Prologue

When we moved from Florida in June, I had a bit of regret about a thing I should have done but didn’t when we lived there.

I really wish I had taken the time to go to our beach entrance and watch the sunrise over the Atlantic more often.

It was lovely when I did.

It set the pace for the day.

But I didn’t actually do it very often and I have no one to blame but myself.

An interesting thing happened after we moved, though.

A friend who lived nearby started posting daily sunrise photos from her beach entrance on Instagram/Facebook.

So now, each morning when I check my feed, I see and like her photos.

It feels like they’re for me.

This friend went through A LOT last year, and though we were in touch in a get-things-done-for-our-daughters sort of way, I had no clue about her heaviest heavy stuff. It’s stuff she’s moving past, and I think the morning beach walks are part of her healing.

They’re part of my healing, too.

They’re a taste of something I meant to do but didn’t, and now I get to enjoy what should have been in a different way.

These vicarious sunrises are becoming a new ritual for me.

If we think of this in terms of newsletters (because, I know, I know, that’s social media—not email), I think it hits close to the most important goal of the genre: to build connection by sharing.

Above all else, a newsletter is an outlet for creating and sharing something important to you/your brand with people who agree it’s important and welcome it into their lives.

It can be you inviting them into a world you build for them to inhabit.

It can be therapeutic and ritualistic.

It can be the sunrises they want to make time for.

Now, let’s see what newsletter news we can shed some fresh light on today.

Screen Share

Choosing a Newsletter Revenue Model

Michael Aft of The New Paper speaks from experience when it comes to choosing between a sponsorship model and a paid subscription model.

For some context, he and his business partner grew The New Paper to $1M in revenue in 2 years.

They started with ads and found that it took a ton of time and energy. Michael’s finding throughout the process was that direct to consumer brands were happy to test ads in The New Paper, but they were running conversion-based ads—“buy this thing now by clicking”—not brand ads—“we just want you to recognize our name and learn a little bit about us”—and saw diminishing returns when running multiple ads in issues of the same newsletter.

When Michael thinks you should sell ads:

1. If you have massive reach (100,000+ subscribers)
2. If you have a really engaged audience that will be clicking on those conversion based ads
3. If you have the bandwidth to spend time selling or pay someone to do it

For extra context, The New Paper switched to paid subscriptions and made that change part of its mission to be unbiased. They wanted to offer a user-first experience and decided to make the change a part of their value proposition: they promote their content as uninfluenced by sponsors.

When Michael thinks you should to choose paid subscriptions:

1. If paid subscriptions fits the mission (should it be paid?)
2. If there is a willingness to pay
3. If you have the ability to scale. He recommends that your growth and the lifetime value of a subscriber needs to be ROI positive for your time creating

This short video clip (it’s less than 5 minutes) from his Newsletter Fest 2021 session walks us through the path The New Paper took to paid.

My takeaways?

Brands should take notice and start running brand ads in newsletters with niche audiences. Imagine being able to teach thousands of people interested in a specific topic a little more about your product each week.

Also, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here. I don’t believe all creators who sell sponsorships are influenced by the brands that sponsor them. I’m a fan of both models and I think they can even co-exist if the quality of your content and reader engagement support both.

I do like that he’s given us some thought paths to determine what’s best for your newsletter.

Newsletter Tips

Want More Newsletter Subscribers? Start Here

This resource page from Josh Spector of For the Interested is full of links (26, in fact) to previously published content, stories, and tips designed to help newsletter creators grow subscriber lists.

You’ll find articles like:

• 40 One-Sentence Newsletter Tips
• 100 Things To Publish In The Next 100 Days To Grow Your Audience
• How To Grow Your Email List Without Sleazy Tactics

Related: Check out how Bria Felicien gained her first 1,000 subscribers.

Looking To Cross-Promote Your Newsletter?

If you’re looking to cross-promote your newsletter in other newsletters, you might want to save this spreadsheet. Anyone can add their newsletter in and collaborate with other participants.

Discovered via Newsletter Nerds Facebook Group.

Succeeding As A Creator

This article is a quick read on how creators build businesses around their crafts. No surprise here, but the first step is creating, not monetizing… especially for newsletter creators (hop down to the Opt In Challenge at the bottom of this issue to learn why you need to be approaching it as a marathon).

Marketing

Why Do Consumers Opt In And Out Of Emails?

Ever wondered about the psychology behind why consumers opt-in and out of emails?

In this article, theCLIKK boils it down to this:

Opt In

1. They like saving money
2. They want to see brand content
3. They want to be knowledgeable consumers

Unsubscribe

1. They’re getting too many emails
2. They feel that the emails are spammy or excessively promotional

As you think through your strategy, focus on appealing to the reasons consumers opt-in (and avoiding the reasons they unsubscribe). And read the entire article for more advice on doing so.

Related: Is email marketing worth it? If you want an effective, low-cost way to reach customers, yes, yes it is. Here’s why.

