I have a problem that I cannot solve and I am hoping that some of you here can help.
Smash Notes Newsletter has been growing, but it's been growing very slowly, and I can't figure out why. My readers like it, so much so that sometimes they email me to say it. Podcasters that are uploading episodes to the site like it too, as appearing on Smash Notes can get them hundreds, if not thousands of new listeners with relatively little effort.
And yet, the newsletter is only growing at 2-5% a month. How do I get it to 50% m/m ?
You didn't mention a single thing that you're doing to grow the list. If you're expecting it to just magically hit explosive growth and you're not doing anything to move the needle, you're probably not going to see said growth.
So what are you doing to move the needle?
This is probably very naive, but if my list is meant to deliver more of Smash Notes content to the people who like it, and folks come to get the content (traffic is growing), then shouldn't the list be growing with it?
I have been posting relevant knowledge bits around the web, getting folks to come and learn about topics or questions that exist on Smash, and that's where the traffic is growing from. Now sure what else people do to grow the list, specifically?
I mean, I know there are hacks like giving away an expensive item (laptop,camera...etc) in exchange for email address, but that seems like a cheap trick that leads to users that don't actually care. What am I missing?
what's your month over month traffic growth and your conversion rate over that same time? the numbers very well could line up that you are growing exactly as you should be (X% monthly growth with a conversion rate of Y% and such).
checked your site, and your newsletter sign up blends in a ton with the rest of the site, so probably could be trying to improve that a bit (test different copy and colors and such). i'd take a cue from groupon back in the day and force people to give you their email if they want to see the content.
90 day traffic doubled, but the newsletter only grew by about a 1/4 in that time. Still not a bad ratio, but not 1:1 . Ideally if I can get it parity, that would be awesome, but I suspect the bigger the traffic, the lower the conversion as newsletters are a larger commitment.
Don't know if I want to force everyone into the newsletter, but I'll design something to gently nudge them there. Maybe I can do "The information" style login-via-newsletter method. It would save me money on paying for the login system too!
Will experiment and report back. Thanks!
I think you need to add more details to your post if you want to get some actionable feedback. For example: How do you measure growth? In terms or subscribers, or opens, or something else? What size is your list? How quickly has it grown in the past? A graph might be nice. What are you doing to grow it now? Etc.
Generally you should think of growth in terms of acquisition (bringing in new users) and retention (keeping old users instead having them churn out). It's possible for one, both, or neither of these to be working well.
If you growth primarily via word-of-mouth, you probably have compounding acquisition. For example, if 2 in 5 users invites someone else every month, you have a 40% compound growth rate. However, acquisition is not always compounding. If you're growing by, say, getting 1000 readers from an SEO-friendly article every month, then you're growing linearly.
It's worth nothing that churn is almost always compounding, meaning some % of your user base unsubscribes or stops reading every month. This if your acquisition is compounding, great, you can grow indefinitely so long as your acquisition growth % is higher than your churn %. However if your acquisition is constant then, then your overall growth (joined minus churned) will slow every month until eventually the % who churn will equal the # who join, and your growth plateaus.
Thus it's important for you to model your acquisition numbers, your churn numbers, and understand what's driving them.
Thanks Courtland! I love this cold/methodical approach to metrics. I realized I actually don't have a good visibility into these things. Will explore Mailchimp more to see what I can get, especially the churn. Anecdotally, I had 10% of the total list unsubscribe since the start, but that doesn't tell me much. I should start tracking where subscribers come from, how long they stick around, and if they exit, then when.
I am a little self-conscious to share the size of the list. If yours is 50k and mine is 1k, what does it say? Maybe when I get to 50k it will feel worth sharing.
Will investigate my metrics and start tracking better, and then be able to ask better questions. Thank you!
Got to think of it as a funnel and find the leaks
Are you getting traffic to the landing page ?
What’s your conversion rate of your landing page?
Do you have double opt in and are they confirming?
Is your growth net of churning subscribers?
Also, 2-5% growth of what baseline. Expecting 50% when you have 100k subscribers is a different story than when you have 1000.
My guess is if you’re getting traffic, your pages aren’t converting. The homepage sign up isn’t specific enough. “Insights from podcasts” is vague. What type of podcasts and who for? To me, it’s not clear what I’m going to get by signing up.
