Prologue

Let’s think through newsletter evolution.

I don’t care if they do or don’t teach it in schools in your state.

I’m here to say, “Newsletter evolution is real.”

And that we all need to be active participants in this phenomenon.

What do I mean?

Don’t be afraid to retire a segment, category, or whatever you call a content section of your newsletter.

It’s ok to change anything and everything.

The format.

The layout.

The way you deliver sections of content.

Magazines do this all the time.

Segments play out.

And that’s ok.

When you launch a new section, it may fail fast, or it may have several years in it.

Either is ok.

Your purpose is to keep your reader engaged.

That could mean changing things up.

I promise that very few people will respond in vehement anger, complaining you stopped publishing their favorite bit.

...But if they do, there is no rule that you can’t bring it back.

A newsletter is a wonderful way to test content to see which stories and formats your audience likes and which ones get a little action but then go stale.

Let your newsletter evolve.

Add, subtract, rearrange, and redecorate.

It’s all ok.

Today’s Prologue was inspired by the amazing content strategy mastermind I ran with Russ Henneberry, Founder of theCLIKK, last Friday. We had a blast helping people come up with ideas and this topic of evolution was a fun one to address. Now I’m thinking… “What will I change next?”

I hope you enjoy this issue.

Screen Share

How Long Should Your Newsletter Be?

“As long or short as necessary to convey the message”—Stephen King, via Margo Aaron at Newsletter Fest 2021.

How to figure out a good length (all info is extracted from this 4-minute video clip of Margo’s brilliance):

🚥 Find the intersection between what you’re trying to say and who you’re saying it to.

Are you writing to someone who is checking email during a meeting and will likely skim?

Are you writing to someone who is a writer themselves and loves to get lost in a story?

Let the true behaviors (not the buzzwordy, made-up ones) of your target audience dictate the format they’ll be most likely to engage with.

🚦Identify the things you are good at (one-liners, visuals, storytelling), lean into those things, and “edit the cruft out of your piece.” (Cruft means “unnecessarily complicated,” in case you were about to look it up.)

People don’t say something “was long” because it was long. They say that if it’s boring. Trust me, I read Margo’s very long newsletter every week and I don’t think of it as long because it’s incredibly entertaining.

🛑 Avoid a self-important posture.

You and your brand are not the stars of your newsletter. The people reading it are.

What do THEY need to hear? What will get THEM to pay attention?

⚙️ Reverse engineer how you approach your market.

Thinking about what your audience needs to hear will answer your length question.

If it doesn’t, go with one word and a meme.

Psst! Margo wrote about this last week. You should check her article out.

Newsletter Tips

Tips For Creating A Successful Newsletter

Want to attend a webinar without actually attending a webinar? Me, too. Recently, Benjamin Quiring and Ashley Hoffman tried to answer the question, “what makes a successful newsletter?”

They included things like:

• Building a habit of great content aka including great content in every section so people want to read it all
• Listening to your audience to receive feedback
• Writing your newsletter like you’re talking to a friend (we’re pals, right?)

Take a look and let me know what your favorite tip is.

Related: Want to start a newsletter but don’t know where to begin? These 10 steps will help.

How Rejection Prompted A Successful Newsletter

Nobody likes rejection, but what if rejection is actually the impetus for something better? It was for Eddie Shleyner. After Shleyner didn’t get the job at Facebook, he decided to consistently create and share content via his newsletter, Very Good Copy.

Has a recent rejection spurred you on?

I’ve experienced my fair share.

5 Ways Apple’s Privacy Changes Will Impact Newsletter Creators

No matter how you spin it, Apple’s mail privacy changes will impact newsletter creators, mainly inflating open rates. Brian Sisolek created a list of effects you need to know about, including:

• Quick subject line tests will be flooded with large numbers of phantom openers
• No more using last open date for segmentation or targeting
• Countdown timers might show outdated times
• Knowing the percent of mobile vs. desktop opens is a thing of the past
• Location-based emails will no longer work

Wait.

None of these really impact Opt In Weekly.

I’ll lose open rate as a metric to measure, but I’m more reliant on the click report and my summary report, which shows me which categories within the newsletter get the most engagement.

Related: Check out this story about how to prepare for the privacy changes from Litmus OR this one about what it will mean for email from Only Influencers.

Marketing

Are You Using These 42 Content Marketing Tools?

There’s a bazillion (precise, I know) content marketing tools out there, but which ones are actually worth it? MarketerHire did the dirty work of gathering the data for us.

