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How I got my first 100 newsletter subscribers from Reddit

Back in December, I launched a writing and marketing newsletter. It wasn't a ceremonious launch, and I had no existing audience to leverage — so it truly was a ground-up project.

A few minutes and a couple Reddit posts later, I had hit 70 subscribers. Two weeks after that, I passed 100. I know, not huge numbers, but pretty exciting for a start.

Summary

The numbers: 110 subscribers, 50-70% open rate 1 month after launch.

What I've done so far: Spent a couple hours on Reddit. That's it, because life's been busy! In general, I think the ROI is good so far.

The crazy thing: You don't need many upvotes to bring in subscribers. I had a 20-upvote post bring in more than 50 subscribers!

Framework

Here's a framework I've created and used for getting subscribers from Reddit:

  1. Find 5 or 10 subreddits relating to your newsletter topic.

  2. Spend time in those subreddits, and be helpful in the comments. Build some karma and respect. This can just be an hour of your time!

  3. Write a couple helpful posts. This is the important part. Write something that'll provide serious value. Example: In a real estate community, you could do: "The exact YouTube strategy I use to bring in 10 leads/week"

  4. Focus on good titles. Titles are super important. This is the key with posts. Use numbers, make it interesting, and don't sound self-promotional. At the end of your post, include a link to your newsletter.

  5. Engage with people in the comments. This will help draw more attention to your post.

If you do the above, you'll have earned yourself a hundred (or thousand) subscribers for some pretty minimal work.

I'm curious, has anyone else experimented with Reddit and seen similar results? It'd be cool to hear others' experiences.

P.S. My newsletter is called Bullet Points. Once a week, I send out and thoughts on marketing and writing better. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here.

  1. 3

    Thanks for sharing :) !

  2. 1

    Yes my main growth channel for my Marketing newsletter is my Reddit page.

    It's the best way to get subscribers if you have no exisiting audience or do paid advertising.

    My last post here got 60.7k views and brought in tons of subs.

    I also get a lot of subs by commenting on other people's comments in a hot post.

    Ive spent a lot of time on new posts and it was a waste of time for what i got in return

  3. 1

    That's a really interesting approach to growing a newsletter audience! It seems like engaging with communities on Reddit can really pay off. I'll definitely consider trying this for my own project. Thanks for sharing your experience!

  4. 1

    Impressive growth strategy!

  5. 1

    Wow, thank you for the framework! I've found myself quite often thinking too difficult in what ways I can grow my own list. Will definitely try this out!

  6. 1

    What an impressive feat! You've done an amazing job here. It's truly inspiring to see what you have achieved, and I'm sure this is just the start of success for your writing and marketing newsletter!

  7. 1

    Why people felt bad and said i am self promoting when i add my product link at the end of the post? Can you show how do u write the post?

  8. 1

    I haven't done this in terms of my newsletter (though i should!) but I've gotten a good deal of traffic to my blog/site just by continuing to participate in mostly the same subs I already did, but just to keep an eye out for any questions that might be answered by one of the posts and answering with the link included somewhere. It sucks for SEO that reddit is so popular, but having a good number of comments referencing back to my site has done good things. (They're not all mine, but I'm sure the first few were.)

  9. 1

    Congratulations on the incredible progress with your newsletter, and thanks for sharing your journey! 🚀 It's truly inspiring to see how strategic engagement on Reddit has translated into such tangible results. The fact that you've reached 110 subscribers with a 50-70% open rate in just one month is no small feat—kudos!

    Your framework for leveraging Reddit is insightful and actionable. Building genuine connections in relevant subreddits, providing valuable content, and focusing on engaging titles seem to be the keys to your success. It's especially interesting to note that a 20-upvote post brought in more than 50 subscribers—proof that quality engagement often outweighs sheer quantity.

    I appreciate you sharing your experience and the framework you've developed. It's undoubtedly a valuable resource for anyone looking to grow their audience organically. I'm sure many others, including myself, would love to hear more success stories and tips from those who've experimented with Reddit. Keep up the fantastic work with 'Bullet Points'—your approach is a testament to the potential of thoughtful engagement and quality content!

  10. 1

    I personally vouch for the second point. I've often found myself visiting the profiles of people who commented on college advice posts when I was applying to college.

  11. 1

    Well done Craven. Would definitely try this out.

  12. 1

    Thanks for sharing.

    I also cracked Reddit 3 times with 21k+ views, 53k+ views, and 81k+ views in 3 different subreddits.

    I was being helpful and pitching my design subscription agency in a tricky and helpful way.

  13. 2

    Make that one more. Just subscribed.

  14. 1

    Nice! Congratulations! I’ve had mixed results with Reddit personally for my newsletter on cooking tips — Salt Sear Savor.

    I take the exact same approach you talked about with the posts. I had good results with two posts that got me 20-40 subscribers between the two of them. Then there was one post that was mediocre that got me a couple of subscribers. Funnily though very first post I did got a TON of up votes and comments but that literally didn’t result in any subscribers. Not sure why. So I never posted to that subreddit it again. Luckily I had better results elsewhere. I’ve also had posts closed for self promotion too even though had lots of upvotes and comments. Some moderators don’t like it because I had the link at the bottom saying if they liked the tip they could subscribe if they wanted. But others I guess don’t mind hah.

    I will say commenting on other posts to build karma is a great strategy. But commenting as a way to share you newsletter or relevant articles hasn’t been as effective for me. Of course I’m only doing that when it is helpful to share some of my stuff and not just spamming people with it. But I don’t know how many people besides the OP really dig into the comments in the subreddits I’m in.

    1. 2

      Thanks for the reply! Just signed up:)

      I'm passionate about cooking and have toyed with the idea in the past–cool to hear someone's doing it!

      Yeah, interesting to hear how the reaction changes between subreddits. I've found that at least for me, smaller subreddits are a little bit friendlier. They usually get less spammy self-promotion, so they won't be quite as wary when they see some healthy self-promotion come up.

      Yeah, I got like ~20 subscribers one time from a 3-upvote comment. But, it just needs to look natural I think. So if someone asks about cooking newsletters or resources, mention a few that you like and then drop yours as well. That type of thing! Thanks for sharing your experience, Luciano.

      1. 1

        Thanks a bunch for signing up @cravensworth :) I'm glad you're excited about the topic.

        That's a great point about subreddits being a little bit friendlier! I hadn't thought of that before. I know the one subreddit I got a lot of upvotes/comments but no sign-ups was a bigger one. Verus the posts I've been luckier with haven't been in mainstream cooking ones. So your theory makes sense.

        I do my best to provide plenty of helpful resources (including my newsletter at the end of course with a caveat that I'm self-promoting haha) when someone asks for tips or places on learning how to cook. So I'm trying!

        And thanks for sharing yours! It's always helpful to hear from others.

  15. 1

    This all makes a lot of sense, but what did you do to make the pitch for subscribers on Reddit?

    Add a link in your profile and it was all natural?
    Add a link to your posts themselves?

    1. 3

      You'll want a link in your posts themselves, but make sure to add it at the end. If somebody's read through the whole post and enjoyed it, they won't mind a little self-promo at the end. I usually do something like,

      "If you enjoyed this, you'd probably enjoy my newsletter :) I send it out once a week with content like this"

      Something like that!

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