← Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Beyond Sponsorships: The Most Unique Newsletter Revenue Streams
00:37:57
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- [00:00]
Jillian
When are you starting the Chanel Secret newsletter?
- [00:02]
Chanel
Actually, I should do that because he hit like 100,000 followers on Twitter. In two months, she's got 2 million subscribers. I had to double check. This seems like a simple way to add on a couple extra bucks here and there, build a course, teach people your way of doing things, and then have a software on the back end to upsell and. Or keep those really interested people coming back.
- [00:21]
Jillian
I love that because it's something like you could do with Growth in Reverse too. Right?
- [00:25]
Chanel
I was just. My mind was broken after this. I was like, this is so good.
- [00:30]
Jillian
Foreign.
- [00:36]
Chanel
Welcome back to the Growth in Reverse podcast. I'm Chanel.
- [00:39]
Jillian
And I'm Jillian.
- [00:40]
Chanel
And today we're going to talk about monetization. I think it's one of the topics that so many creators struggle with, especially in the early days. And there are some common ways that creators monetize, but I think we also wanted to dig into some of the more interesting ones just to get those ideas rolling around in your head, maybe give you some better options or things you might not have thought about. So I think we're going to dive into the top three that we actually pulled out of the deep dives I've already written. So these are creators that are doing like 50,000 plus subscribers for the most part, and just kind of see what they're doing for monetization and then we'll dig into some other ideas.
- [01:16]
Jillian
Yeah, so we took basically your. Your sample size of, I think, 66 newsletters with the most recent one on CJ Gustafson. Right. Um, and so through those 66 newsletters, we found that 43 of them, or about 65% had sponsorships, were running sponsorships in their newsletters. So just about two thirds of every newsletter you looked at was using sponsorships. And I. Doesn't really surprise me. I don't know about you, but I figured that was probably going to be the case.
- [01:47]
Chanel
Yeah, I think it's kind of low hanging fruit, especially once you build up like a sizable enough audience. You're like, hey, this seems like a simple way to add on a couple extra bucks here and there. So I think it's a. Definitely a popular one for newsletters.
- [02:01]
Jillian
It was the first method of revenue that I thought I could probably get from my newsletter, aside from like maybe throwing an affiliate link or whatever in a, in a newsletter here and there, but something a little bit more sizable and more, you know, quote unquote guaranteed. You know, if you sell a sponsor slot, you're going to make that money as opposed to just throwing a affiliate link in a newsletter. I think it makes sense that a lot of newsletters start that way and kind of explore at least what an ad and sponsorship. Whether or not they continue with it, depending on their experience with it and the results of their sponsorships is one thing, but it's not surprising that it's number one. Do you know what number two is? What would you guess? What would you guess? Let's say that the number two most.
- [02:37]
Chanel
Common one is number two. Well, I think I've done a lot of paid newsletters, so it's probably paid.
- [02:42]
Jillian
Subscription close, but that was actually number three. Number two. Number number two was courses. So that includes cohort based courses or evergreen courses. But the second most common way that newsletter operators are monetizing, at least again with a caveat that this is through your research of the 66 you've done and the ways you found people sharing how they're driving revenue courses was the second most at about 29 newsletters, or 44% of the newsletters you reviewed had courses as one of their revenue drivers.
- [03:14]
Chanel
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I've seen a lot of creators do that with their monetization stack, if you will. Yeah, um, I think it's just, it's so natural. After a certain point you've learned a skill, you've learned some kind of knowledge base and you want to share that with other people. And I think a course is just kind of like a natural next step for most people. Yeah, so that, that makes a lot of sense.
- [03:33]
Jillian
Yeah. And I think also with the type of newsletters that you were reviewing as well, with a lot of like solo creator focused type of newsletters, seems to be a common way to go as opposed to maybe the major, more sort of media focused newsletters like a 1440 or the hustle Morning Brew, those ones are definitely more on the sponsorship end. Or that style of newsletter probably wouldn't lend itself as, as much to courses. But with the type of newsletters you've been studying and researching courses makes a lot of sense. All right, so I already said what number three was basically paid newsletters, right?
- [04:06]
Chanel
Definitely. There's a lot of them. I think Lenny would be the biggest one. And then of course there's like Gergay I think is his name or Rose. Those are probably the two bigger ones, but yeah, then you have like Heather Cox Richardson, which has a paid newsletter, but I think you can still get the content free. It's more of like a, like a Patron model.
