Notes on Sending 70 Daily Newsletters
A few notes from sending a Daily newsletter 70 times.
After running a weekly newsletter for 2+ years I decided a few months ago to try a daily newsletter.
This newsletter is in support of a new project that launched before the newsletter. (2.5 years ago, My weekly newsletter launched 6 months before launching the project it was meant to promote, and has since outlived the project. )
Better Sheets is a daily google sheets tip.
Note: 5x a week. Not sure how to quickly say it: "weekdays-daily" or "I send every weekday"
205 Subscribers
I am grateful 205 people have signed up so far. A far cry from the 7k that read my weekly newsletter.
Seems it takes a lot of time to find your audience and equally as long for your audience to find you. Writing a weekly I could spend 5 days a week promoting and 1 day a week making. Now, because sales are strong, I have less motivation to push hard and promote the newsletter further, faster.
Feels 10x Faster
While daily is 5x faster than weekly, it feels 10x faster. At times I send late because I just haven't had time during the day to write it.
Changed Formats Frequently
I was sending a new video each and every day. I've tried to stop that since I already weeks ago got a few people saying that it was a lot. They had to stop getting the newsletter just because it was a lot. IF I was doing weekly, I could definitely do 1 video a week. Daily though, it's too much for anyone to produce or consume.
Yesterday I sent a link and screenshots explaining what I did. a show & tell of sorts. In the past I've done round ups.
It's been fun figuring out new formats to send. I have plenty of time and issues to experiment with. I've done a week long theme/series. I've done roundups, writing, screencasts. etc. It feels a lot easier to play with the format doing a daily. I haven't change the format of the weekly newsletter, but once or twice.
Overall A Great Experience
While I've played with sending daily newsletters in newsletter courses, I think this has been a great experience. I'd recommend you try it, even if only for a month or 4 weeks. I'm in week 14, edition 70. This would have taken over a year to get to doing weekly. I've iterated and tested and experimented far far more.
I clicked through expecting a short, 2 - 4 paragraph offering. Wow! The amount of work you put into this is impressive. Congrats!
Have you thought about / experimented with "one screenshot" summary format? Patrick OShaughnessy recently tweeted about it.
Here's an example of the content:
It's got me thinking about "what's next" in the email economy. Thoughts?
What's the state of the Email economy now? Here's a good chart from Marie Dolle
https://mariedolle.substack.com/p/newsletters-le-march-semballe-
For what's next, I'd just seek out what's NOT on the chart. What could go in between the lines?
Hah, I keep referring other people to Marie's chart too :P
Haha I've thought about going from weekly to every 2 weeks for my newsletter. To make it a bit more sustainable. Doing it daily seems terrifying :) I appreciate you sharing that it hasn't been as overwhelming for you.
I'm still planning on sticking to weekly for now. I don't want my audience to forget about me. Plus more content makes it easier to promote on other platforms since I tend to reuse the newsletter content elsewhere.
What is driving you to send less? What's the motivation there?
You seem to get good feedback on your substack.
Idea: Write less each day. OR Try batch writing. Write once for 5x a week sends. I have even some weeks written 10 emails in one day so i didn't have to think about it for 2 weeks. Changing the format each day also allows you to stretch your energy. Some formats are simple, some complicated, some just fun to do.
What about this?
2x a week write about an existing recipe you love. Your reaction is what ppl want to see.
2x a week share 1 tip, include 2-3 tips from the past month that have some contextual relevance. Link to them too.
and then 1x a week share what you would normally do once a week.
Another Idea: Split a recipe up between issues.
At the end of an issue, write the ingredients. Ask ppl to guess what you're making just from the ingredients. Then reveal it the next day, or next issue.
Since you don't really do recipes. Maybe share the molecular make up of a food at the end of an issue, the reveal what that food is in the next issue.
Look at the formats of YouTube for inspiration too: https://www.littlemonstermediaco.com/youtube-algorithm-research/2019/6/4/the-taxonomy-of-youtube-videos
Wow, I really appreciate the thoughtful response Andrew!
The desire to write less has only come in moments of weakness :) It is really just "laziness" when thinking about balancing the full-time job, life, writing the newsletter, and promoting the newsletter. Which the latter honestly takes more time and effort than writing it. I know I need to keep writing though. And I'm standing firm at doing that.
Writing in batches is something I've thought about as well. I need to give that a try and see how much content I can crank out.
I love a lot of the ideas you thew out there and definitely need to think about other formats to try. I've tried to stick to a schedule and style to give consistency to the audience. I want it to be clear what the newsletter is and what they will get out of it.
However, I think there are other formats I can experiment with that still give consistency and also help stretch the energy as you said.
Lots for me to noodle on (yes pun intended). Thanks again!
Also consider, it's your newsletter. You can do anything you want, and nothing.
Oh and Marketing is way more work than making it.
I split my time about 90/10 marketing/making now.
Yes I spend about 2 to 3 hours each week actually curating and putting together the newsletter, and another 18 to 20 hours marketing it, being active in communities and making marketing materials.
Totally more work marketing than making. Good to know it is the same for you. My split is a bit closer to 70/30 probably. But I think that is also because I haven't done a great job of blocking off long stretches of time to write. So the starting and stopping makes the writing take longer. It is another reason your batch writing idea above made a lot of sense to me :)
For almost the last year: Thursday mornings. Everyone in my life knows that thursday mornings are blocked. No calls, No bothering. From 8am until I'm done. It's awkward at points. Takes a while to get in the rhythm.
Because I'm focused on that time, the rest of the week builds naturally to it. No focus shifting. I schedule or snooze emails to 8am Thursday. That's helped keep my other days free of distraction.
During that time, I can also spend about 2 total hours working on the newsletter, but then another 2 to 4 around that same time preparing everything else. Ads, sponsors, interviews, marketing.
Everything takes 5 to 10 minutes. And adds up. If you do 5 things a day for your newsletter that's 5 to 10 minutes plus focus shifting. That's about 2 to 3 hours per day. Then that's over 20 hours a week. For a thing that shouldn't take 20 hours a week just handling.
Yeah, focus shifting is a productivity killer. I'm good at avoiding it with the day job. Haven't gotten the strategy down for the newsletter yet.
I appreciate you sharing how you do it Andrew. Maybe just the inspiration I needed :)
Wow, that's a lot of newsletters. I can see why it's too much to consume for the recipients, but likewise why it's a good exercise for you!
Will you stop soon or try and reduce the frequency?
Every week I think I'm gonna stop. The momentum builds, the burnout pokes its head out. This week my plan is to batch write/make videos. Make 5 to 10 this week schedule them and work on other tasks.
I guess one nice thing about a super regular newsletter is that presumably it's not too long(?) - some newsletter I get I know are really long so it takes weeks to get around to reading them if I'm busy, and then they pile up