How to grow a newsletter to build a personal brand that gets you opportunities! ✨

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How to grow a newsletter to build a personal brand that gets you opportunities! ✨

Vidya P

Newsletter Public Directories

Newsletter sponsorship marketplaces

Newsletter cross-promotion sites

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Learn How To Grow Your Newsletter:

Why a newsletter? Why not a blog?

You’re not fighting algorithms to reach people.

You need not fight for your reader’s attention through SEO.

You never know who reads your blog post but you definitely know who reads your newsletter with the “open rate” metric.

Open Rate is the first metric to measure how engaged your audience are with your content.

Newsletter gives insight into what kind of topics people are interested in reading further.

Ex:

For The Interested⁠

Sam Julien⁠

⁠

Newsletter is a good validation step for your niche.

You own your audience through your Newsletter. You don’t have to depend on Twitter or other social media to reach your audience.

Ex:

Jack Butcher⁠

lost 70k+ Followers on Twitter recently.

⁠

Read

Show Your Work⁠

Austin Kleon⁠

⁠

How to choose a niche when you’re starting?

Takes a lot of time for a person with varied interests.

Difficult for those who do not know what a niche is and what are profitable niches.

No guarantee that I’d want to write about that niche for at least a whole year.

There are 2 ways to find your niche or allow your niche to find you:

Experimental Way:

List down all the topics that interest you.

List down all the topics that you’re willing to talk about.

Start sharing curated links or write long-form articles about these topics for at least 4 weeks.

Sit down and go through your past 4 weeks’ issues. Also, the links which you’ve bookmarked & which you’ve shared with others.

Note down the recurring categories of the links you shared.

For ex: I’ve shared more links on Productivity and Creativity than Data Science or any other topic.

Those are the categories that interest you and could be your niche.

Practical Way:

Find a topic(s) which you’re already interested in.

Write down 54 things you would talk/write about this topic.

You got yourself a year’s worth of content.

What platform should you choose to send your first newsletter?

Platform-based ESPs:

Substack

Revue

Domain-based ESPs:

EmailOctopus

ConvertKit

MailerLite

How to grow your newsletter subscribers organically?

Without depending on Social Media:

Friends, Family, Colleagues

Display on Website/Blog

Encourage your readers to share it with others. Don’t be shy.

Write Guest Blogs on websites that are within your niche.

List yourself on all the Newsletter Directories.

Email the people you mentioned in your Newsletter & ask them to check it out.

How to use Social Media effectively to grow Newsletter Subscribers:

Twitter. Write Viral Threads. Plug-in your newsletter casually at the end of the thread.

IndieHackers

Facebook Communities

Discord Servers

Tech oriented: Hacker News

Answer Quora Questions related to your Niche & plug-in your Newsletter

Launch on ProductHunt, BetaList

Create effective Lead Magnets.

Cross-promote with other Newsletter Subscribers.

Best practices you should consider.

Subject Lines

Preview Lines

Introduction

Body (Curated & Long-form)

Length of Body

Number of Links

Add pictures if you’re writing a long-form newsletter.

Ex:

Product Lessons⁠

by Linda

Conclusion - Attach Buy Me A Coffee Link.

Say Thank You To Supporters for supporting via BMC.

Other Practices:

A proper Welcome Email.

Clean your list every 90 days.

Have Objectives & Key Results (OKRs). Define them clearly. Don’t just wing it.

Celebrate your milestones on Social Media.

Number of Subscribers is a vanity metric. Open Rates should be the goal.

CTRs show how much your audience trust you and your suggestions.

CTRs suggest their interest in the topic.

How to get the “right” feedback from your subscribers?

Replies

Survey Forms - Every 6 months.

Contact them separately

Use tools like

FeedLetter⁠

⁠

3 Ways to earn money through your newsletter without sponsorships.

Affiliate Programs. Should align with your readers’ interests for maximum results.

Donations. Ex: Buy Me A Coffee, Patreon, Ko-Fi

Sell your Products or Services.

How to manage running a personal newsletter along with your job and freelance work.

Good thing about running a newsletter is that you can schedule your newsletters way ahead than your publish date. Unless you’re writing about current events or running a journalism type newsletter.

2 Ways to avoid burnout while running a newsletter and working a full-time job:

Block 1 hour of your time in a day to work on Newsletter.

Or, block 3-4 hours in a single day. Do deep work.

Have a space to list out your ideas. You’ll never run out of topics to write or talk about.

How to find opportunities for freelance work through your newsletter?

You’re essentially building the highest form of social proof through your newsletter in your niche.

Don’t be shy in showing off your work to the world.

Don’t think you will sound sales-y when you’re genuinely providing value to others.

Start Building In Public

Start networking through DMs and Emails.

Learn cold-emailing.

Always experiment. You’ll never know what the results could be until you experiment.

Checklist to start your newsletter:

Write 3 reasons why you’re starting this newsletter.

I want to inspire my readers to be more productive in a healthy way

I want to help my readers find the best tools and resources to be creative

I want to help my readers earn a second income through freelancing

Who is your ideal reader? Describe them in detail.

I’m writing a newsletter primarily for those who want to be productive, creative, and want to have a second source of income.

What are your goals for this newsletter in 2021? Be realistic.

Reach 1000 subscribers through cross-promotions.

Work with favourite brands & reach out to them for collaboration.

Earn $200/mo through Sponsorships.

Publish a short guide on how to start a newsletter by sharing my experiences and help newsletter beginners.

Break these goals down into actionable points.

❌ Don’t: “I want to reach 100 subscribers”.

✅ Do: “I want to reach 100 subscribers by reaching out to 20 friends, 20 people who I admire, etc.”

Set-up your Landing Page quickly with Revue or Substack.

Share your Landing Page with Friends, Family, Colleagues.

Share your Landing Page on Social Media.

Twitter

IndieHackers

Other Communities (note it down here)

Distribute your newsletter in Public Directories.

⁠

Newsletter Public Directories⁠

⁠

A place to store your favourite articles or websites to get inspired by. Use Google Sheets or Notion.

Send your first newsletter issue.

Celebrate your Open Rate.

Collect Feedback.

Collect Social Proof.

Start building Wall Of Love.

Ex:

The Curious Bunch - Wall Of Love⁠

⁠

Keep track of your expenses. Invest in yourself and your newsletter growth. Don’t go overboard.

Purchased: Domain & Email on Namecheap

Purchased:

NewsletterOS⁠

⁠

Keep track of what’s working for you and what’s not working for you. Document your Newsletter journey.

Asking questions in Subject Lines improved Open Rates

Free Notion Database improved CTR

Cross-promotions improved Number of Subscribers

Celebrate your milestones.

Share it with

me on Twitter⁠

so I can cheer for you! 😇✨

Resources to grow your Newsletter:

⚙

Newsletter OS⁠

(⭐ Highly Recommended. Played a big role in improving my Newsletter)

⁠

Newsletter sponsorship marketplaces⁠

⁠

Newsletter cross-promotion sites⁠

⁠

✅

Newsletter Landing Page Tips⁠

⁠

📰

Newsletter Crew Blog⁠

⁠

💌

Newsletter Tips by Josh Spector⁠

⁠

Learn How To Grow Your Newsletter:

Checklist to start your newsletter:

Resources to grow your Newsletter:

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