- [04:23]
Jillian
Yeah, patronage model where you just like support me. Like kind of Wikipedia, like this is free for everyone forever, but you know, we kind of need your donations to. Or to. To continue on. So. Yeah, that's a nice thing. With a newsletter like Heather Cox Cox Richardson, she has, gee, I think over a million subscribers, if I'm not mistaken. And she just basically like offers out all this free, really insightful, interesting writings about American history and what's happening today in American politics. She offers it for free. But then she's done really well with this Patron model.
- [04:58]
Chanel
Yeah, she's got 2 million subscribers. I had to double check because I was like, I think that the number she just hit, but I wanted to make sure.
- [05:03]
Jillian
Yeah, pretty impressive. Pretty impressive. So just those numbers again. About 26 of the 66 newsletters you that you reviewed had had a paid newsletter of some type.
- [05:14]
Chanel
So interesting.
- [05:15]
Jillian
I thought it would be interesting too, Chanel, to talk about revenue streams, like the number of revenue streams that each of these newsletters had. And we're not going to obviously go through every one, but did some quick analysis on some sort of the average number of revenue streams, that of this small sample size of 66 newsletters, what the average number of revenue streams these newsletters had and what do you think be the most common? One, two, three, four or five plus three or four. Three or four. Yeah, you're right.
- [05:40]
Chanel
Those are.
- [05:40]
Jillian
Those are actually the two most common. So three was the most. Most common revenue stream, number of revenue streams that these newsletters had. So quite often it was like a combination of like sponsorships, paid newsletter and something else. Whether maybe it was courses or some affiliate marketing or coaching consult. But three revenue streams. 33. So 50% of the newsletters that you have researched and done deep dives on, half of them had three revenue streams. And then from there it's actually interesting that what's more common is to have more revenue streams than fewer. So there were 12 newsletters that had four at least revenue streams you discovered, and nine newsletters that had five plus. And then newsletters that had fewer than three revenue streams, there was only a handful. There's about a dozen. So yeah, 12 re 12 newsletters had two or fewer revenue streams. Uh, one I actually found had none. So of the deep dives you did, that was one of your first ones you did. That was Ali's first 1000. I'm not sure. He probably monetized in some way, shape or form.
- [06:41]
Chanel
I'm sure he did, yeah. That we could keep that as an outlier. And take that number off. I'm sure he monetized in some way, so.
- [06:48]
Jillian
I'm sure he does. Um, yeah. But, yeah, there were. There were four newsletters that we could only find one revenue stream for, and there were seven newsletters that had two revenue streams that we found. That you found when you were doing this research.
- [07:00]
Chanel
Yeah. And keep the caveat of. In the early days, I probably wasn't as savvy to what people were doing.
- [07:05]
Jillian
Sure.
- [07:06]
Chanel
Although I. So, And I. I know for a fact over time, like, there are some that, like, they had so many that I left a few off. Cause I was like, this is just extra bonus on top that probably doesn't need to be covered here. So. No, it's such. It's so interesting to like, hear that. And it makes sense. I think we talked about this before, like, in the beginning when you're getting started. I feel like having less, having fewer streams of revenue is important until you figure out the best practices and like, how each one works, and then you can grow that over time. And so it makes sense that, like, if someone has like 40,000 or 50,000 plus email subscribers, like, they're probably on the path to figuring out like a better monetization, like pie, if you will. Yep. To have more and more streams of revenue so that you're not so reliant on sponsorships or. Or if the course industry drops or something, you have something else to fall back on. So. Yeah, makes sense.
- [07:58]
Jillian
Yeah. I think having multiple rubber streams is definitely helpful for stability and kind of sort of a. From a security diversification standpoint. But like you said, you got to kind of start with one, I think, build out the system. So if you're starting with sponsorships, you're going to be figuring a lot of stuff out in the beginning. And to add something else to your pie at the beginning there, you're. You're gonna suffer with what the attention you can spend on really optimizing how you do sponsorships. So I think it's. It's pretty savvy to just kind of focus on one, build up a good system around it. And then once you've kind of got, say, sponsorships nailed, then start looking into, hey, if I wanted to run a paid newsletter, what. What would that look like? You can always include sponsorships in your paid newsletter too. It doesn't mean just because you're starting one, you don't have to think about courses or digital products. Um, so I do think that's pretty sound advice.