You have something people like once they’re onboard. And you’ve been asking them what they like, so you could use that in your copy. Also, if they like it can you get testimonials to include?
"can you get testimonials" - perfect! how could I forget? just added an ask for testimonials into the next newsletter. thanks!
"It is not clear what I’m going to get by signing up." - I will try a few options. Seems this might be a big one to fix.
"Do you have double opt in and are they confirming?" - I do have double opt-in, as I felt it would prevent people from trying to ruin my newsletter by adding spammy addresses, but I've also noticed that an unexpectedly large fraction isn't confirming. Just anecdotally, out of the last 100 subscribers 20 did not confirm. Not sure if it falls into their spam, they change their minds, or the emails are wrong. Maybe a combination of all of the above?
As a newsletter subscriber I hate double opt in - got mess around going to email and then clicking and back into browser and then I have to remember to delete the confirmation email.
On top of that, I’d say 50% of the opt in confirmations go to spam so I have to enter that filthy place.
So, with my own newsletters I don’t use it. Maybe not best practice for GDPR but its not a requirement.
I trust that my subscribers know what they’re doing and have the sense to unsubscribe when they don’t want it anymore. I’m also tight on list hygiene removing inactive subscribers.
Could someone spam my list with fake addresses? Sure, but I don’t attract enough traffic to be concerned. When I start getting 1000’s of visitors a day it might become something to think about.
That’s my take on double opt in.
So, if you’re going to use it, some will go to spam and/or promotions. And other people won’t do it straight away and don’t practice inbox zero - so it disappears into the void.
Maybe the best solution is to use your thank you page to tell then one more step to take. There’s an email from XYZ with subject ABC. You need to confirm that to get the good stuff. Remind them to check spam and promotions.
You could even say there’s something special for them once they’ve confirmed and then provide something useful in the auto welcome email.
Make that page interesting. Something that gets them to read. Funny or quirky image and interesting / amusing copy.
As with EVERYTHING: 20% creation / 80% promotion
Dedicate less time writing the newsletter.
Dedicate the bulk of your time promoting it.
Not just newsletters. Blogs. SaaS apps. Even social media accounts.
Less creation. More promotion.
One idea is to ask the podcasters who are relying on the service to invite people. For example, once a new person they recommend signs up, the podcaster gets an improved position. It may be something other than position, but use the people you have now to help push the needle. DropBox did this very well.
True. I am always trying to help them grow their audience, but it's time to ask too. After all, we all win. Thanks Todd!
Going to your landing page it's a bit confusing for me what the newsletter is about. Ok, podcast highlights, but what are the podcasts about? I wouldn't like receiving highlights of politics podcasts for example.
Got it, will specify, thanks!
Start with asking some of your readers what they didn't like about it, so you can improve the product.
Also, did you add Call-to-action, telling your readers how they can help you get the word out?
Good point. So far I've only asked them to tell me what they do like about it. I figured when they don't like something, they just unsubscribe. But yes, I will ask them next email and see what I hear back.
I don't have ask for anything most of the time, but when I do, it's usually to share the newsletter with their friends. A few times I've asked, I saw a small growth in subscribers.
Normally each newsletter has 5-15 good podcast segments that I think would be worth listening; something that can either inspire or educate you that week. Those are all links to their full-length summaries.
@csallen I forgot his name, but I remember listening to >IH< podcast episode with a guy who's built newsletters into a multi-million dollar business. do you know who I am talking about? If I find it, I'd make you Smash Notes on that episode for free because I need to pull out his key teachings for myself :)
It's Sam Parr. Coincidentally, I just spoke with Sam again today and we recorded a second episode. It'll be out next week. Lots of tips and insights in this one.
I think it's Scott's Cheap Flight.
That one was really good too, but that's not the one I am thinking of. Maybe it wasn't IH ? I was pretty sure it was. I'll see if I can find it... Thanks!
Are you thinking of Sam Parr (the hustle)?
Bingo! Thanks :)
Also a few newsletter related podcasts including a couple with Sam Parr: https://podboxer.com/topics/email-newsletters (disclaimer - it’s my site)
Sam has been on quite a few over the last few months so you’ll find him all over.
And I remember Austin Lieberman (founder Morning Brew) was good on Noah Kagan’s podcast: https://okdork.com/morning-brew/