How I Grew My Newsletter to 91,892 Subscribers (Without Paid Ads)
Summary
TLDRThis video offers a comprehensive guide on growing an email newsletter to over 90,000 subscribers without paid ads, achieving an impressive 50% open rate. The speaker shares insights from building successful newsletters for his companies, highlighting strategies like branded newsletters with consistent templates, bite-sized value, and never missing an issue to form habits. Emphasizing the value of newsletters, he stresses the importance of a dedicated sign-up page, welcoming new subscribers effectively, and leveraging the newsletter for promotions and customer acquisition. With practical tips and a proven approach, this video equips viewers to build a highly engaged newsletter subscriber base.
Takeaways
- 😃 Send a confirmation and deliverability (CD) welcome email to new subscribers to set expectations and improve inbox placement.
- 🔖 Create a branded newsletter with a consistent format and template to build familiarity and anticipation among subscribers.
- 📝 Provide bite-sized, easily consumable value in each newsletter issue to encourage skimming and engagement.
- ⏰ Stick to a consistent sending schedule (e.g., same day and time each week) to build a habit for subscribers.
- 🌐 Have a dedicated newsletter sign-up page on your website to funnel subscribers effectively.
- 📩 Use engaging subject lines sparingly if your newsletter has a recognizable brand and format.
- 💌 Ask new subscribers to move your email to the primary tab and reply to improve deliverability signals.
- 🚀 Leverage your newsletter as a growth channel by promoting products/services occasionally while providing regular value.
- 📈 High open rates (e.g., 50%) indicate a successful, valuable newsletter that resonates with the audience.
- 💰 A large, engaged email list can be a highly valuable asset, as demonstrated by companies acquired for their newsletters.
Q & A
What is the primary benefit of having an email newsletter?
-The primary benefit of having an email newsletter is that it acts as a free retargeting channel, reminding subscribers of the existence of the business on a regular basis. Additionally, it helps build top-of-mind brand awareness, making the business the go-to choice when subscribers need a related solution.
How did the speaker grow their newsletter to over 90,000 subscribers without using paid ads?
-The speaker employed several strategies, including sending a branded newsletter with a consistent template and format, providing bite-sized value in each issue, maintaining a consistent sending schedule, and having a dedicated newsletter sign-up page on their website.
What is the purpose of sending a CD (Confirmation and Deliverability) welcome message?
-The CD welcome message serves two purposes: 1) It confirms to new subscribers that they made the right decision to sign up, reminding them of the value they will receive, and 2) It prompts subscribers to take actions that improve email deliverability, such as moving the email from the promotions tab to the primary inbox and replying to the message.
Why is it important to have a branded newsletter separate from the company brand?
-Having a branded newsletter separate from the company brand makes it easier for subscribers to remember and share the newsletter. It also sets expectations for the content and format of the newsletter, making it more recognizable and habit-forming for subscribers.
What is the significance of providing bite-sized value in a newsletter?
-Providing bite-sized value in a newsletter allows subscribers to quickly skim and get something out of it without needing to read a lot of content or click on links. This makes it more likely for subscribers to open and engage with the newsletter on a regular basis.
Why is consistency in sending the newsletter important?
-Consistency in sending the newsletter at the same day and time every week (or other chosen interval) helps build a habit among subscribers. It trains them to expect and look forward to the newsletter, increasing open rates and engagement.
What is the importance of having a dedicated newsletter sign-up page on the website?
-Having a dedicated newsletter sign-up page on the website makes it easier for visitors to find and sign up for the newsletter, rather than relying solely on pop-ups or other less prominent methods. This can help grow the email list more effectively.
How can a newsletter be leveraged for product launches or promotions?
-By consistently providing value through the newsletter, businesses can build goodwill with their subscribers. This goodwill can then be leveraged during product launches or promotions, as subscribers are more likely to engage with and convert on these offers due to the existing relationship and trust.
What is the significance of asking subscribers to move the newsletter from the promotions tab to the primary inbox?