- [08:44]
Chanel
Okay, so now that we talked to the top three that kind of we found through looking at the data. Do you want to kind of jump into some of the outlier interesting ones?
- [08:53]
Jillian
Yes. And there, there were a few. There were a few. I don't have the exact count here, but there's probably a good dozen or so that were. They're the only ones doing this type of revenue stream or driving revenue with this specific strategy. So why don't you start with. You don't have to start with your favorite if you want to save, you know, something good to the end. But why don't you, why don't you share one of your more interesting ones that you found.
- [09:16]
Chanel
I'm gonna start with the most recent one, which is CJ from mostly Metrics, his paid guest posts. I loved this so much. I think I even called it like the triple stack. What did I call it? I was, I was laughing at myself when I was writing this. Because it was so good. Well, no, cause I had a pancake emoji in there.
- [09:34]
Jillian
Oh, okay. Okay.
- [09:34]
Chanel
Yeah, the triple stack approach is what I called it. Um, but he essentially he writes for CFOs. He is a CFO himself, so he's talking all about numbers and some, what some people would consider boring topics. But instead of just having like a sponsor buy a spot in his newsletter, he also go to them and find a way to maybe write some content for their website. So he's essentially writing a guest post. And this isn't like anything groundbreaking until you dig in a little bit deeper. So he, he writes, he has written guest posts. And he told Nathan Latka on his podcast, they had reached out to me and they said, hey, how about we just pay you a lump sum for six posts? And so I don' think I can give the exact amount on it. But that was kind of eye opening to me. Like, oh, shit, somebody wants to pay me for my writing now. It's not just a way to use companies as a partner. If you've ever made a dollar online for the first time, it's a real holy shit moment. Like, I feel, I feel kind of seen and validated here. But the. One of the coolest parts of this was like, it wasn't anything new. Like at the bottom of the post it said, this Originally appeared on mostlymetrics.com so he was essentially like letting them license his content and put it on their website, which I thought was so interesting. So he's getting paid by the sponsor and then on the second hand he's getting free distribution because now his name his content, his style of writing is out on another platform. And oftentimes these companies have like ten, a hundred thousand email subscribers that they're sending this content to. So he's essentially getting free distribution on top of this and getting paid for it. And then he's also able to share that content with his readers, who he has a paid newsletter. So some of them are subscribing and paying to read the content. So it's like this triple. Like, I was just. My mind was broken after this. I was like, this is so good.
- [11:26]
Jillian
That's awesome.
- [11:27]
Chanel
And I'm just like, how can I replicate this? Because it is so interesting of, like, the way he's put this together.
- [11:32]
Jillian
He's basically getting paid to distribute repurposed content. If you really think about it, like, that's. That's wild. Like, hey, I've already wrote this. He probably. I'm sure he had to tweak it a little bit for their site or to some degree maybe.
- [11:45]
Chanel
Nope.
- [11:45]
Jillian
No, it was just like, even his.
- [11:48]
Chanel
Memes and his gifs are in there. Yeah, that's impressive. And so I'm just like, okay, so somebody reads this, they're like, this guy's dad jokes are on point. I want to keep getting more of this content. They click through, become a subscriber, and then what if they end up paying for his content? The sponsor just gave him a free. You know, like, it's just so good.
- [12:06]
Jillian
Yeah, you. You'd think that, you know, that would be flipped, right? Like, you'd be like, hey, can I pay to have a guest post almost on your. On your site with my repurposed content that I've already published to my audience. But no, that's interesting. That's really interesting. What was the name of that company that he posted on?
- [12:21]
Chanel
Uh, it's called Brex B R E X.
- [12:23]
Jillian
Okay.
- [12:23]
Chanel
Yeah. It's like a financial software of some sort. But if you think about it like, SA. These SaaS companies, these software companies, they don't necessarily want to keep writing about themselves every week. And so if they can get someone else to create content for them and kind of give them that benefit of like an extra, I don't know, social proof of someone else using this thing, but talking about the same concepts, like, they're going to want that. And I think that's why they pay for it. And that's why they're so excited to give him six to $12,000 for six articles. Because of that.
