Rabbit Hole

Hi, indiehackers! Hope you are enjoying the weekend 🎉 ! I’m writing today’s issue as an effort to build Rabbit Hole in public. I’ll be sharing all the new feature launch updates, newsletter stats, goals, and strategies to grow RH, my mistakes! So let’s begin.

✨ What’s New:

1. Product Nuggets:

I introduced a new section named “Product Nuggets” where I share the latest & interesting product-related news & updates from all over the world. The objective of this section is to keep PMs updated about new feature launches, product moves & strategies of the best product companies.

2. Product of the Day:

Honestly, this is my favorite section so far in the newsletter. (Comment below which is your favorite section😜). The section aims to explore awesome products- big or small, simple or complex but most importantly products that deserve your attention. This serves as a source of inspiration for product managers like you & me to learn product tricks, features, and strategies from such innovative products! For each issue, I’ll find one great product worth your attention!

📊 Stats:

It’s been 5 months, 11 days and after 70 issues & we are at a 352 awesome subscribers mark🥰. Roughly we have grown by 70 subscribers per month which is not that bad as I haven’t been actively promoting the newsletter nor running any paid campaigns.

The average open rate by the end of June was 46%, & the average CTR was 19%. I find it pretty impressive! Though I’m targeting a 50%+ open rate & 25%+ CTR going forward.

Any suggestions on how I can improve the open rate & CTR? 🤔 Drop your suggestions in the comments below!

🎯 Next Goals:

So my next goals for Rabbit Hole by the end of June 2022 will be to:

Increase the Lifetime Open Rate by 4% & get it to 50%

Increase the Lifetime CTR rate by 6% & get it to 25%

Add 48 subscribers to reach the 400 subscribers count

🧠 Strategies:

Below are my strategies to achieve the goals that I’ve set above. Feel free to comment on them, and share your feedback/suggestions in the comments so I can learn from them & make the necessary course correction.

To increase the open rate:

I’ve seen that many of the substack newsletters land in the Promotions tab. Though in the welcome email I suggest subscribers take all the necessary steps to avoid this I’m not sure how many people actually follow them.

I recently came across a newsletter that nudged the subscribers by placing a GIF at the bottom of the newsletter visualizing how they can move the newsletters to the Primary tab of their inbox if it's landing in their Promotions tab.

I’ve also made a similar GIF & will be placing it at the bottom of all RH newsletters for 2 weeks to see if it moves the current “Open Rate” metric or not!

To grow subscribers:

Word of mouth activation. Better content curation and interesting newsletter features will make you share the newsletter with others, and talk about it.

Regularly sharing the latest newsletter issues on Twitter, Linked In & Reddit.

Do you have any interesting ideas to help grow the subscribers? Please drop them below in the comments! 🌟

Hi Indiehackers, I’m writing this issue as an effort to build Rabbit Hole in public. I’ll be sharing new feature updates, newsletter stats, goals, strategies to grow RH, my mistakes & how you can contribute to growing RH 😬

✨ What’s New:

I’ve designed some cool, colorful banners to differentiate between the sections of the newsletter. I hope you’ll all like it & it’ll lead to a better UX while navigating through the sections. A “Crowd Favourite” section where you’ll find the newsletter issues that got the most number of opens & loved by the subscribers!

A banner at the end of every newsletter issue to make it easier for the subscribers to find me & follow me on Twitter 🐥 so that you can stay updated about the new feature launches, updates around the newsletter stats, my marketing & growth strategies & my learnings along the journey of growing Rabbit Hole. Plus if you ever miss reading any newsletter issue from your inbox you can be reminded via Twitter as I post the latest newsletter issues on Twitter regularly!

📊 Stats:

Started in February 2022, it’s been 3 months & 22 days & we are at 324 awesome subscribers 🥰. Roughly we have grown by 100 subscribers per month which is not that bad growth as I haven’t been actively promoting the newsletter nor I’ve run any paid campaigns.

The average open rate by end of April was 48%, & the average CTR was 20%. I find it pretty impressive! Though I’m targeting a 60%+ open rate & 25%+ CTR going forward.

Any suggestions on how I can improve the open rate & CTR? 🤔 Drop your suggestions in the comments below!

🎯 Next Goals:

So my next goals for Rabbit Hole by the end of May 2022 will be to:

1. Increase the Lifetime Open Rate by 12% & get it to 60%

2. Increase the Lifetime CTR rate by 5% & get it to 25%

3. Add 76 subscribers to reach the 400 subscribers count

Hey, do you know how a newsletter grows? It grows when the subscribers share it with their friends, and colleagues or talk about it on social media & other platforms. 🥸

If you like what I’m doing at Rabbit Hole please share it by clicking on the button below! 🙏🏻

🧠 Strategies:

Below are my strategies to achieve the goals that I’ve set above. Feel free to comment on them, and share your feedback/suggestions in the comments so I can learn from them & do the necessary course correction.

To increase the open rate:

Improve the article selection choice to ensure that the articles are intriguing to make subscribers open the newsletter

Experiment with different newsletter titles instead of using the article titles itself

To increase the CTR:

Interesting articles will eventually result in improved CTR, so better curation will result in better CTR

To grow subscribers:

Word of mouth activation. Better content curation and interesting newsletter features will make you share the newsletter with others, and talk about it.