-Asking subscribers to move the newsletter from the promotions tab to the primary inbox sends a strong signal to email providers like Gmail that the messages should be placed in the primary inbox. This is because it shows active engagement and interest from subscribers, indicating that the messages are not just promotional content.
How can a consistent template benefit both the subscriber and the business?
-A consistent newsletter template benefits subscribers by setting expectations and making it easier for them to quickly identify and engage with the content. For the business, it streamlines the newsletter creation process, making it easier to fill in the blanks and send the newsletter without having to reinvent the format each time.
Outlines
📈 Growing an Email Newsletter to Over 90,000 Subscribers Without Paid Ads
This paragraph introduces the topic of growing a large email newsletter without using paid ads. It highlights the high open rate of the speaker's newsletter and their previous success in growing another newsletter to over 200,000 subscribers. The paragraph emphasizes the value of having a newsletter, citing companies that have sold for millions due to their email-based audience. It also discusses how the newsletter acts as free retargeting, reminding subscribers of the company's existence and keeping it top-of-mind.
🚀 Steps to Grow Your Newsletter and Get the Most Out of It
This paragraph outlines the steps to grow a successful newsletter. First, it recommends sending a confirmation and deliverability (CD) welcome message upon signup to confirm the subscriber's decision and increase future deliverability. Techniques like asking subscribers to move the email from the Promotions tab to Primary, and encouraging replies, are discussed to improve deliverability. Next, it suggests having a branded newsletter with a unique template and format, providing bite-sized value that subscribers can easily skim. Consistency in sending the newsletter at the same day and time each week or day is emphasized to build habit-forming routines among subscribers.
🌐 Importance of a Dedicated Newsletter Page on Your Website
This paragraph stresses the importance of having a dedicated page on your website for people to sign up for your newsletter. It advises against relying solely on pop-ups, as a dedicated page is more effective for building a substantial list. The paragraph also reiterates the key takeaways: having a branded newsletter separate from your company brand, using a CD welcome message, providing a template with bite-sized value, and maintaining consistency in sending the newsletter. Finally, it encourages viewers to share their experiences or questions about building a newsletter in the comments.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Email Newsletter
💡Open Rate
💡Branded Newsletter
💡Welcome Email
💡Consistent Scheduling
💡Bite-sized Value
💡Dedicated Newsletter Page
💡Retargeting
💡Goodwill
💡Email Deliverability
Highlights
Grew an email newsletter to over 90,000 subscribers without using paid ads, with a 50% open rate, which is above industry average.
A newsletter can be a valuable growth channel, reminding subscribers of your existence and providing value.
Sending promotions and product launches to the email list can drive significant growth and sales, as subscribers are more receptive due to the value provided through the newsletter.
Upon signup, send a welcome message confirming the subscriber's decision and reminding them of the value they'll receive.
In the welcome message, ask subscribers to move the email from the Promotions tab to Primary in Gmail, and to reply, as these actions signal to email providers that your messages should be prioritized.
Have a branded newsletter with its own unique brand and template, providing familiarity and consistency while maintaining an element of surprise.
Structure the newsletter to provide bite-sized, skimmable value that subscribers can quickly consume and benefit from.
Never miss sending an issue of the newsletter, as consistency is crucial for building a habit and maintaining high open rates.
Have a dedicated newsletter signup page on your website, ideally linked from the main navigation, to drive more subscribers.
Key takeaways: have a branded newsletter, send a strong welcome message, provide bite-sized value in a consistent template, and have a dedicated signup page.