- [12:52]
Jillian
Yeah, absolutely. It takes the, I guess that lens off of them and it's like, look, somebody else is writing about how awesome we are and, and about us. Somebody who is some kind of cachet and authority in the space too. So that's. Yeah, that's really interesting. We talked a little bit about patronage already, so I won't get into that. But I do think that's a really interesting model. And you know, Heather Cox Richardson is one person that, that we mentioned. Kyla Scanlon also has that option. At least she did when you, when you wrote her deep dive where you could basically like pay a small monthly supporter supporters kind of fee to get her, her content. And then Jason Woodruff from the Pour over also did that. So again you could donate support the Pour over and he had a bunch of different tiers there. Really interesting model. I wanted to talk a little bit about. I think software, Software as a service, yes is like when you think about it, like there's whole companies just focused on building the software. But the way the world is evolving, technology is evolving. No code apps, you know, these ChatGPT AI models that can kind of code things for you to some degree. Software as a service for a newsletter is a really interesting, a lead magnet. We just talked to Justin Moore who was using something for his sponsor Magnet book. I think it was his social audit tool that he built this like the simple free software as a lead magnet. He had somebody do it for him. So to be fair, he didn't do it himself. I think I just see this huge opportunity with like creating a useful tool that's relevant to your niche, your audience, your newsletter, either charging for it or even using it as a lead magnet at the very least, but even potentially charging for it. So Dicky bush famously started ship 30 for 30 with Nicholas Cole. They were publishing these atomic essays, right? A lot of people who were on Twitter Back in 2020, 2021, 2022, they would have seen these like image posts that were text based. Somebody was creating a software product called typeshare. I can't remember his name but he created this product called Type and Dickie and Cole loved it. And it was basically a way to sort of stylize these atomic essays and make them look a little bit nicer, format them better and really it helped push their cohort based course of ship 30 for 30 that much bigger because now these essays look good and people were reading them on Twitter that much more. And so it was kind of like this flywheel effect, right. And so they ended up just buying from, or at least they might have been now co founders. I'M not sure if they outright or if they just bought into it but they invested in it and now part of their in terms of revenue and.
- [15:20]
Chanel
It made so much sense. I went through ship 30 for 30 and it, it just made so much sense like on the back end because they're teaching you how to write online and they're telling you to write every single day and they have their own like templates and like things like ways to formulate formula. Post. Yeah, not really sure if that's a word.
- [15:37]
Jillian
Formulate.
- [15:38]
Chanel
That's okay. Formulate. Okay, that's. Yeah. The software essentially took those formula or. Yeah the formulas or the templates and just like made it so much easier for you to actually create that content. So they're telling you to do this one thing and then they're giving you a free of course 30 day trial to the software. And I'm sure the backend response of like people signing up and staying on that software was pretty decent.
- [16:01]
Jillian
I think so.
- [16:01]
Chanel
Yeah. So it just makes so much sense. It's like the software is the business and the course is the lead in to that software.
- [16:08]
Jillian
Yeah, exactly. And chances are you are going to convert just so many more people when they're already taking the course. Right. And you know, it's just like this add on.
- [16:18]
Chanel
They're buying into your whole like ecosystem and the way you're doing things. So why not?
- [16:23]
Jillian
There's two others that I thought were interesting. I won't go too far in depth with them but Dan Ko, another one whose people are online are probably pretty familiar with.
- [16:31]
Chanel
Yeah. So Dan Ko has a software called Cortex with a K. It's essentially he's touting it as a second brain for creators and it's a place for you to like put all of your notes and your thoughts and everything. It's kind of like Notion. Notion actually it says Cortex is like if Google Docs Notion and Obsidian had a baby. So yeah, another productivity slash organizational software. Honestly I kind of feel like this would have been genius for Tiago Forte to have built and or just because of you know, building Second Brain Brain as his whole ecosystem. Danko has a similar ethos but I feel like just the verbiage is like so on point for Seago. But anyway this is a Dan company product. Yeah. And so I think it's just interesting because he has similarly he also has courses and they teach his writing method and how he does stuff. And so again it's probably a natural lead in to the software. So I think we're seeing a Theme here, a little trend. Build a course, teach people your way of doing things, and then have a software on the back end to upsell and, or keep those really interested people coming back.
