Prologue

Do you know how onions are harvested?

It’s a smelly process.

Involving one tractor that unearths them and lines them up in mounds on the field.

And another that sucks them up and spins them in a barrel that sifts out the dirt.

AND another tractor pulling a big open trailer, carefully staying nearly side-by-side to the one that sucks them up. Sifted onions are sort of shot off the one and into the other, piling into the massive trailer.

Each of these processes makes lots of noise.

And leaves heaps of perfectly good onions on the field to rot.

All very technical, I know.

And maybe not something you care to know?

But I want you to feel like you are in this field. To imagine a giant brown swath of recently harvested onions and that this process is taking place on the end rows while you are in the middle of the field. This section has already been harvested but there are plenty of onions they missed. You breathe in the potent smell, eyes tearing up and nose running as you slowly metal detect your way across it.

Yes. You are metal detecting.

For fun.

Surrounded by modern tools doing modern things (loud, efficient, sloppy) while you swing a modern 2-pound detector in hopes of finding something interesting.

And, by the way, you are in England, because there’s way more history of metal use there than in the US and you’ve taken multiple expensive COVID tests to be here among the onions.

Are you with me? Walking slow, swinging that detector with your right arm? Holding a shovel in your left hand? (Sorry, lefties.) Listening for beeps just begging to be dug and then turning out to be chunks of soda cans or lead blobs?

Every time you hear a signal worth digging you repeat the process of pinpointing it, digging until it’s out, then isolating whatever clump of metal is waiting to be discovered.

99 times out of 100 you dig up junk.

Like, absolute trash.

New trash. Old trash. Trash you can’t even tell what it is trash.

And then…

You unearth a clump of dense bronze.

It’s a strange rotty green.

You think, “Well, that’s old. Only ancient bronze is this color.” (Yes. You know that at least.)

And then you clean all the dirt off of it and discover that this really old piece of bronze isn’t just a blob. It kind of comes to a point. And if you turn it...

“OMG it’s a socketed axe head.”

Like, the broken tip of a Bronze Age axe head.

As in, this thing broke and was discarded sometime around 850 B.C.

It could be that the last person who touched it touched it THEN, likely cursing the broken tool.

Still with me?

It’s a surreal feeling. Finding what someone else lost. Recognizing it and connecting with the past.

Holding history.

Physical history.

Crafting a narrative in your mind as you blow your onion irritated nose and imagine the ancient landscape of a modern field.

It happened to me last week.

My first axe head tip.

And I loved the moment. I indulged in it.

Cut to the present: These days we’re leaving a different trail.

A trail of digital content.

Articles, videos, and newsletters, perhaps? All waiting to be discovered and experienced.

Is yours identifiable? Does it bring people into a story they want to be a part of?

Is it creating meaningful moments for them?

Think of your newsletter as a reason to detect that onion field.

But cut right to the valuable substance without making your subscribers dig up trash.

Get straight to the good stuff.

Psst: If you’re a curator, it’s your job to sort the trash from the treasure.

Now, let’s get to the links I’ve collected for you this week. It’s good to be back from vacation, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish I was back amongst the onions.

My Bronze Age axe head tip.

Screen Share

Is Your Newsletter Annoying?

People often ask if sending newsletters frequently is annoying and I default to Margo Aaron’s brilliant response to this during Newsletter Fest 2021:

It’s not annoying if you’re the market.

What does that mean?

If you are creating content people crave, they like getting it.

If you are sending something that isn’t entertaining them or improving their lives, it is annoying.

In this short video clip from her session, she explains this using boy band fandom as an example.

Psst! You know I adore Margo and have featured her a gazillion times. It’s because she’s amazing at teaching. If you want to learn copy writing from someone who brings this same energy to a course, you should consider signing up for her 9-week Akimbo Copy Workshop. The signup deadline is Oct. 1. Yes, tomorrow. Go!

Newsletter Tips

Apple’s new privacy changes are live, and chances are you’ll be affected in one way or another. Here’s the latest from experts I trust.

• Ann Gynn with The Tilt noticed some open rate wackiness with Apple’s new privacy changes. She’s offering 5 pieces of advice that could help.
• Are traditional open rates even relevant anymore? Gregory Zakowicz with MarketingProfs thinks this is the end and is offering 5 ways you can prepare now.
• This article by Magan Le for Litmus answers all your questions from what MPP is to how it works to what it means for you. Have questions? She has answers.
• If your open rates haven’t changed (yet), Dan Oshinky is offering insight on his LinkedIn as to why this might be the case.

When it comes to creating newsletters, you don’t always have to recreate the wheel. Check out the advice these creators have to offer.

