Newsletter Crew

Podcast, blog, and community for newsletter creators

No Employees
Founders Code
Solo Founder
Email Marketing
Mailing Lists
Podcasting

The Newsletter Crew podcast was started when I couldn’t find any podcasts on how to grow and professionally run my newsletter. In my frustration, I decided himself it’s time to fill the gap and help everyone out.

December 11, 2020 We launched on ProductHunt!

Hello everyone! 👋

We just launched on ProductHunt! It's been a crazy day but we're just getting started.

Check out the launch here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/newsletter-crew

We're excited to introduce the world to Newsletter Crew! What is it exactly? Newsletter Crew is a podcast, blog, and community helping you become a successful newsletter creator. Newsletters have been around for such a long time but have recently seen quite a boom. And for good reason! Newsletters are one of the best digital businesses you can start today, literally!

The Newsletter Crew started 7-months ago when we were looking for a podcast to passively learn about the newsletter business. To my surprise there was nothing! No dedicated podcast about newsletters. So I decided to start it!

Over the months I expanded into writing blogs (many people don’t have much time to listen to a podcast). We have had some amazing newsletter creators writing for us, like Janel from Newsletter OS. We’ve also expanded the Newsletter Crew to have a thriving community of over 215 newsletter creators! Many successful creators like Peter Cooper and Alex Hilman, for example, frequent the community quite often.

We’ve had amazing feedback from the community and I’m really proud at how active the community is in helping each other with their newsletters.

Recently we started doing community podcasts, where we get members from the Newsletter Crew community to hop on a call and discuss hot topics, like if we’re in a newsletter bubble and if Substack really is the best choice to build your newsletter on.

We’re also hosting Q&As for Newsletter Crew members with some of the most successful newsletters. In our most recent Q&A we had the pleasure of having Uri Bram from The Browser come on. Our next Q&A is coming up next week, so join the Newsletter Crew and don’t miss out on our events and community.

Every month we’re expanding our membership offering!

Today we want to give the ProductHunt community a special 25% off our membership plan! What does membership include?

  • Full access to all private blogs
  • Full access to all private podcasts
  • AMAs, webinars, meetups
  • Be a guest on the Newsletter Crew community podcast episodes
  • Private Forums and Chat (215+ members)

For more information on membership check out https://newslettercrew.com/members/

To become a member check out this link, discount automatically applied. https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=54343&coupon=PRODUCTHUNT

November 16, 2020 30 episodes of the Newsletter Crew Podcast!

Episode 30 has been published! I want to thank every newsletter creator that has been on the podcast thus far.

Thank you @cbartlett @frankmeeuwsen @justinduke @SuchIndieHackMuchWow @AndrewKamphey @talktohenryj @kintulabs @FalakSher @rosiesherry @louisswiss @Manu_C @peterc @alexhillman @anthilemoon @stephsmith @richardpatey @isaacsaul @Jonass @momoko @raydaly @joshspector @Kevin_Indig the first thirty episodes! The future is bright for the next 30 episodes!

Link to the podcast: https://newslettercrew.com/ep30-email-misconceptions-and-evergreen-newsletters-with-alex-hillman-of-stacking-the-bricks/

Episode Sponsor: EmailOctopus

Newsletter Crew community

About this episode: On this episode, we have Alex Hillam @alexhillman from stackingthebricks.com. Alex is an expert in email lists and newsletters. We'll dive into some interesting topics such as the common misconceptions with email lists and a type of newsletter called evergreen newsletters, which is essentially a fully automated newsletter.

Show Notes & Insights:

  • You don't need a huge email list to start selling your products to it.
  • Is the money meaningful or the feedback from your email list that there are people willing to buy products for you more meaningful?
  • It's not about launch day sales, but the ability to continually sell to your email list.
  • Having a product will only increase the rate of growth of your email list.
  • Empires are built one subscriber at a time.
  • One interesting idea on how to generate momentum for your product is with a pre-sale. But not just the standard way by blasting your email list, but by telling people to email you first.
  • Encourage folks to reply to your newsletter when you're pre-selling your product or feeling out your audience to see if they'd be interested in purchasing. That extra step will really give you the needed feedback to know if you should go through with it.
  • If you're automating your newsletter from the very beginning, you're probably making a few mistakes because you don't know if what you're automating actually works.
  • Don't start thinking about automation until you have at least 12-24 evergreen newsletters written.
  • There's nothing wrong with resending an evergreen newsletter from the past to your audience today. Your past subscribers have probably already forgotten about it and the newer subscribers would benefit from it being created since you know it was successful in the past.
  • Great evergreen newsletter issues are valuable in the past, present, and future.
  • Evergreen newsletters are scoped to the reader and all about the reader's experience. The reader doesn't care when it was sent, they just care how it's helping them today.
  • If the newsletters you are writing were valuable to your subscribers at one point, then you can bet that they will be valuable to your subscribers at a later point.
  • Why not reuse newsletters that were received well at the beginning of your newsletter journey to your audience that has grown hundreds or even thousands of more subscribers?