Regularly sharing the latest newsletter issues on Twitter & Linked In

Tweeting & posting about my building in the public journey on RH & sharing regular updates

Do you have any interesting ideas to help grow the subscribers? Please drop them below in the comments! 🌟

❌ Mistakes:

During the 3rd week of May, I sent the newsletter issues with “RH#41, RH#42” as the issue titles resulted in a drop in the open rate. I suspect this was because the subscribers were blinded & couldn’t figure out the articles that were published in the issues.

Open rates of the issues with the titles as “RH#”

I reverted to what I’ve been doing before. Posting the titles of the newsletter issues similar to the article’s titles published in it.

Hi Indiehackers, I’m writing this issue as an effort to build Rabbit Hole in public. I’ll be sharing new feature updates, newsletter stats, goals, strategies to grow RH, my mistakes & how you can contribute to growing RH 😬

✨ What’s New:

I’ve designed some cool, colorful banners to differentiate between the sections of the newsletter. I hope you’ll all like it & it’ll lead to a better UX while navigating through the sections. A “Crowd Favourite” section where you’ll find the newsletter issues that got the most number of opens & loved by the subscribers!

A banner at the end of every newsletter issue to make it easier for the subscribers to find me & follow me on Twitter 🐥 so that you can stay updated about the new feature launches, updates around the newsletter stats, my marketing & growth strategies & my learnings along the journey of growing Rabbit Hole. Plus if you ever miss reading any newsletter issue from your inbox you can be reminded via Twitter as I post the latest newsletter issues on Twitter regularly!

📊 Stats:

Started in February 2022, it’s been 3 months & 22 days & we are at 324 awesome subscribers 🥰. Roughly we have grown by 100 subscribers per month which is not that bad growth as I haven’t been actively promoting the newsletter nor I’ve run any paid campaigns.

The average open rate by end of April was 48%, & the average CTR was 20%. I find it pretty impressive! Though I’m targeting a 60%+ open rate & 25%+ CTR going forward.

Any suggestions on how I can improve the open rate & CTR? 🤔 Drop your suggestions in the comments below!

🎯 Next Goals:

So my next goals for Rabbit Hole by the end of May 2022 will be to:

1. Increase the Lifetime Open Rate by 12% & get it to 60%

2. Increase the Lifetime CTR rate by 5% & get it to 25%

3. Add 76 subscribers to reach the 400 subscribers count

Hey, do you know how a newsletter grows? It grows when the subscribers share it with their friends, and colleagues or talk about it on social media & other platforms. 🥸

If you like what I’m doing at Rabbit Hole please share it by clicking on the button below! 🙏🏻

🧠 Strategies:

Below are my strategies to achieve the goals that I’ve set above. Feel free to comment on them, and share your feedback/suggestions in the comments so I can learn from them & do the necessary course correction.

To increase the open rate:

Improve the article selection choice to ensure that the articles are intriguing to make subscribers open the newsletter

Experiment with different newsletter titles instead of using the article titles itself

To increase the CTR:

Interesting articles will eventually result in improved CTR, so better curation will result in better CTR

To grow subscribers:

Word of mouth activation. Better content curation and interesting newsletter features will make you share the newsletter with others, and talk about it.

Regularly sharing the latest newsletter issues on Twitter & Linked In

Tweeting & posting about my building in the public journey on RH & sharing regular updates

Do you have any interesting ideas to help grow the subscribers? Please drop them below in the comments! 🌟

❌ Mistakes:

During the 3rd week of May, I sent the newsletter issues with “RH#41, RH#42” as the issue titles resulted in a drop in the open rate. I suspect this was because the subscribers were blinded & couldn’t figure out the articles that were published in the issues.

Open rates of the issues with the titles as “RH#”

I reverted to what I’ve been doing before. Posting the titles of the newsletter issues similar to the article’s titles published in it.

“Amazing content in a summed up manner! Loved it”

“Your newsletters are truly amazing and I love reading the awesome articles you bring to us. They are not only informative but also so interesting that they don't bore me to death haha. Really love your work and appreciate it.

Hi, I’m glad you are here! I’m Swapnil, product manager at Bytelearn & I welcome you to Rabbit Hole🐰.

🐰 What is Rabbit Hole?

Rabbit Hole is a tri-weekly newsletter for product managers where I skim through 30+ product management publications & send you one best PM article directly into your inbox along with a 60 words summary that smart product managers shouldn't miss!

Loved by 300+ product managers so far!
🤔 Why did I start it?
I started Rabbit Hole because I was overwhelmed by the amount of quality product management content available on the internet. Thus to make the lives of PMs easier I thought of curating the best product management content & delivering the best PM article straight to the inbox helping them find something good to read every day & grow a little each day in their PM career

🧑🏻‍💻 Why you should subscribe?

Trust me it’s difficult to find good PM reads & even if you find it’s pretty hard to routinely read these amazing PM content. That’s where Rabbit Hole steps in by bringing you the best PM articles straight to your inbox.
And not just that, Rabbit Hole ain’t just a newsletter sending your PM articles but it’s a feature-packed newsletter that homes many interesting & valuable content sections that are fun to read & are a great value add to the PMs. Some of the content sections are:

Best PM article along with a 60 words summary

The best product management “Tweet of the Day”

Rabbit Hole Top Reads that are loved by the subscribers

The best product management “Meme of the Day”

any many more exciting features to be added along the journey. The amazing part is that Rabbit Hole is completely free!🥳 So go ahead & subscribe!