Transcripts
in this video I'm going to show you how
I grew my email newsletter to over 90
000 subscribers without using paid ads
but more important than the list size
alone our email newsletter gets a 50
open rate to 90 000 people every single
week which is definitely above the
industry average and not to brag but
this isn't the first time that I grew a
newsletter to tens of thousands of
people my last company backlinko we grew
that newsletter to over 200 000
subscribers also without running any
paid ads you probably already know how
valuable having a newsletter can be I
mean look at companies like morning brew
and the hustle they sold for tens of
millions of dollars because those
companies that bought them knew how
valuable that email-based audience can
be and in the case of exploring topics
our newsletter is one of the biggest
growth channels for us basically for two
reasons first people that open our
newsletter on a weekly basis it's
basically like free retargeting we're
reminding them every week that we exist
and we're providing a little bit of
value now we don't really sell too much
in the newsletter we just basically have
a little pitch for our Pro product but
the real benefit is that every week
people are opening it and getting value
and remembering that we exist so when
someone wants some sort of trend
spotting tool or Trend spotting solution
we're top of Mind in fact most
Enterprise customers that reach out to
us that end up closing say that they
found us via the newsletter or they
signed up for the newsletter and really
enjoyed reading it every week and then
when they want some sort of trend
spotting tool for their team they don't
have to Google Trend spotting tool they
just come right to us because they're
familiar with us and also just because
you have a newsletter doesn't mean you
just have to send the newsletter you can
also send promotions I mean we do
product launches two or three times a
year to the exploding topics email list
and those are some of our biggest growth
months and because we're providing value
between those launches via the
newsletter our open rates are still like
40 or 50 during the launch and we close
a lot of people and convert a lot of
people during those launches because we
built up so much Goodwill over the weeks
and months of delivering value with the
newsletter all right enough fluff let's
get right into the steps on how you can
actually grow your newsletter and get
the most out of it so your first step is
when someone signs up for your
newsletter is to send them what's known
as a CD welcome message so the C stands
for confirmation and the d stands for
deliverability and basically the idea
behind this welcome message is two
things first you want to confirm that
they made the right decision by signing
up so imagine someone lands on your
website and they go to your newsletter
page and it sounds interesting and they
sign up if you don't send a message for
a few days which is possible if you only
send a Weekly Newsletter they're kind of
gonna forget you exist so it's important
to confirm that they made a good
decision and remind them already upon
sign up about why they signed up so in
our case we just kind of remind them you
know we're going to send Trends every
week and such and such a number of
people have signed up so if you don't
have a big email list that's totally
fine you don't need to use social proof
you can just say every week you're going
to get X to really confirm that they
made the right decision the next step is
to use your welcome message to increase
deliverability in the future two things
that have really made a huge difference
for us is one when someone signs up for
our newsletter in the welcome email we
literally tell them to move the message
from the the promotions tab in Gmail to
primary now at this point with a 50 open
rate we'll obviously get into primary
most of the time in Gmail but it still
doesn't hurt to put that in there
because if you ever get into promotions
again the act of someone moving the
message from promotions to primary sends
a strong signal not just for that
subscriber but just in general that your
messages should be in primary because
most people when they see something in
the promotions tab they leave it there
because usually it's a promotion and
they don't want to do anything about it
if a lot of subscribers are literally
moving your message and dragging it from
promotions to primary that sends a
really strong message to Gmail that your
stuff should be in primary the other
thing we do to improve deliverability
for Gmail or any other email platform
that people might be using is ask them
to reply to the message you know reply
and say why did you sign up for this
newsletter this is huge because most
emails that get sent out are basically
transactional emails that people open
they click they interact with some way
and all that stuff is good for
deliverability people interacting with
your message but a reply is especially
important because it actually shows that
people are engaging with your email and
it's not just a one-way message it's
sort of a conversation if enough people
do that it tells Google that these
messages are things that are going to be
replied to by subscribers so they should
end up in your primary tab so the goal
is really at the end of the day is to
get engagement early on from new people
that signed up to show Google and Gmail
I should say that your message should go
into the primary Tab and we found that
