Build your audience. Grow your Business.
Join over 2500 online entrepreneurs getting the best content of the week to grow their audience and build their business. CreatorBoom.com
I’ve recently passed 2000 subscribers on my IdeaEconomy.net newsletter with a 50% open rate.
Here a comprehensive article sharing how I got those subscribers and what I would do differently if I were starting over today.
I don't think I'd start with a curated newsletter.
I've just crossed 1500 subscribers today. Growth has slowed to about 100 subscribers a month.
I recently had my worst performing ad. It cost $155 and got me about 16 subscribers. Ouch!
Paid ads seem to be getting more expensive so I'm going to shift to writing more original content. I've only written 3 articles for this site, so I have a lot of room to improve.
My site is very poorly optimized for SEO so that will also be a focus moving forward.
I blew past 1000 subscribers with my IdeaEconomy newsletter last week. I'm getting up to a 56% open rate on my emails, so it seems to be resonating with readers.
The best part of the newsletter is that I've been connecting with so many other newsletter creators and writers. That alone has been well worth the investment in publishing the newsletter for over a year now.
About 1/3 of those subscribers came from the two original articles I wrote:
Succeeding at the Creator Game
Unbundling Fiverr: Startup Opportunities with Productized Services
I've come to believe that curation is not enough to grow a newsletter. Creating original content is the only way to get shares, backlinks, and organic SEO traffic. I will definitely be investing more time into creating original articles and guides.
Another 1/3 of subscribers have come from paid newsletter ads. It is costing me about $3 per subscriber. I'm not sure if that is worthwhile or not. I think investing that time and money into original content could have a higher ROI.
However, I will keep putting money into ads just to build a larger base of subscribers. Growth seems to accelerate with more subscribers so I want to build a larger base as quickly as possible.
I have a couple of promotional projects that I'm going to test this fall with a goal of getting to 2500 subscribers before the end of the year. Only 1431 more subscribers to go!
With 2 weeks to go before my first anniversary of the IdeaEconomy.net newsletter, I'm now at 723 subscribers with just under a 50% open rate.
I'm adding more than 100 subscribers per month now and growth seems to be accelerating, however, I know I can do much better.
The biggest sources of subscribers this past month have been mentions in other newsletters. The biggest takeaway from that is that I need to write more original content. It takes time to write quality, long-form content, but it seems to be the most effective way to get shares.
My newsletter creators group also seems to help. We've been sharing ideas, cross-promoting, and giving each other feedback.
I have an ad in a big newsletter coming out next week so I'm hoping to get to 800 subscribers before I finish my first full year. There are still 2 weeks to go so I'm confident I can get there.
I have much bigger plans for year 2. It's time to get serious. I'll provide another update when I hit 1000 subscribers.
I just passed 500 subscribers with a close to 50% open rate. It has been 10 months since I started publishing the newsletter.
It was very slow in the beginning months, but I've been adding over 100 subscribers per month for the last few months now. It definitely seems like I'm continuing to gain momentum. I'll be very happy if this pace continues.
The biggest source of new subscribers this month has been other newsletters sharing my content. My newsletter is primarily curated links but I try to reference where I discovered each piece of content. This is a great way to promote other newsletters and it also seems to invite reciprocation. Several other newsletters have referenced me recently.
I'll also need to write more original, long-form articles. Those seem to get the most shares.
I've also organized a group of newsletter readers to help promote each other. I'm excited about where this will go.
Now that I got to 500 subscribers, getting to 1000 will be even easier. I also have some bigger promotions planned for the fall. I think 3000 subscribers by the end of the year is doable. Wish me luck!
I'm at 437 email subscribers and 1140 Twitter followers now. I'm definitely starting to see growth accelerating. For the last couple of months, I've added more than 100 subscribers per month.
My landing page seems to be converting much better. About half the people that visit the home page seem to sign up.
My Unbundling Fiverr post was the biggest source of new subscribers. That was shared in several newsletters.
I'm going to put more effort into writing original content. It's hard to stand out with curated links.
It's taken a while to find a formula that works, but I'm happy with the recent progress.
After about 2.5 months, I reached 100 email subscribers for the IdeaEconomy Startup Newsletter. I've also added 176 Twitter followers in that time.
I've been promoting by sharing links on Twitter, but I can definitely put more effort into this. I'm reluctant to promote the newsletter much as I haven't found the right formula yet.
I started with a weekday email, but recently shifted to once a week. I found my open rates going down over time, so I ran a survey to see what readers wanted. Many said that there was too much content to keep up with so I'm testing with publishing once a week.
I'm going to keep experimenting with formats to try to find something more enticing to readers. I'm not differentiated or unique enough yet so I want to find a format that is simpler and more differentiated from other curated startup newsletters.
I want to get back to a daily newsletter, in the style of news sites like Morning Brew or The Hustle, but I'll wait until the new year.
I'm going to start publishing my own content and lead magnets as well to see how that impacts signups.
Overall, I feel the first couple of months have been a success. I've connected with some cool people and love the process of keeping up with lots of startup content. Now I need to keep improving to become much more valuable to readers.
Join over 2500 online entrepreneurs getting the best content of the week to grow their audience and build their business. CreatorBoom.com