Looking For Social Media Inspiration?

Looking for some social media inspiration? These 6 newsletters—Yep, newsletters that help you with social media. I get the irony—are full of tips, tools, and features designed to help you succeed.

Related: Speaking of social media, this Twitter thread will help you rethink CTAs as Calls to Value. Discovered via Marketer Crew.

Writing

3 Tips to Improve Your Writing

Tom Anderson shares some practical tips to improve your writing in this article from Managing Editor.

They include

• Timeboxing your writing assignments
• Outlining before you write
• Reading widely

“Showing up is the hard part. Even great writers have to push themselves to grapple with the blank screen every day.”

Click through to get started.

Related: Want to get a little more technical? Check out the science of strong business writing here. Discovered via Really Good Emails.

Publishing

A Look Back At 2020: The State Of The News Media Industry

Pew Research Center recently released 6 key takeaways about the state of the news media industry in 2020. They’re mostly about advertising, subscription, and audience growth.

Two somewhat significant findings:

• For the first time, newspapers made more money from circulation than from advertising
• Total advertising revenue—beyond just news—is now mostly digital

Something to think about as you strategize.

Discovered via American Press Institute.

Related: Speaking of the digital world, last year local news outlets boosted digital subscriptions by about 50%. Discovered via American Press Institute.

Also Related: What does the future of publishing look like in cookie-less, privacy-focused digital world? This article breaks it down.

Money Matters

Principles Designed To Help Publishers Formulate The Right Pricing

What’s New in Publishing writer Faisal Kalim tackles a big question in this piece:

How can publishers formulate pricing strategies to both acquire new customers and retain existing ones?

He writes that there aren’t straightforward answers, but there are some straightforward principles to implement:

Pick the Right Competitors

Don’t use Netflix as a benchmark if you’re a local news product. Know who your competitors are and benchmark accordingly.

Use the Right Messaging

Do your research and discover what your subscribers care about. Then, adjust the way you talk about (and offer) pricing.

Read on for more principles.

Curated News

When I was creating this feature feedback form last week, I got a little excited about the many, many ways you can collect links and have them waiting to be used in your next newsletter.

So, naturally, I spent some time this week figuring out how I could use Zapier to bring in content my readers might like and came up with a few cool use cases I want to share with you.

1. Collecting YouTube Video Links to Curated

For this, you’ll find YouTube in Zapier.

Trigger Options:

New Video—When a new video is uploaded by a specific YouTube user name

New Video in Channel—When a new video is published to a specific YouTube channel

New Video by Search—When a new video is uploaded that matches a specific YouTube search string

New Video in Playlist—When a new video is added to a specific playlist

Tip: Everything is pretty self explanatory except for which thumbnail image to pick. I found that the one called Thumbnails High URL brought in the best quality image… but I may grab that and add a play button in Canva then bring that into Curated so it still feels like you press play.

Use Cases: Maybe you want to follow a certain search term you know your audience likes, you want to stay tuned to what certain news outlets or brands who post videos are announcing, or you post your own videos you know you’ll want to share. This Zap can automate that process.

2. Collecting RSS Links from Top Sources to Curated

In addition to using an aggregator to process links around specific topics, you can use RSS by Zapier to bring in links from sites you know publish quality content you’d like to share. You’ll need to find the RSS URL for those sites.

Trigger Options (these are very obvious):

New Item in Feed—When new content is added to a feed

New Items in Multiple Feeds—When new content is added to multiple feeds

Tip: Here’s how to find an RSS link if the sites you want to follow don’t have a RSS link available (it’s usually lumped in with the social account icons).

Use Cases: I think this is best for following writers and publications you know create high-quality, share-worthy content. In my case, I set up RSS Zaps to collect links from Ann Handley’s blog, Content Marketing Institute, and What’s New in Publishing. I’m testing to see if that sends me too much content to process or just the right amount. I also found the RSS feed for the Newsletter Crew podcast and set that up as well.

3. Sending Project Management App Status Changes To Curated

For this, you’d use the project management app your team(s) use and select the proper triggers for task/project completion.

Trigger Options

In Trello, that might mean moving any task into a Done column, while in ClickUp or Asana it might mean completing tasks within specific workspaces or projects.

Use Cases: I see this as primarily ideal for internal team or organization newsletters. If you’re collecting links to the tasks or projects your team has completed, that means they’ll all be waiting for you to add to the next newsletter. From there, you can determine which ones you want to include.

Additionally, if you maintain a public roadmap using an app like Trello, you could also set this up to make sure the marketing team is aware when a feature is deployed so that it’s included in the next customer-facing newsletter.

ICYMI: 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

Adopt A Marathon Mindset

There are no shortcuts when it comes to creating and implementing a great newsletter strategy.

This week, your challenge is to read this article by Pierre Lipton of 1440 Media and prep for the long haul.

Warning: you need a free Marketing Prof’s account to read the article.

Discovered via Smartbrief on Social Business.

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.