• Paula Forbes successfully maintains a newsletter audience of thousands of readers and is answering all of Esmé Ara'resa’s questions for Newsletter Crew here.
• A year ago Casey Newton quit his job and started Platformer. Now, he’s sharing what he’s learned including relying on Twitter shares for growth.
• Tim Herrerra took one piece of crucial CTA advice away from his time working at NYT and is sharing it here.
• Chrome Extention Ideas is a new newsletter that gained 99 subscribers in 1 day by replying to 1 tweet. Could this work for you, too?

Marketing

Are You (Social) Listening?

In this CMI piece, Fi Shailes explains how it can help you keep an eye on competitors, monitor your industry, and identify key voices.

Discovered via Smart Brief on Social Business.

Small Biz Marketing Tips You Can Use

I love an actionable list. Si Quan Ong has put together 17 marketing tips (for small businesses but they’re good for larger ones, too), including a few that email newsletters can help with:

• Build an email list
• Nurture your subscribers
• Repurpose content on multiple channels

Discover the others here.

Discovered via Publisher Weekly.

Related: If you’re a one-person marketing show, these 26 tips from Jason Bradwell might be helpful.

Publishing

This week’s publishing insights reveal a theme: publishers are prioritizing subscriptions over traditional revenue streams. Take a look at how it’s going and the impact on journalism.

• This Digiday article by Sara Guaglione breaks down what we know: newsletters are helping publishers increase subscriptions.
• One Asian business site published one story a day and gained 30,000 subscribers. Read Laura Oliver’s story about it here.
• The future is here. Robot journalism is driving subscriptions, according to Faisal Kalim for What’s New in Publishing.
• Could “Debranding” be the key for publishers who want to prioritize subscriptions over ad revenue? Laura Hazard Owen with Nieman lab thinks so.
• The Fix explains just what kind of role Facebook and Google are playing for newsletters and spoiler it’s not all positive.
• Where do you get your news? Joshua Benton looks at the relationship between Facebook, users, and journalism in this Niemanlab article.

Money Matters

If You Want Readers To Pay, Start With These Measurements

Wondering which of your readers will actually pay for content? The metrics included in this What’s New In Publishing article by The Fix might help. They suggest:

• Creating an email newsletter (sounds familiar...)
• Leading with your mission and values
• Including the phrase “you can cancel at any time”

Discovered via Publisher Weekly.

Curated News

How To Send Reconfirmation Emails To Subscribers Who Haven't Clicked Links In 6 Months

Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection is rolling out and open rates are losing their reliability.

Yeah. It’s a big pain.

But it’s possible (and smart) to look beyond open rates to maintain list hygiene. You’ll want to start looking at clicks and consider asking readers who aren’t clicking at all to reconfirm their interest. Just remember, you have 2 goals: help people who want off your list off of it AND help those who need a little nudge to express their interest in continuing to subscribe to do so.

I asked Seth to help Curated users understand how they can send reconfirmation emails to subscribers who haven’t clicked a link in 6 months. Here’s what he came up with:

In Curated, you can customize a reconfirmation workflow to clean your list of inactive subscribers. Here’s a step-by-step guide to reconfirm subscribers who haven’t clicked a link inside your newsletter in the past 6 months.

1. Click on the Subscribers drop-down at the top of your my.curated page
2. Open the Email Subscribers page from this drop-down
3. Click the Activity drop-down and select No clicks in past 6 months and filter.
4. Select all of these email addresses by clicking the checkbox to the left of the Email Address
5. Towards the top of the page, click the Reconfirm Selected button to send the reconfirmation email

The subscribers who you’ve chosen to reconfirm will be automatically unsubscribed from your newsletter until they reconfirm their subscription in the reconfirmation email.

Curated provides a default reconfirmation message that you can send, but if you’re looking to personalize this message a bit, we’ve put together a template that you can use. Feel free to make a copy for yourself here.

Don't Miss Curated Crash Course This Afternoon

Reminder that the next session of Curated Crash Course is this afternoon at 4:00 PM Central Time!

The first 30 minutes is dedicated to Curated 101, which covers what you need to have set up to send your first issue in Curated. The last 30 minutes is your opportunity to ask any questions you have about Curated or newsletters in general during our Q&A time.

This is meant to be a come and go experience, so if you're already familiar with the Curated platform but have a question about your newsletter strategy, hop in after 4:30 for Q&A!

Want to add Curated Crash Course to your calendar? You can register once here and you'll be registered for each session we have in the future. Drop by when you can.

See you this afternoon!

ICYMI: You can always check our Curated Public Product Roadmap to catch up on recent releases and find out what’s up next.

Don’t want to click through? Our recent bigger releases include Paid Subscriptions and a Free Tier.**

Opt In Challenge

Optimize Your Double Opt In Message

Double opt ins, or requiring subscribers to verify their subscription, is great as long as you’re not losing subscribers in the process. This week, your Opt In Challenge is to audit your double opt in email confirmation message and consider applying this tip (especially if you have a high rate of drop-offs).

Discovered via Marketer Crew.

Signature

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.