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26 Comments

I got my first 30 subs. How can I get to 100?

I've reached 30 subs in my Newsletter. What can you advise to get to 100?

I'm giving away a free guide on how to ace the tech interviews at top remote-working marketplaces. https://carlosroso.com/cracking-the-toptal-interview/

I validated market fit through the years, hundreds of people asking me the same questions all over again.

I've posted articles on DEV and Medium. I plan on keep generating useful content over the next months. What else can you recommend to generate growth?

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    Maybe give a clearer idea of what the future newsletter will be about too and what they can expect? Is it a one off guide? What happens afterwards? Or can you split it off into various 'editions' to deliver over time?

    1. 1

      Yeah definitely. Well, I thought this to be a one-off guide to start building an audience. I plan to release a premium course on algorithms and other interview prep material after having people trust me with good free content.

      I definitely need to communicate what will happen after delivering the guide and what the newsletter will look like.

      Thanks!

  2. 2

    Is the guide released already? In your post you say "giving away a free guide" but when I go to the site it says Join the waiting list. More people are apt to sign up if they get the guide right away. Also. you need to do more to share what's in the guide. a Free page. and say "get the next 20 pages in return for your email address".

    If I were you, I would
    A) Sign up for every newsletter for remote work
    B) Get an issue or two, read the archives. analyze what they are doing.
    C) Write a guide directly with their audience in mind.
    D) Reach out, to the writer, with a thoughtful email about how you've had experience getting hired and you wrote something specifically for their audience. Send them the link.
    E) Follow up. Tell them you'll send a shoutout about their email list to your newsletter readers
    F) Follow up. Show them the shoutout you sent to your newsletter.
    G) Follow up. Send them the link to the toptal guide.
    H) If they haven't responded. check that you have the right email address.
    I) I would drop it and move on. you probably got 100 email newsletters. and more than 50 at this point have shouted your newsletter out and it's probably a year later from now...

    1. 1

      Phew, thanks for taking the time to write all this! I'm definitely super noob, I wouldn't have come with such a strategy. I'll follow this advice to the letter. 🙏

      1. 2

        Enjoy the process. If you need to meet more newsletters email me [email protected]

        1. 1

          Will do mate, thank you. I also just subscribed to Influence Weekly, it looks like the right thing I need now, good work.

  3. 2

    I just started mine too!
    Besides what others have said, I would try to post pretty aggressively everywhere where it fits. It seems like you are doing a good job with that! Do you have data on how many people, who come to your site actually sign up? Maybe that would give you valuable information, where to spend your time on.

    And my newsletter - http://cupofstartups.com/

    1. 1

      Hey! I have some analytics but this has been pretty recent, I haven't really dug into the analytics yet. I'll check it out and try a few more things, you're right. Thanks!

  4. 2

    Looks interesting, just signed up!

    1. 1

      Thanks for the support! I was honestly not doing shameless plug of my product, but I appreciate all the support 🙏

  5. 2

    That's amazing! Are these paying subs or free subs? As that changes the calculation for how to grow to a 100. From 30 to 100, I would see where your subs are coming from and double down on what's working. For example, if your medium article and content are a good "lead generation" for your subs, then have a content calendar that keeps hitting those. The increased cadence can also be helpful for you to re-post or cross-post on other medium. It seems like what you're writing is valuable, encourage sharing, post on free social media.

    1. 1

      Great advice, thanks! Those are all free subs, not paid. I'll definitely keep cross-posting on more popular sites. I feel like having my own blog is cool as a personal internet corner but not great for growth, is that a common opinion? Thanks again!

      1. 1

        I think it comes down to discovery. Writing your thoughts and owning your content (i.e. having your own blog) is very valuable imo, you see companies and even individuals owning those spaces more and more. However, the downside of owning your blog and not using sites like Medium to host your blog is discovery. If you have enough traffic to your site, it should be worth it. It comes down to what you want to prioritize and which aspects of your community you want to build and how quickly. But since this looks like your main business, I would continue building on your own blog!

        1. 1

          You can always cross-post articles from your blog to other platforms for more reach.
          On dev.to you can set the canonical url to point to your blog. That should help with SEO. Not sure if Medium has that option as welk.
          That way you can get some more eyeballs and still own your content.

        2. 1

          You can always do short, summarized content on Medium and link the longer form for more details on your main blog. If people want more detail, they have to read it on your site, but if they want a short bullet point summarization (2-3 minutes reading) then Medium post is good. Something like that

          1. 1

            Excellent, thanks for taking the time to reply! I don't really have a lot of traffic in my site, except for the landing pages of my open source projects (~4k visits / week). I'll follow your strategy of writing a summarized content on Medium to get more leads on my main blog.

  6. 1

    increase conversions of users landing on your page by cutting out the text and adding more images. People don't like reading.

    Add testimonials from people who got jobs from your newsletters (or advice). This will build audience trust.

    If your posting in groups and people aren't clicking you may need to present clearer messaging or cut out spam talk. Maybe writing in a group something like "just started this newsletter 3 weeks ago, 2 of my subscribers got jobs from reading it last week. anyone interested?". that's loose but be super clear on what you're offering, the timeline in which some users have experienced results and don't be pushy.

    1. 1

      This is excellent feedback, thank you. Since the beginning, I knew that landing had a lot of text, you're bringing it up again so I definitely need to work in out. Thanks for all he help!!

  7. 1

    Good going! Signed up!

  8. 1

    More content. At least that's my strategy.

    1. 1

      Thanks for sharing! that's a great example of grinding and creating useful content. Your story resonates a lot as it's not your typical "how I got 2k subscribers in one weekend", but a real, true story. I'll definitely keep sharing valuable content.

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    Have you thought about creating a youtube channel, and using that as a means of creating an audience? Emails & blogs aren't the only way of creating an audience!

    1. 1

      Thanks for the recommendation! yeah, I have thought about it, just haven't found the guts to do it. I'll give it a try soon for real 🙏

  10. 1
    • Find relevant questions on Quora and answer them
    • Engage on relevant threads in Reddit, add value before promoting your newsletter
    • Create a video from the text content and push that too for social distribution.
    1. 2

      I like that kind of outreach. I'll definitely do it. Giving away true, non-marketing value is what I've seen tops any other marketing strategy, just as you say. Thanks!

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