Here are a few that got rave reviews:

• Grammarly for all things content writing. “Grammarly is one of those tools you set up and forget about until it swoops in to help make your writing better,” Jessica McCune told MarketerHire.
• Feedly for keeping up with trends and industry news
• Clearscope for optimizing content

Did your favorite tool make the list?

Related: Check out these expert takeaways from the Content Tech Summit for help with SEO, tech, strategy, and more. Discovered Via Smart Brief on Social Business.

What Does Your Digital Marketing Future Look Like?

Marcel Schwantes sat down with Seth Godin, “the godfather of modern marketing,” to discuss the future of web creation, the importance of marketing evolution, and why creators need soft skills.

Here’s what I loved:

“Marketing effectively is about finding the smallest viable audience and not only earning their trust, but showing up in a way that’s worth talking about—not because you want them to talk about you and your work, but because they do.

If you are executing well on your marketing strategy, then the result is growth. Better clients and better work.

It’s not about hustling people. No one wants to be hustled.”

Writing

A Framework for Curing Writer’s Block

Ever feel like you’re always behind, or is that just me? Amy Porterfield has a framework designed to “tackle the content time crunch,” and it looks like this:

Ask:

• What is your main point?
• Why does your content matter?
• How can your audience apply this?

Then:

• Prove that it works by sharing success.

Look at your content (yep, whatever you’re working on right now), and see if you can apply this framework. Would it speed up production?

Discovered via Really Good Emails.

Related: “Some,” “Thing,” “Very”. If you’re using these words (+ 4 others), it’s time to cut them to improve your writing.

Curation

Is Curation The Key To Establishing Human Connection?

In this article, Scott Rogerson explains how curation can help you build trust-centric relationships with readers founded on context, familiarity, and credibility. He breaks it down in this UpContent article:

“Not only does curated content free up your creative team’s time, but it also helps your customers establish a human connection with your organization.”

Related: Should you be creating content or curating content for your newsletter? The pro/con list you need.

Publishing

Did The Pandemic Pave The Way For Audience-Centered Culture?

There’s no denying the pandemic presented publishers with new challenges, but it also pushed us to work in new ways. Joyce MacDonald thinks that building an audience-centered culture by asking the questions, “what does our community need?” and “how can we provide it?” is key to digital survival and media as a whole.

Discovered via American Press Institute

Related: Social Media is where we build community, but it’s also where we tip-toe around policy and trolls. CJR has a solution. Discovered via American Press Institute.

Post-Pandemic Newspaper Employee Shortages

In this post-pandemic culture (am I allowed to say that yet?), newspapers have more openings than they have applicants. Jerry Simpkins breaks down what’s going on by examining work environment, unemployment, minimum wage, and more.

Discovered via Editor and Publisher.

Money Matters

A 4-Step Process for Estimating Membership Revenue

Ariel Zirulnick and Joseph Lichterman break down membership as both a source of revenue and a social contract in this edition of The Membership Muzzle Project.

If you’re thinking of monetizing, this practical 4-step process for forecasting opportunity for membership revenue could help:

Step 1 Calculate total addressable audience

Step 2 Estimate monthly unique users and monthly site visits

Step 3 Estimate newsletter subscribers

Step 4 Set targets to convert newsletter subscribers to paying members

Discovered via Publisher Weekly.

Related: Does your subscriber landing page need help? Check out these 7 tips designed to increase subscribers.

Curated News

🎥 Video Tutorial: How To Set Up And Use Google Analytics 4 For Your Newsletter

Hey everyone, Seth here.

Ready to get your Curated newsletter set up with Google Analytics 4?

Two of the metrics that you should keep an eye on are scroll depth and engagement time.

This tutorial video shows you how to connect GA4 to your newsletter and make sure that these metrics are firing correctly.

ICYMI: We released paid newsletters last week!

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

Opt In Challenge

Audit And Update Your Subscription Confirmation (AKA Welcome) Email

If your subscription confirmation email has been sitting untouched since you set it up, it’s time to take a look. This week’s challenge is to audit and update your subscription confirmation email from top to bottom (literally).

Use this guide to start strong (good subject line), end with a little personality (a quick reminder about yourself), and improve everything in between.

Discovered via Really Good Emails.

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.

Also, I’d appreciate it if you shared it with fellow email newsletter creators. All archived issues will be available on OptInWeekly.com, so you can send them the link to check it out.

Have a great week sending, y’all.