Newsletter + Guest Info:

October 5, 2020 20 episodes of the Newsletter Crew Podcast!

Episode 20 has been published! I want to thank every newsletter creator that has been on the podcast thus far.

Thank you @cbartlett @frankmeeuwsen @justinduke @SuchIndieHackMuchWow @AndrewKamphey @talktohenryj @kintulabs @FalakSher @rosiesherry @louisswiss @Manu_C for the first twenty episodes! The future is bright for the next 20 episodes!

Link to the podcast: https://newslettercrew.com/ep20-part-1-growing-to-14k-month-with-manu-cinca-of-stacked-marketer/

About this episode: This week we dive deep into Manu Cinca’s newsletter Stacked Marketer, a newsletter that is earning $14k/month. We’ll discuss topics such as finding advertisers, inbound and outbound advertisers, Facebook ads, and newsletter ads. We’ll also discuss Stacked Marketers three main reader acquisition channels, the effectiveness of ads written in the newsletters own voice, and so much more! This episode is critical for anyone interested in really building a profitable newsletter.

Episode sponsor: InboxReads

Newsletter Crew Membership (20% discount): https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=53407&coupon=PODCAST

Membership to the Newsletter Crew includes access to successful newsletter creators, helpful vibrant community forums and chat, amazing private content, AMAs, webinars, ability to be on the community podcast episodes, and so much more.

Show Notes & Insights:

The best time you sell your newsletter is when you don't need to sell your newsletter.
Find a niche that's underserved. Create your newsletter around that niche and fill that value-gap that's there. You'll see great success!
Once you have content nailed down your newsletter tends to become nicely scaleable.
The more cash you have in the bank, the more options you have to make a sizable bet on your newsletter.
Your newsletter reader acquisition strategy should include the following: a referral program, paid marketing (other newsletters, Facebook ads, etc), and cross-promotions.
Stacked Marketer's referral program brings in about 20% of the newsletter daily newsletter subscribers.
Something many new newsletter creators may not know, but It's common for Facebook ads to completely shoot-up in price around the New Years time.
Take a shot at advertising in other newsletters adjacent to your niche.
Newsletter advertising generally has a lower reader acquisition cost than other channels (i.e. media buying).
Newsletter ads > Facebook ads
If you're looking to advertise in other newsletters you don't need to go super niche. As long as the general audience has some overlap with your newsletter.
Usually newsletters that are competing with you probably won't want to cross promote or even take money from you for advertising. Find adjacent niches to target.
Actively have benchmarks you're working toward.
1/3 of the advertisers book more ads with Stacked Marketer.
The click quality matters more than click-through rate.
When you're starting with advertising you'll hit good months and bad months. Once you've been well established, then you'll start seeing a stead stream of advertisers.
Don't focus on outbound advertising acquisition. Most newsletter creators get their advertisers inbound.
Finding advertisers outbound is high effort with little reward.
If you're looking for advertisers simply focus on subscriber growth. First, it gets you more inbound advertisers (more informed too). Second, you're able to charge more to that advertiser as you grow.
It's too difficult to convince someone who's not familiar with newsletter advertising or your newsletter specifically to sponsor it.
Inbound advertisers > outbound advertisers
If one week you don't have a sponsor slot filled, replace it with " This could be your ad here" or something similar. Remind the readers that they have an opportunity to advertise in your newsletter.
Never place a word-for-word advertisement by the advertisers. Make sure to write it in such a way that it fits naturally into your newsletter. This will help conversion rates as well as makes it pleasant for the readers.
Newsletter + Guest Info:

Manu Cinca: https://twitter.com/emanuelcinca
Stacked Marketer: https://www.stackedmarketer.com/
_____________________________________

If you’re interested in purchasing the Profitable Newsletter course, please use the link below to help support the show.

Profitable Newsletters Course: https://kintuhq.podia.com/a/hdixb

Newsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to be a more successful newsletter creator. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrew

Patreon: if you’re interested in supporting the show, become a patron here https://www.patreon.com/newslettercrew. We’ll be reading the supporters each week.

August 31, 2020 Acquired IndieMailer

Newsletter Crew has just recently acquired the IndieMailer community and has converted it over to the Newsletter Crew community. We're excited to bring you the new Newsletter Crew community. The community includes forums, chat, and private podcasts. We're so excited to have acquired the IndieMailer community. This is a huge step and forms one of the largest newsletter creator communities on the internet.

We've opened registration back up. For only $19 per year, you can become a member and have access to successful newsletter creators, a helpful vibrant community, and amazing private content. All of this will help you become a more successful newsletter creator. You can join by going to newslettercrew.com and clicking community in the header.

