Email Marketer here. Share your newsletter and I will give feedback.

Hey Ryan,

So let's divide this into a couple of pieces. :)

1. I see that you are using Substack. I haven't used it by myself but I presume it doesn't allow you a hell of customization which is actually a good design decision 😄 You can use those limitations to create something amazing and create wow effect on your next subscribers who are familiar with substack 💪

2. One missing thing is you lack automated flows. Again, I am not sure if Substack offers but you must have a "Welcome Flow". Why? Because emailing has 3 pillars:

   1. Subscriber source
   2. Permission
   3. Expectation
      Subscriber source and permissions are handled by substack. (All the legal stuff etc.) But you need to set proper expectations. I see that you have an about page but that's not enough. People must receive a proper welcome email that sets the expectations of what is this newsletter about.

3. Your subject lines are the main factor for open rates. I checked the one with Neuralink and this one did couple things good and couple things not so great :) You are keeping the character limit under 50 which is good. That means it's fully visible on mobile devices as well but you have 9 words which are a bit too much. You can occasionally try to keep it under 5 words. Ofc these are open for testing. Test and see what works best for your audience.

4. I like how you form emails. And it probably has no accessibility issues since you are using substack. I just found the Quick Overview section a bit awkward. bullet points + quote marks are adding lots of padding on the left side. It doesn't look nice on mobile.

Sorry if I am too harsh :) I like to receive and make harsh comments about products. This way we can build better stuff :)

Hi,

First of all, clean and understandable Landing Page. The small thing is that return button is missing in your Success Page :) User gets such there. You need to direct them from that point to somewhere desired instead of leaving them. If you don't have 2 step verifications the best place is probably the latest issue. So you can already start to build some relationship there.

Your welcome email is nice and clean. But please check the spacing between lines. They seem oddly big in my Gmail account. I see that you don't utilize the preview text section. You may want to use that part as well. Just provide a complementary sentence to your title for more context. That'd work like a charm.

To be honest, if your newsletter also looks like in this link, I like it. The way you designed your title's and callouts etc. looks nice. It gives a proper distinction. The only problem here would be the size of titles. They are smaller than they should be IMO. Also, maybe you may want to use more imagery.

In general, it gave me the feeling of a blog on the early 2010s and I like what I saw :) Good luck. Also interesting niche. I presume you will attract lots of hobbyists as well :)

Hey,

So let's start with LP :) I must say that you are in a very competitive area :) And I believe you should find a way to differentiate yourself with your LP copy. Especially the first section where you explain stuff. If I'd land here from search results, I might be asking myself: "How is it different than 100 other entrepreneur newsletters."

I got confused about your LP and Email Service. You use Mailmunch and Mailchimp at the same time. But why? If you are using both services for emails that may cause deliverability problems since email clients will be very confused about it.

Subject Line: I see that you are trying to keep your branding on the email to create a habit on customers. It's smart and worth the try. But I might also try things like putting the naming on sender like XXX from Unrestricted and keep the subject line short. Again there is no absolute true approach but worth the try.

In terms of tone of voice, your subject lines do not show any emotion. While this approach is good for commercial companies I prefer seeing something more "human" from newsletters and personal brands. Ofc it's up to you how you form and decide your tone of voice.

Design: It's a quite simple and clean design. I like to read that kind of newsletters but you may consider increasing your copy - image ratio. Images both helps to digest content + creates a hierarchy in your content.

I like that you are offering engagement buttons at the end of the email. I'd love to hear the results of it. Also, buy me coffee is at the end where it should be. But I see that that kind of buttons is mostly don't work. Especially in countries that have a no-tipping culture. (Counties like eastern Europe) Also would love to hear your results :)

One last tip. Personalization often confused with putting people's names on emails. :) But if you really want to produce good stuff you can actually evaluate those likes and start to produce newsletters with more personalized content for your audience. That's more work but it'll probably increase your engagement more than simple variable plays :)

Overall good stuff. I like the way you use simplicity 💪

Heya,

First of all, I like the concept :) It reminds me The Cognitive Bias Podcast :) Wish you all the best.

Subject Line: I like them. They are short and on-point. But you can occasionally come up with a little longer subject lines to surprise your audience( no longer than 5 words)

Content: Again, I like to read short and bit-size stuff. So I am "biased" at the moment :) For me, this is a good form of presenting a physiological concept. But you may want to use better imagery and some diagram etc. to explain stuff. People love diagrams and visuals stuff :)

Hot-tip: I see that you have a inconsistent sending frequency. According to behavioural design, doing it from time to time can create a surprise effect and increase the engagement but in general consistent posting is creating habit of reading. You may wanna have more consistent sending habit :)

Welcome Mail: I didn't receive any welcome mail. If you read my answer the first comment up there the same goes for you as well. A solid welcome mail is the first touch-point to create a bonding relationship and gives you a chance to set expectations :)

Hey,

I wish there was such a thing in my country as well. :) But I have one question? How much do you think your audience cares about this tone of voice? When it comes to the economy, being able to explain things with simpler language may result more engagement than jokes. But that's just my opinion. (That doesn't mean that you don't explain things simpler. Just a general idea of mine)