- [17:39]
Jillian
And it makes sense too, when you thinking about scaling, because sponsorships are a good revenue driver, but they're harder to scale. We talked about, you know, systematizing and making your processes solid so it's easier, but it's still not something just like, you know, build once and sell twice. Like, it's not quite that easy. But something like a SaaS tool, a product like Typeshare, like Cortex, is a lot easier. There's one more I just wanted to quickly talk about, and that was Michael Hauk, who you did a deep dive on a while back. He had a sort of a kind of like a SaaS tool is almost like a productized service. It's called Megaphone. And he is writing to a lot of startup founders. That's kind of his, his niche. And Megaphone basically helps people grow their audiences. So if you're a startup founder and you're wanting to get your, your content shared on social media, basically you sign up for this and it's almost like paying for high quality, high signal engagement pod. Maybe. I, I don't want to, I don't want to like make it sound like it's a bad thing, but essentially you're, you're your posts and your content in front of influencers and creators who have reputable audiences and will kind of share your content, retweet it, comment on it and that sort of thing. So a little bit like an engagement pod. But also I think there's some decent authenticity behind it, but I'm not super sure exactly how it works, but I thought it was a really interesting way to kind of monetize your newsletter and your audience and sell a, Sell a product.
- [19:02]
Chanel
Yeah, I think it is kind of like a paid engagement type thing because you're, from what I remember, I think you're like signing up to, and then you put in your content and then you like find relevant people to like share it out.
- [19:13]
Jillian
Yeah, they find it for you. Yeah. So really you're just like paying for it, choosing your niche essentially, and then they kind of like match it up with, with people in the right niche to kind of elevate it.
- [19:25]
Chanel
Interesting stuff. I think the software thing you mentioned, it could be a lead magnet too. Uh, it makes me think of Brian Harris from Growth Tools and he has, I don't know, six or seven of these free software tools where you can essentially like build an email sequence or do all of these kinds of things. Um, and then it kind of naturally leads into his, his coaching and that kind of thing. So it's super smart and it's all free, which is pretty interesting.
- [19:49]
Jillian
And they're, they're like, not just like flimsy tools. Like, they're pretty, they're, they're reasonably robust for something that's free.
- [19:56]
Chanel
Yeah, definitely.
- [19:56]
Jillian
Very interesting strategy.
- [19:58]
Chanel
One of the other ones I thought we could talk about was, yeah, Dan Runcy of Trapital has industry reports. So he writes about the business of hip hop. And so he, he kind of curates like he has all these contacts and insider industry contacts from the hip hop industry. And he kind of goes through and you know, surveys a bunch of them and figures out like what's happening and kind of puts together this really in depth report. He has a free version, but there's also a paid version which I believe was like $1300 for that annual report. But if you're in the business of hip hop, like, it makes so much sense to be able to like buy that and get like the insights of like, what's happening, what are people seeing and what's coming up. So I thought that was super interesting.
- [20:43]
Jillian
Yeah, no, that, that really is. And it's like something to some degree. I know Dan's like really in the weeds in that industry and is pretty well respected as well. But I think it's something that we talked about. Exclusives. This is like exclusive content that you can do the research on. You can basically curate, put together and then potentially sell. So we talked about, you know, I think Jeremy ens, who did the state of podcast marketing report. There's, there's Richard Vanderblam who does the LinkedIn algorithm report. So there's all these different things that you could, that are relevant to your niche that you could create and either sell or give away as lead magnets or potentially sell when there's, when the value's there. So it's for sure, it's a really interesting strategy both in that it'll tie in nicely with your newsletter because the people reading your newsletter probably gonna want that information. And just about anybody could put this information together. It's not, it's a low barrier to entry. You just have to put in the time and the effort to, to gather it.
- [21:38]
Chanel
Right. And so because there's a free version, like this is gonna get shared throughout the industry too. And then there's always this like natural, like, hey, if you wanna keep reading. Yeah, Pay here. So I think it's a super interesting one.
- [21:52]
Jillian
Kind of like Drew Riley. Right? Like trends. Vc Trends, not vc. Like, you can get the free reports, which are great.
- [21:58]
Chanel
Exactly.
- [21:58]
Jillian
But then he's like, but there's way more. We can go way more in depth on these reports and then you can pay. So. Yeah.
- [22:04]
Chanel
And you get like all of the links and everything.
