Prologue

The first time I went scuba diving, aka the first time I submersed in less than four feet of water to discover what breathing compressed air felt like, I totally panicked.

I could see my husband’s magnified goggle-clad eyes processing my fear.

Everyone in our circle of five looked totally chill, calmly breathing underwater.

But I was terrified when I least expected it.

Why?

Because I hadn’t anticipated a nonstop stream of air. While I tried to breathe slowly, my regulator was emitting a constant stream of disorienting bubbles. I couldn’t seem to slow them down.

I could try to endure it; say nothing and power through the reef tour we were about to take.

Or I could stand up.

I stood up. Above water my husband asked what was wrong.

“I didn’t expect so many bub—”

He grabbed my regulator and fiddled with it. The valve was stuck open, sending air I couldn’t continuously inhale. He fixed it on the spot.

I tried again and, bam, I was scuba diving—no excess airstream flooding my lungs. It was amazing.

So, what? Where am I going with this?

I have a question for you.

Who are you writing your newsletter to?

When those words flow out of your fingers, imagine an individual—someone you want to really connect with, not overwhelm.

You’re sending that person an email.

Even if it’s coming from a company and not an individual, it’s still being opened by a single person. The more you treat that person like a friend or coworker you want to send a good idea to—and the less you treat them like me on the other end of that faulty regulator (think, nonstop transactional content)—the better the relationship will be.

Stop with the unnecessary air supply.

Edit and curate down to just the best stuff.

Then just let them breathe you in.

Screen Share

How Russ Henneberry has Grown theCLIKK’s Audience to Over 25,000

theCLIKK is a quickly growing newsletter for marketers.

In our latest Screen Share episode, founder Russ Henneberry (author of Digital Marketing for Dummies) walks us through how his team creates and curates content, their current growth strategy, and some of the lessons he’s learned along the way.

Interesting tidbit: Russ explains the three types of “share magnets” (referral links) theCLIKK uses and which one—surprisingly—works best. Hint: it’s not giveaways.

Learn more from Russ in his Email Mastery Workshop.

Newsletter Tips

Iceberg. Dead ahead: How to Avoid Gmail Clipping

In case you didn’t already know, HTML characters count in email, especially to Gmail. New York Times frontend engineer Angie Siu explains the ins and outs of what developers, designers, and newsletter creators can do to avoid it in this article.

For those using templates and visual builders, it’s quite the challenge to stay close to the 102KB file size rumored to be Gmail’s clipping point.

“... the key is to understand how much HTML is needed to produce the content you have. This is especially important if you write emails using a template-based service like Mailchimp or an in-house one powered by a component library because, as an editor, you might not get to see the code that goes into making your email behind the scenes.

Think of each block of content in your email as an iceberg—the stuff you as an editor get to see and interact with is just the tip that’s above the surface of the water. But there’s the rest of the iceberg that’s beneath the surface, which is the HTML that the developers wrote so it will look the way the designers planned.

For each iceberg tip, there’s more iceberg underneath that keeps it afloat. And since an email will contain many such icebergs, you can imagine that there’s a lot going on beneath the surface that you can’t see. So every time you create a new block of content, you’re really creating a whole iceberg—not just what’s on the surface.”

One very real danger of not resolving a Gmail clipping problem is that the unsubscribe link in your footer will not show and people who want to unsubscribe will resort to reporting the email as spam in order to get off your list.

Image: Angie Siu

So You Want to Launch a Newsletter: Tips From Writers

This recent a16z podcast episode spoke to four independent newsletter publishers about their trials and triumphs in launching newsletters. Listen through to hear how they’re making decisions and which of those have been successful.

Highlights

• At around 14:40 Lenny explains his Twitter flywheel strategy
• This is followed by Zach’s LinkedIn Strategy for B2B
• And all participants seem to agree that leaning into what makes you different is important

Related: 7 things we’ve learned from launching a daily newsletter

Esther Kezia Thorpe explains what The Media Roundup team discovered when they increased their weekly newsletter to daily deliveries.

Marketing

Stop Forcing Your B2B Marketing Org Structure on Your Buyer’s Journey

The challenge of building and sustaining buyer/seller relationships is especially tough at larger companies, where complex organizational structures are sometimes forced on the customer journey in detrimental ways.

Scott Vaughan addresses the issue of siloed business structures creating gaps and friction in the process in this article.

Related: 6 Tips for Crafting Effective B2B Email Newsletters

Also Related: If You Want Me to Unsubscribe From Your Marketing Emails, Try This

Curation

Why You Shouldn’t be Afraid of Curation

This article by Jason McBride examines the future of content marketing and provides an analysis of the role curation plays (and will play) in content strategy.

“What your audience needs is a way to filter all of the information out there. While every business still needs to create amazing content, they also need to focus on curating content for their customers.

Curation means you put the best of the web together in a simple bundle for people to consume. You will want to include some of your best work too. Through curation, more people will come to trust you. They will also learn to enjoy your unique brand voice.”

While curation scares businesses who fear sending their customers away, Jason explains that curation is a sign of confidence.

Bottom line: Don’t be afraid to share the great work others are doing that will benefit your audience.

Note: I discovered this article via the UpContent newsletter.

Publishing

Will Google’s Plan to pay out $1B to License Content for Google News Showcase Really Benefit Publishers?

TechCrunch, Axios, and everyone else reported the launch of Google News Showcase last week.

The premise is that Google will be paying select publishers to create and curate high-quality content.

From TechCruch:

“It’s not clear how much money individual publishers will make out of this initiative, nor how or if it could be used to drive business models that don’t cut Google in on the action. The latter has been a prime focus for many publishers for the last several years.”

Google News Showcase launches first in Brazil and Germany. Time will tell if the investment pleases publishers who both depend on and resent the tech giant. Some are already voicing concerns over the harm it may do to publishers not chosen to participate (the program began with 200).

See this Axios article for a bulleted breakdown of the current relationship status between the two and how this new twist might play out.

Related: “Without technology content is nothing:” What is a media company nowadays?

Axios Is Growing and Profitable Despite Bleak News Landscape

The Wall Street Journal reports that the digital news startup will be profitable this year, with newsletter sponsorships contributing more than 50% of the company’s total revenue.

Curated News

Did you Know There’s a Curated Chrome Extension?

Just in case you missed it, Chrome users can grab the Curated extension to collect links to your account.

How it works

1. Discover content you think belongs in your newsletter
2. Click the Curated Chrome extension
3. It will capture the URL, page title, & source
4. Add notes or commentary, an image, the category (section) of your newsletter it belongs in, and who captured it
5. Move on. The content will be ready to add to your next issue(s) when you are

Note: For users with more than one newsletter, you’ll be able to choose from your publications.

Yes. I did use the Chrome extension to add this link to this newsletter.

Opt In Challenge

Dig into Deliverability

Deliverability is complicated. SparkPost breaks it down in this PDF.

Save it to your files and reference it to send emails that land (legally) exactly where you want them to: your very excited recipient’s inbox.

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.