with his subscribers' interests.

2) I didn't need to pay. I was already on Bnonn's list and I replied to him with helpful tips. Creators really want engaged subscribers, and it's easy to be engaged, say thanks, and be helpful - most will love it, including forum and Facebook group owners.

3) I created a win-win with Bnonn. I created some exclusive (at the time) content that he emailed his list to help them. He then showed me how to turn that into subscribers for my own list.

4) Have a CTA at the end of each email, and sell the click. Entice and teach people to click at the end of your email. (I didn't do that at the end of any of the emails I sent out. I slowly lost the will to live as it felt like I was talking to the void.)

5) Create a lead magnet highly aligned to what they've just read, and that only people who'd be interested in your content will signup for.

6) Don't turn people into consumers. I had amazing open rates at the start but it gradually dwindled as I keep sending info that people didn't necessarily act on. I had turned my subscribers into passive consumers.

 

[MTF]

@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.

 

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