the primary to the promotions tab is
huge like basically the promotions tab
is the new spam folder you do get some
opens there but to give you some context
when we send a message and it goes to
Promotions our open rate is usually like
30 something percent when it goes to
primary it's 50 plus it's almost double
just based on going from promotions to
primary now if you go to spam that's a
totally different story but I'm just
talking about how to get deliverability
in terms of going from promotions to
primary it makes a huge difference in
this welcome email sort of a passive way
to increase the odds that your messages
land in primary in the future the next
step is what do you actually send these
people and in my experience the best way
to to get people to open your newsletter
to share your newsletter to subscribe to
your newsletter is to have what's known
as a branded newsletter so you know a
lot of newsletters that people create
and send out are sort of people's
musings on this and that or a list of
links think of substack for example
every time you get an email from a sub
stack you kind of don't know what you're
gonna get most of them are kind of
essays or long rambling stories that
someone might have and that's fine
there's nothing wrong with that but if
you want to really build a huge
newsletter following that you might even
be able to sell or just something like
in our case designed to grow your
business you want to have a branded
newsletter so a branded newsletter is
just like it sounds it's a newsletter
that has its own brand unless your
company is the newsletter like morning
Brew Your newsletter should have its own
separate unique brand from your actual
brand so for example Tim Ferriss has
five bullet Friday right that's his
branded newsletter that has its own
brand separate from him and the reason
for that it's just easier to share the
newsletter as a separate branded thing
so if I told you oh sign up for Tim
ferriss's newsletter it's easy to forget
but if I told you sign up for five
bullet Friday it's much easier to
remember it also kind of encompasses
what the newsletter is as opposed to Tim
ferriss's newsletter which could be
anything you kind of know okay it's five
bullets and it comes on Friday just from
the name alone so the brand is really
important now not just the name but you
also want to have a unique template
inside of every message every message
should be more or less the same with the
fields change so in the case of
exploding topics or as we call it
exploding topics Tuesday that's our
brand newsletter we send out four Trends
every week and the four Trends are all
over the place some are about e-commerce
some are about technology some are
Concepts but either way the the format
is exactly the same someone knows what
they're going to get they're going to
get four new trends every single week
they don't know what the trends are they
don't know what spaces they're going to
be in but they at least have some idea
of what they're going to get and this is
the benefit for you and your subscriber
it helps your subscriber because they're
gonna open because they know hey I know
what I'm gonna get pretty much I'm just
curious about what the details are this
combination of familiarity and the
unknown is a really powerful motivator
when it comes to someone opening your
message in fact we don't even have to
use any fancy subject lines like our
subject line is the most boring thing
ever it's just E.T colon the date as
opposed to having to think of one every
week we just use ET and the date and we
still get a 50 open rate because people
want to know what's inside the message
the subject line doesn't really matter
that much in our case because people
know what they're going to get but they
don't know exactly what they're going to
get having a template also helps you
because you don't need to reinvent the
wheel every week or every day when you
send out your newsletter like you just
fill in the blanks and send it out our
newsletter because we used content from
our Pro platform basically it only takes
us about five minutes to put together
it's really easy because you just fill
in the blanks send it out and you're
pretty much done as opposed to having
like an editorial process where you're
like what subject line should we use
what should we cover you could just
basically fill in the blanks and you're
done it's super easy and it's a win-win
for you and your subscribers so while
you're sort of developing this template
and it's okay to test out different
templates to see what works I'd really
focus on providing bite size value make
it so someone can skim your newsletter
and get something out of it this is the
Brilliance of news letters like morning
brew and the hustle is that they were
able to take the day's news basically
and encapsulate it into easy digestible
little nuggets now in your case you
might not have a news newsletter you
might have something about technology or
about Fitness and that's totally fine
but the idea is that you want to have
bite size value that someone can just
skim it and get something out of it so
in the case of five bullet Friday Tim
has some links to things interested in
and then usually a quote of some kind
within 30 seconds you can get some value
out of it and if you want to click on
the links and learn more you can get
even more value so it's bite size value
across the board there with literally
five bullets every week in our case in
exploding topics Tuesday we provide four