What the Newsletter Crew membership includes:

  1. Forums
  2. Chat
  3. Private podcasts

You can also join by clicking the link here: https://newslettercrew.memberful.com/checkout?plan=45199

July 31, 2020 10 Episodes of the Newsletter Crew podcast

Episode 10 has been published! I want to thank every newsletter creator that has been on the podcast thus far.

Thank you @cbartlett @frankmeeuwsen @justinduke @SuchIndieHackMuchWow @AndrewKamphey @talktohenryj @kintulabs @FalakSher @rosiesherry @louisswiss for the first ten episodes! The future is bright for the next 10 episodes!

About this episode: Today we have @louisswiss. I’ve known him on twitter for quite some time now and I have to say he’s an amazing founder and newsletter creator. Louis runs two newsletters. Sales For Founders, which is a newsletter but also an in-depth course as well. His second newsletter is Five Minute Founder, which is a passion project newsletter with actionable, concise advice to improve your startup/company by 1% each week. Only what you need to know, in five minutes, with examples. On this episode, we’ll dive deep into growth and referral programs. Louis is an expert in referral programs since he founded a referral program tool for newsletters called SparkLoop. If you’re interested in if referral programs are right for your newsletter then you won’t want to miss this episode.

Show Notes & Insights:

  • Louis says newsletters are not a good business to start. What a newsletter is good for is to connect with an audience that wants to buy something from you at a later point in time.
  • Sales for Founders newsletter is not the business itself but is a tool to build trust and get in front of the right audience to sell his course.
  • Newsletters are a great way to have conversations at scale with your audience.
  • There are two schools of thought in newsletter monetization. Either the audience is the product via sponsorship, ads, and affiliates. Or the audience is the customers via subscriptions, courses, ebooks that directly come from you.
  • Having the audience as the customer for your newsletter is a much easier and more fulfilling way to monetize. You don’t need to worry about what a third party cares.
  • Every newsletter has its own monetization strategy. It all depends on the creator. Some like sponsorships and ads, while others use their audience to sell a course or ebook.
  • IndieHackers, Twitter, cross-posting, answering questions on Reddit or other communities, SEO, and a referral program are all amazing ways to market and grow your newsletter.
  • You don’t simply want to build an audience, you want to build an engaged audience.
  • Word of mouth referrals require little time and costs little but has huge growth potential. It’s a great middle growth channel for any newsletter.
  • Referrals thrive on your audience reaching out to their audience to build your newsletter for you.
  • A great subscriber number to have when starting a referral program is around 500 subscribers. This makes it worthwhile in terms of the amount of time needed to set up the referral program versus the return you’ll receive. At around 2000 subscribers is when you should absolutely have a referral program.
  • Referral program growth is based on 3 levers. The incentive the subscribers receive, the frequency you’re doing the referrals at, and how easy is it for your subscribers to refer others.
  • The more general your newsletters are the faster your newsletter will grow. It’s much harder for a subscriber in a small niche to find 10 others to refer that would be interested in that niche. In the end, it’s all comparative growth versus absolute growth.
  • Info products are a great and cheap referral product to give away for high-reach growth.
  • Reuse your content as a reward for your referral program.
  • Facebook ads are low effort marketing channels. The downside they cost a lot of money to get subscribers in the door.
  • Twitter and posts are high effort but low cost. SEO is a high effort but a scaleable way to grow. Referrals are right in the middle of all of these three.

Guest + Newsletter Info:

Newsletter: Join the newsletter to get amazing curated content on how to build, run, and grow your newsletter. Go to https://newslettercrew.com/newsletter.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/newslettercrew

Link to the podcast: https://newslettercrew.com/podcast/ep10-all-about-referrals-with-louis-nicholls-of-sales-for-founders/

June 9, 2020 Launched First Episode

The Newsletter Crew podcast was started when I couldn’t find any podcasts on how to grow and professionally run my newsletter. In my frustration, I decided it’s time to fill the gap and help everyone out. There are awesome communities out there for newsletter creators, including the newsletter category on IndieHackers. There are no newsletter based podcasts that dive deep into how to build, run, and grow a newsletter based business.

I posted on IndieHackers a week or so ago asking if anyone was interested in being interviewed. @cbartlett responded first and showed interest. The first episode I interviewed him.

In this first episode, we dived deep into how Colin grew his newsletter by 1000 subscribers in one day with one simple trick. We’ll also cover why newsletter creators should build an audience first before monetizing. Colin co-founded VimTricks with his business partner Andy, we’ll take a look at how it’s like to run a newsletter business with a co-founder. I hope every listener takes away some useful information to grow and execute their newsletter.

About

The Newsletter Crew podcast was started when I couldn’t find any podcasts on how to grow and professionally run my newsletter. In my frustration, I decided himself it’s time to fill the gap and help everyone out.