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Starting a newsletter...about wine!

This is the first thing I've done for myself in a while, and despite sending a weekly newsletter from GoSquared to thousands of people every week I felt really nervous hitting send! Must have sent myself about 5 test versions of the email before I pressed go.

PLONQ: Wines you should buy in March.

I'd love any feedback you have so I can start improving it for next month.

What I'm really trying to do is make wine less scary, more fun, and more relevant to the people who drink it, not the people who sell it.

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    I really like wine and I might be a wine n00b. I don't necessarily know what DIYL means? I would say you probably have three types of readers.

    1. Complete novice looking to get into wine (your newsletter is not geared towards this audience)

    2. Intermediate Vino looking to learn more (getting closer towards this audience), I might categorize myself here

    3. Experts. Someone who knows what they are doing and how to spell and say Beaujolais without looking it up. Perhaps they also know importers or specific regions and niche wine makers. I'd say you are writing for this audience right now with what I saw.

    If you want to hit growth I'd say you need to write for all three audiences. I write my own newsletter about chemistry, plastics, oil and gas, and related topics. I'm great at writing for people with PhDs like myself (#3 here), but I get a lot of great feedback when I am able to also be inclusive of the novices (high school students, my family members) and intermediates (undergraduates/graduate students).

    One thing that I think wine does well without even trying is telling a story. Where was the wine grown, what is the history of the grape variety, who is the wine maker, what was that season like in region where the wine was grown, who will you have that wine with and with what meal?

    Hope this helps. We non-SaaS, coding, VC, startup, investment, and marketing newsletters need to stick together.

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      Really great feedback that it feels written for a more educated audience - especially as that is the opposite of what I'm going for!

      My whole reason for writing this was to make anyone feel like they could enjoy wine without all the boring tasting notes and snobbery that usually comes with it. Just assurance that these are good wines and you can go enjoy it without having to feel like you need to read a book about it first.

      Love your point about storytelling.

      And, DIYL isn't a wine term at all - stands for Drink if You Like - I should unabbreviate it!

      thank you so much

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    Cool idea! I think it's a perfect topic, it's a niche with a lot of interest and a ton of possible content for a newsletter

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    That’s awesome Beth! Congratulations. As someone else isn’t writing a newsletter about tech, startups, investments, or marketing (lol), I’m excited to see another passion newsletter. I’m gonna subscribe!

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      Thanks Luciano! I know...I did think that when I was posting. Great to meet you! There are a few physical product and non-tech focused people on here, you just have to look quite carefully for them.

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    This comment was deleted 7 months ago.

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      Hey Juris, thanks for this! I signed up to the natural wine newsletter - looking forward to seeing that.
      Good feedback, I've been thinking of focusing on wines made by women winemakers. Cutting it down in a different way instead of flavour profile or grape. A lot of the feedback I've had so far is that people are willing to try new wines, they just don't know where to start - narrowing it down in a novel way might be a good place. I can only test it and see right!

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