Trends so you can just skim the trends
if you want and just see what they are
or we provide some insight and Analysis
if you want to read about them and learn
more either way it's all about providing
bite-sized value in your newsletter so
as you develop your template try to
think of a way that you could just help
people just quickly get some value out
of your newsletter without needing to
click on any links or read a bunch of
content the next step is to never miss
an issue of your newsletter whether it's
Christmas or your birthday or your mom's
birthday you gotta send that newsletter
every week or every day depending on the
time frame that you choose in the case
of exploring topics we've sent out 150
newsletters at this point and we've
never missed one it's really important
for people to build up that habit of
opening so that's one of the reasons
besides what I already mentioned of why
people open up our newsletters at such a
high rate yes it's because we provide
bite-size value we're providing value
overall but we're sending at a
consistent day and time so people know
Tuesday at 9am Eastern they're going to
get their exploding topics Tuesday to
open and learn about new trends like
that habit forming part of it is huge
and in fact those newsletters that I
mentioned like morning brew and the
hustle they have literally a million
plus subscribers and I know from talking
to people like who are involved in that
company that they have a 40 open rate on
a million subscribers and they send
every day how is that possible well it's
because that becomes the daily routine
of their subscribers just opening that
newsletter like they get up in the
morning they check their phone and they
open morning Brew to learn about what
happened yesterday like that's the habit
forming potential so if you miss even
one issue you can break that habit it's
important to send at the same time at
the same day of the week every single
week every single day depending on your
schedule in fact this is a mistake that
I made with the backlinko newsletter I
will just send out messages sort of when
I felt like it when I had a blog post to
share when I had a video to share when I
had something to rant about when I
learned about something new that I
wanted to share I wasn't consistent like
every week or even every month you get a
newsletter sometimes you would get three
in a month sometimes you would get one
per month sometimes you would get none
for a while like six weeks so there was
no consistency there and that's one of
the reasons that the open rate on the
backlinko newsletter was like 30
something percent I'm exploring topics
it's about 50. in fact many of our
subscribers tell us that they actually
look forward to reading our email on
Tuesday like they know when it's coming
and they look forward to it and that's
only possible if you stand really
consistently last up if you're serious
about growing a newsletter you need a
dedicated page on your website for
people to sign up to your newsletter if
you rely 100 on pop-ups it's gonna be
hard to build your list yes pop-ups can
bring in some subscribers but nothing
beats a dedicated newsletter page so in
the case of exploring topics in our main
navigation we actually have a link to
our newsletter page and most people that
sign up for a newsletter sign up through
that page as you can see this page is
really simple so it's not about the page
itself it's more about funneling traffic
to that page as opposed to having people
have to hunt around sign up for a
newsletter or happen to see some sort of
pop-up you have a dedicated section of
your site just to get email subscribers
so to quickly recap the most important
takeaways that you can use to grow your
newsletter first of all you definitely
want a branded newsletter of some kind
make sure your newsletter is a brand
that is separate from your actual brand
unless of course you're building a
newsletter focused business which if
that's the case you're probably not
watching this video to learn newsletter
tips for me hopefully you're learning
from morning Brew or those guys that
just do that the other thing to remember
is your welcome message try a CD welcome
message your welcome message is really
important for getting people who just
signed up your newsletter off on the
right foot you want to send a really
strong first impression that tells
people look you signed up for an awesome
newsletter you're gonna get all this
stuff and also nudges them to do do some
things that can help with your
deliverability and also make sure that
your newsletter is a template that can
provide bite size value that combination
is really powerful when someone knows
that I can open this skim it and get
some value from it they're more likely
to open it in the future because they
know it's not a huge time suck and also
you definitely want a dedicated
newsletter page on your website and
ideally you'd link from that from your
site's navigation so I know that real
estate in your site navigation is really
you know important and that's actually
why I put the newsletter link there
because for us building our email list
and growing newsletter is really
important so it's worthwhile so now I'd
like to hear from you have you built a
newsletter are you building a newsletter
now what's working for you or maybe you
have some questions about something you
saw in this video either way let me know
in the comment section below
thank you
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