Hi all,
I've been on here a few times asking about newsletters and now I'm on the second issue I thought I would share it with you.
I'm not really focusing on a particular niche more just writing about things I enjoy or projects I'm involved in.
https://www.getrevue.co/profile/benjamingjdavis/issues/investing-marketing-flipping-and-more-381639
I would love feedback and some tips on how to turn visitors into subscribers if possible.
The first issue had 50+ online views but no-one then subscribed to it. I'm not sure if I should be mentioning it more within the issue or if I should make people subscribe before having access to it.
Thanks for the help in advance :)
Hey Benjamin! Congrats on launching your newsletter. I would start by saying that I'm at the very beginning of my newsletter journey myself, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
I think you are writing about some cool topics, but it's not very clear from your newsletter description/homepage. I would try to focus on the benefit to me as a subscriber. For example, if you are trying to improve your writing by posting this newsletter will you be posting learnings from your journey? That might already be valuable enough for me to consider signing up. What else will I get from this?
Besides that, the hard truth is that new subscribers just take time. This is advice I've heard multiple times (not from my own head :D - post consistently, spend 20% on writing 80% on growth, the rest will follow.
Good luck!
Thank you. I definitely do need to work on the landing page for it. I was thinking I could quickly make my own to jazz it up a bit and have a longer description or video explaining it.
Thank you for the feedback
Absolutely, I've build mine with carrd.co, and I can't recommend it enough! :)
Congrats on delivering another issue. Keep it up!
Thank you!
@Benjamingjd congrats on launching. I just read your 2nd edition -- by chance, your discussion of investing based off google trends is related to the newsletter I just launched. I am publishing trend data from reddit and twitter investing threads at https://cutt.co
Right now I am mostly publishing data, but I want to add an editorial component. I would love your thoughts on Cutt.
I enjoyed your writing style but I would echo what people are already saying: you will likely have greater success focusing on a narrow range of topics that you know there is an audience for. While writing about different topics may be more fun and interesting to you, it will be harder to build an audience around that.
I'll check out Cutt but looks good so far.
I think there is definitely merit investing this way
I think having a really clear focus on who you want your audience and what you would write about for free forever are good guideposts to think about content. I spent about 3 months kind of flopping around with my own newsletter in trying to figure out product market fit.
My audience:
Chemists, scientists, engineers, and investors involved in the chemicals/polymers space
My content:
Deeper dives into very specific or niche topics that are happening in the chemical industry that have bigger implications.
Editorialized updates on news in certain verticals every 3-4 weeks. Topics include: Green chemistry/circular economy, Oil Companies, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Specialty Polymers (Coatings, adhesives, sealants, elastomers, rubbers, etc)
I also do occasional posts on career related advice, mentorship, and what specific jobs might be like. Planning on trying to do one of these per month. I am also experimenting with guest posts from people trying to get into science communication or that are interested in newslettering, but might not want to take the plunge themselves.
The content strategy I am trying to adopt here should long tail relatively well for my seemingly specific, but also somewhat diverse intended audience.
Here are a few examples of both types of content that I produce on a weekly basis.
Deeper Dive: https://polymerist.substack.com/p/chemical-recycling-of-pet-is-now
Editorialized Updates: https://polymerist.substack.com/p/specialty-polymers-coatings-adhesives
I also started a Sunday in Review post where I recap the previous weeks posts, add in some bonus content, and link out to constant topics that I want to keep pushing (typically career related stuff). I keep pushing the career related stuff because when I have been successful in soliciting desired topics from my target audience about 80% want something related to careers.
@ondrej is also right about the growth and targeting. You need to shamelessly plug your content where you target audience hangs out. I use Twitter and LinkedIn. Less luck with Reddit since they are typically on the lookout for purging that type of posting. Facebook has been useless for me.