- [22:07]
Jillian
Yeah. So his whole business model is this kind of reports thing. So another interesting business strategy we probably dive deeper into. But I. I love the. I love that because it's something like you could do with growth in reverse too. Right. It's not. It's. It's not exclusive to just one type of newsletter or one type of creator. It can. It can be rehashed just about everywhere.
- [22:27]
Chanel
Definitely. What else you got?
- [22:29]
Jillian
Um, why don't you talk us. Tell us about. Cause you. This one blew your mind too. Cody Sanchez's whole kind of flipping newsletter. I thought that was wild. And that's like so on. On brand for her too.
- [22:40]
Chanel
Yeah. So we talked about this in the. The wild growth strategies episode, but I think it actually plays into this as well, because when you buy and sell newsletters, like, typically, you know, you're buying it, you're putting all of the emails into your own newsletter system, calling it. You're going to send maybe one or two emails and be like, hey, this was acquired. We now write like this. And here's this new thing. If you don't want to stay, here's the link to unsubscribe.
- [23:06]
Jillian
Yeah.
- [23:06]
Chanel
But Cody did something super interesting in the fact that she. Newsletter that she bought running separately from her own. And so she had these two newsletters running at the same time. And so the. The one that she bought, she would position her contrarian thinking newsletter as the sponsor or a guest post or that kind of thing, and keep running that newsletter separately. And then after a certain amount of time, she would be like, okay, I think I got the subscribers I'm gonna get from that newsletter. I'm gonna go ahead and sell this back into the marketplace. And she would typically make money from it. So not only was she making money from getting essentially free subscribers from then, she was also making money on the back end of like, hey, I'm gonna sell this back into the marketplace. It's now larger and probably more valuable because she probably tweaked a bunch of things, made it more robust of a system.
- [23:53]
Jillian
Yeah.
- [23:53]
Chanel
And then sold it back. So I think. I think there's something there. And I realize that this is more of A growth thing. But there is definitely a monetization angle with it.
- [24:01]
Jillian
Yeah, there totally is. That would be. I mean, people flip houses and flip cars and stuff like that, but so like the monetization strategy between, between or behind flipping newsletters is certainly something that people could do. I'm sure there's probably some industries where it'd be easier, potentially more lucrative than others, but it's definitely something that is interesting. And if you're thinking about buying a newsletter anyway, if it's one that's very aligned with your newsletter, where the audiences overlap the content or the, I guess the, the vertical or the niche or the industry is. There's a lot of overlap. And it would make sense for you to like buy it and like do what she did. Advertise your main newsletter to it and then flipping it. Why not? Why not give it a shot if you have the capital to try it?
- [24:40]
Chanel
Yeah. With the caveat that you have to make sure you can sell it back to someone.
- [24:44]
Jillian
Yeah.
- [24:44]
Chanel
Don't just buy any old newsletter. So.
- [24:47]
Jillian
No, do your due diligence, please.
- [24:49]
Chanel
Yeah.
- [24:49]
Jillian
Don't just throw 10 or 15 or 30 grand, you know, away trying to, trying to do this. You'd want to make sure you do your due diligence on it.
- [24:57]
Chanel
Yeah. And I think there's probably something, some industries where that might be a little gray of an area of, you know, maybe that's not. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of like healthcare, like all that stuff. It's probably not a good industry to do that with. I feel like if you, if you cross your T's and you dot your I's, I think, I think you can make it work.
- [25:15]
Jillian
I think another interesting one we should, we should definitely bring up is coaching. And not just any coaching, like how Justin Moore is doing asynchronous coaching because he's got, he was doing, I think a lot of in person coaching and then he's now just basically pivoted to essentially people pay him per month and they get to ask him questions and he doesn't have to basically hold time on his calendar for these people at a specific time. He can basically hop in and out and he's got people who are trained who work with him to answer these questions as well. And I just think this is a really smart way to do something that's harder to scale, like coaching and consulting with your time makes it a little bit easier and less kind of time bound from, from your own end. So monthly fee, you ask him all Your questions about, for his case. Sponsorships, brand sponsorships, brand deals. And you get like expert advice basically in your inbox or over dm. So I think that's a really cool angle to, to explore for some people might be really into that.
