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Reaching 1000 newsletter subscribers - here is what I did.

As some of you might already know, I am writing and curating Creativerly, a weekly newsletter about creativity and productivity-boosting tools and resources, combined with useful insights, articles, and findings from the fields of design and tech.

Recently, I have reached a milestone I would never have thought of actually reaching someday. Creativerly just crossed over 1000 subscribers, a magical milestone.

In my newest blog post, I covered all the insights, findings, and experiences I got while growing the newsletter to over 100 subscribers.

Here is a quick overview of the points I cover within the blog post:

  • Do not write for numbers - With the recent newsletter boom, people are blinded by the folks who are earning a fortune by writing a newsletter. If you want to start writing online, no matter if in the form of a newsletter or blog, do not start writing because of gaining a lot of subscribers or earning a lot of money, in the first place. Write for yourself, as writing is an incredibly creative process. Writing online and putting yourself out there is one of the best investments you can make, no matter from which background you come.

  • Consistency is (still) key - Consistency is one of the most important factors when it comes down to building a writing habit. If you want to put yourself out there, do it on a constant basis. Start creating a piece of content every single week, and stick to it. Writing and creating consistently is hard, but once you stick to it over a certain period of time, you will build up a habit and it will become easier the longer you stick to it.

  • Be curious - learn from others who already achieved your goals - Always be curious - always ask questions. Do you want to know how to reach your first 100 subscribers? Ask folks who already have 100 subscribers and learn from them how they reached this goal. If you want to know how to reach 500 subscribers, same procedure, find folks who already achieved that and ask them what they did to reach that goal.

  • Share your wins - A lot of people underestimate how incredibly valuable your wins can be for others. Most people who succeed at writing online and creating content did not reinvent the wheel, they simply shared what they have learned. By sharing their experiences and wins they helped others searching for exactly the same problems as others already have solved.

  • Be active in communities - If you already know what you want to write about, try to be active in communities related to the field and topics you are writing about. This will not only spark new ideas, but you will also find folks who are already interested in the content you create. Therefore, being active in communities can lead to new subscribers or new readers and ultimately new connections.

You can read the in-depth blog post on creativerly.com.

  1. 2

    Congratulations on this achievement. I write a monthly newsletter and yet to reach 100 subs.

    1. 1

      Just keep at it! And thank you so much.

  2. 2

    Congrats on the achievement 👏. It's a very helpful post. When did you start your newsletter ?

    1. 1

      I started to write the newsletter back in January 2019, but the project started to take off in January 2020 and at that time I started to fully focus on it.

  3. 2

    Congratulations! As a fellow newsletter writer, I can feel how big of a milestone this is for you, and for any of us. I agree, consistency and content are two extremely important points to grow a newsletter.

    Again, congrats, and all the best!

    1. 2

      Thank you so much for your kind words! What is your newsletter? Share it with us :)

      You are totally right, I have the feeling that some people who want to grow their newsletter did not spend enough time to focus on their content strategy first. Nail your content first, and then think about the rest.

      1. 2

        You deserved it! Mine is still very new, but so far I've been consistent on writing every week. A part of my newsletter is actually sharing a product, too! But yours is definitely more elaborate and content-rich than mine :)

        Learned a lot from your post. Thanks for sharing, Philipp!

        1. 1

          Love to hear that! Keep at it Yusuf, writing consistently is one of the best investments you can make.

  4. 2

    Congrats on the milestone!

    Will you be willing to share what kind of open and click rates you are getting at 1K subscribers?

    Reason for asking this is that I've recently reached 1k subs but realise my engagement metrics are down as most of the subscribers are not opening my newsletters, which got me to scrubbing the list constantly.

    Cheers!

    1. 1

      Sure thing!

      My open-rate has always been consistently between 45-50% sometimes more and sometimes less, but I never went under 40%.

      I am not actively tracking click rates, because I have turned them off within my ESP.

      1. 1

        Thanks for sharing! That is a really healthy open rate. Got any tips to share?

        I'm hovering at 42% at the moment.

        1. 1

          Regarding tips, I think most of my recommendations are already common sense:

          • Do everything you can so your emails land in the inbox and not in spam.
          • Nail your headlines, which means create curiosity, but also be explicit what your readers can expect within the newsletter, make it clear who is sending the newsletter (e.g. "Newsletter Name: This is the newsletter Headline")
          • Ask the people who open your newsletter every single time, why they are opening it, gather feedback and try to optimise your newsletter after that.
          • Ultimately, nail your content, so people always look forward to receive your newsletter.
  5. 2

    Congrats on 1k subscribers 🎉

    Keep the momentum going🚀

    1. 1

      Thank you so much, I will try my best!

  6. 2

    Congratulations! I'm only 30 behind you haha

    1. 1

      Thank you! 🤩 I am a little bit late with my news about reaching 1000 subscribers, because currently, I am at over 1200 😅

      But anyways, super exciting to hear that you are also almost there!

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