Subject Line: It's not clear what I-as subscriber- find inside. People usually ignore too abstract subject lines as well as too revealing ones. I know it sounds stupid but that's why there is a huge discussion around email subject lines. Don't forget that you will be one of the hundreds of emails that fell people's inboxes that day. And there are 3 things to optimize for grabbing the attention:

1.Sender Info: Your sender image and name must drag attention and give people a clear idea about who are you and why did you pop-up on their inbox.
2. Subject Line: You must work on your subject lines especially when you are in Economy. I don't have any data but I am sure people who are interested in the economy gets way more emails than average people. You must be creative but also explain what's inside. Emojis can be a huge help here :)
3. Preview Text: If Substack lets you please utilize it. You can create an engaging preview text that completes your subject lines. It's not sure whether people will read it but those who read should appreciate it :)

Content: I like the way you use emojis to differentiate content and define their tone. But you need more imagery IMO. People get bored with wall of text. Especially in emails. If you need inspiration please check how dense discovery is presenting its long-form content :)

Since it's substack, I don't think there are any deliverability issues but be sure that you have clear welcome emails for new subs.

Hey Felix,

So firstly, please add https://kommunity.com/ in your directories :) I know the owner. He is doing great stuff and the product is really successful in Turkey and Europe.

Since it's also substack newsletter, most of the technical comments I'd give about deliverability and accessibility would be same. It's obvious that substack is handling those things.

I like how did you form your about section and set clear expectations. And the energetic vibe in your copy fits the concept :)

Subject Lines: I must say that I am not a huge fan of the same subject line for each newsletter. Subject lines are your chance to stand out in the crowd. I explained just in the previous comment as well, you are competing with lots of noise in the inbox. And putting the same subject line may cause losing interest. It can distract people and make them question whether they have read this issue. And, it doesn't tell what's inside.

Personally, I don't like to click newsletters if I don't like the subject line. And this is same even for the ones that I follow really closely. If you want to create a habit, you can go to Dribble route :) They use different emojis for each newsletter concept they have an it helps subscribers to notice them in the crowd with clear expectation. And engaging subject line helps them to get the click.

Content: You are doing actually a great work here. Good use of images. Content is not that long and properly divided into sections. Putting your social links and other relevant communication methods when you can.

One small note. You ask people to email you for anything. But there is friction. It's better to ask them just reply to this email if they want to communicate. This way, they will feel like this is also a personal mail rather than some email blast. And replying the existing email is easier than writing a whole new email to another address.

Overall, very nice job. Check Sidebar for curated content. That's one of my fav newsletters. Sacha is hand-curating that one :)

Hey Micheal,

So let's start with LP.

I love dark theme. So it's very good you went this route. Your head title is a bit generic. You may want to work on that. Personally, I do not enjoy seeing words like "supercharge" etc. since almost all products are using them.

Newsletter: I see that you tried to utilize Substack's capabilities as much as you can and I totally understand you to switch over something with personalization options but please keep in mind that simplicity always wins :) If I were you I'd still go for simple design instead of gimmicky stuff. Why?

1. Creating such themes is time-consuming and you will always need to iterate based on your conversion. I understand that drag-and-drop tools may reduce this time tho.
2. The more code you generate the more you will face some problems. For example Gmail's email size limit. If your email will be more than 102kb Gmail will clip the rest and your beautiful design will turn into "churn-machine"

Sadly I am not able to see new emails. Your links gave 404 but I checked your welcome email. I see that it's clean and understandable. One small thing is that you are missing preview text, so the preview section looks a bit off. Also, you are missing profile avatar. That's a big conversion indicator IMO.

One small thing about deliverability when you switch email services is deliverability. I think it's not a huge problem in your 2000+0 list but there is a thing called domain warming. You shouldn't blast thousands of emails when you first start to use a client. Thay may affect your reputation. But as long as you watch your deliverability and other metrics, you are on the safe side.

Subject lines: I am not a huge fan of generic subject lines. Since it's one of the biggest indicators of your open rates it really affects opens. For example me, I am a huge Sidebar follower but I don't click all the emails. And the biggest reason why is that I feel I won't enjoy things I will find inside based on the subject line. Giving a clear subject line creates expectation and curiosity. I'd utilize this section more.

Overall quite nice design and concept. You are in a crowded area. Hope you get more successful :)

Hello Mike,

Hope you become successful in your niche :)

So the first thing is the Subject Line. Please keep in mind that mobile phones are able to show up to 51 characters at most. Everything else will be stripped. And I think your generic Subject Line starter is filling that. That means people will have no idea what's this email about. I'd suggest you come up with a better subject line scheme that users will get a better understanding of what each email delivers.

I know that sender is a huge impact but you are not the only sender in their email client. And when they decide between you and the other fav newsletter with better subject line, they will click the other one.

I don't know if you will keep using Substack but as you see Substack gets the beginning of your email as preview text on your main substack page. When you start your emails with bullet points, it looks weird and may prevent people from opening it. I am not a specialist in security, so the words even seem scary :)

It's very good that you have 2 step auth. That will affect your list grow but eventually, you will have a better relationship start with those in your list. And you will have a very healthy list in terms of deliverability. 💪

Good luck with your journey.