- [26:10]
Chanel
I think his, the way he's structured this is super smart because okay, you think about it like if you're negotiating sponsorships and brand deals by yourself, you're going to have questions, things are going to come up, a brand's going to email you some crazy out of the box question or like want some weird data and you're like, wait, do is this real? Like what do I do here? And like to have someone like him and his team on speed dial essentially is kind of brilliant.
- [26:34]
Jillian
Yeah, you basically got like experts on retainer, right?
- [26:37]
Chanel
Yeah. And it's all about monetization. So he's helping you make money. So it's not like he's just, you know, some, it's not like a random topic like this is like directly tied to revenue. So like being able and willing to put up like, you know, I think it was 297 for the group option and then $1,000 a month for like one on one. And so like just to have someone on retainer for a thousand bucks a month to ask questions when you have them, I think is so smart and it just puts like that person at ease.
- [27:03]
Jillian
Yeah, it really does. I guess another way you could think about this, which some newsletter versions have done, you've done, is having like a community where you're surrounded by basically experts in your realm or people who are, who know what they're talking about. And you can kind of take the angle similar to this where hey, I don't know how to do in our case like do newsletter sponsorships or you know, I can't, I've tapped out this certain growth strategy and I need to figure something else out so you can really tap into a community as well and figure out who the experts are there getting support there. And again, it's not going to cost you as much as like a one on one private consultation. And you've got kind of this bigger pool of knowledge and experience to, to pull from too.
- [27:47]
Chanel
Definitely. I was thinking about this the other day. I was like, this is kind of like Justin's asynchronous coaching but totally different because you're getting like a wide variety of people's opinions. Although I think there is something to be said for having his specific brain essentially in other people's heads at a certain point. Which is cool. But there's also something to be said about like we have so many different people in the community, like being able to ask all of them at once is kind of interesting.
- [28:12]
Jillian
And you'll get, you can get like two completely opposing answers too. So that, that's both helpful and not. But I think it's interesting to, to highlight that there's not really always just like a one way to do things or right or wrong way to do things. What worked for, for somebody might not work for you and vice versa. So I think it's just helpful to have those perspectives that really helps inform the way you should go.
- [28:35]
Chanel
This next one, it's not from a deep dive, but it's something I've seen and heard about a lot. And so I want to bring it up because Nathan Barry, the founder of KIT, previously ConvertKit, he has a, what he calls a secret money course, a secret newsletter about money. Sorry. It's $150 one time fee and it's just like an email sequence that you get access to when you buy it. You know, people talk about, you know, making money, growing a business, but it's like, okay, what do you do once you have money? Like, how do you handle life after you've kind of made a certain amount? I think in his case it says over 200, $200,000 per year. Like, how do you change your mindset? What do you have to think about moving forward? And so it's like a 16 part newsletter and over time it can get longer. So he'll add emails if he thinks it's worth it.
- [29:22]
Jillian
Okay.
- [29:23]
Chanel
But you only pay once and you get this like long email sequence. And I think it's just so interesting because it's, it's like a low price point. It's very specific on who he wants to sign up. Like you should have $200,000 per year or more in revenue. And it's just, it's just so interesting because it's coming from a guy who's built like a multimillion dollar business.
- [29:41]
Jillian
Oh yeah.
- [29:42]
Chanel
So I think it's a cool angle to take. And of course it's a paid newsletter.
- [29:47]
Jillian
So essentially it is, he runs a.
- [29:49]
Chanel
Newsletter email software service. So it makes sense.
- [29:53]
Jillian
It does, but it's like we've seen a lot of paid newsletters where it's like, yeah, you're paying for the weekly subscription, monthly subscription editions, et cetera. But we haven't seen a lot of paid newsletters that are like kind of like evergreen newsletters. Right. Or these like, ongoing sequences. So I guess you could say, like, an email course is essentially that. But I like how, like you said, he'll add to this. So you're kind of paying the 150 for this, say, 16 email sequence. But it could grow and it could. It could expand from there as well. So. Yeah, I think that's really fascinating. I haven't. I haven't really heard of anybody else doing something quite like this.
- [30:25]
Chanel
Yeah, and he actually didn't promote it for a while. Like, I think he was just sharing it around in his own circles. And then over time, people were like, you gotta talk about this. So he tweeted out in December of 2022. He said, My p. My paid email course just hit 50k in revenue, which for $150. Thing is, like, quite a few people signed up from that. And this was like, over two years ago. So I'm sure it's grown since then. But I think it's just an interesting, Interesting way to set this up. Here you go. 471 purchases. So it hit 50,000 in revenue.
- [30:54]
Jillian
Interesting. And I wonder.
- [30:55]
Chanel
Started out as $100.
- [30:56]
Jillian
He says here in the copy on the landing page, at least the one I'm reading, this is just for creators earning more than 200,000 per year, like you said. And so I wonder if, like, the fact that he says that, but like, anybody technically can subscribe. There's some kind of, like, psychology there where it's like, wait, I'm not earning that much yet, but I want to be. So maybe I will pay to sign up for this. So even, like a little psychological trip there. I'm not sure. Maybe Caitlin might know. Caitlin Burgoyne would know what that. What that might. That buyer's effect might be. But it's really interesting that he would put that there. And I'm sure there the 400 and whatever. I think 417 or whatever number you said who've purchased this, I'd be shocked that all of them are making that much money annually. I'm sure there's a lot of people probably like myself, who would love to make that much and want to find out the secret. So that's a really interesting angle to. To pitches at.
- [31:45]
Chanel
Definitely an interesting angle.
- [31:46]
Jillian
Yeah. When are you starting the Chanel secret newsletter?
- [31:50]
Chanel
I should actually, I should do that because I think it just, like, there's so many interesting things that you come across over time. But I think the cool part about this is, like, it's only 150 bucks. It's a small Amount of money. But I guarantee, like, once you're in a couple emails, if you reply to that email, like, I'm sure Nathan's gonna reply.
- [32:08]
Jillian
Yeah, he probably would.
- [32:09]
Chanel
This is also, like, one of those relationship builders, I think, because at the time there was 470. So how many people actually replied? Probably not a ton.
- [32:17]
Jillian
Yeah.
- [32:18]
Chanel
I'm not trying to blow up Nathan's inbox here, but I just think it's. I think it's interesting. This is where my brain goes when I see these things.
- [32:24]
Jillian
Yeah, it totally is. Oh, man. Yeah, there's. There's a lot here. Well, if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox, you got to pay 150 bucks to do it. So I'm sure he won't. He wouldn't hate you for it.
- [32:33]
Chanel
No, not that.
- [32:34]
Jillian
Not that.
- [32:35]
Chanel
Tell him then he can.
- [32:37]
Jillian
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [32:40]
Chanel
So, good.
- [32:41]
Jillian
Nice. Do you have anything else you wanted to cover?
- [32:43]
Chanel
Do you want to talk through the cultural tutor one that.
- [32:46]
Jillian
Yeah, I did write that one down. I thought this was really interesting because this is kind of like sort of the opposite of what we've been talking about, how to monetize a newsletter. So the cultural tutor shoot, I think his name is Sheen.
- [32:59]
Chanel
Sheen, yeah.
- [32:59]
Jillian
Yeah. And he is. I believe we started the UK and he was blowing up back in the day, he had kind of like the anonymous account with the stoic, you know, sculpture bust as his image and stuff. And he was writing some really interesting and really deep tweets and content, was growing a big audience. And I mean, read your deep dive if you want to learn more about that. But essentially he decided, like, I'm going to start publishing a paid newsletter. And he had. He had promoted that on LinkedIn and said, this is what I'm doing. David Perel, who. Who you've also written about, basically reached out to him and said, no, do not. Do not cap your growth. You are putting out amazing content. People should have access to it and you shouldn't. This, like, putting out a paid newsletter is going to, like, definitely cap your growth. And so what David proposed was, how about I pay you to just keep writing every day so that you can keep your content free? So in some ways, it's almost like David is sponsoring the cultural tutor newsletter to some degree. But essentially he reversed this whole thing, stopped the newsletter from going to paid, and was like, keep writing. I will pay you as like, kind of a writer in residence type of thing for David Perel's right of passage. Rite of passage. Thank you. Well, which is no longer, I think in operation. But yeah, rite of passage. So he was like the cultural tutor was hired on as like the writer in residence for the rite of passage. So I guess it was just good validation that if you're creating really high quality, good content, somebody's bound to pay you for some. Pay for it in some way, shape or form. Whether that's to get behind the paywall or to keep it free in one way or another. So I thought that was a really cool story.
- [34:33]
Chanel
Yeah, it is definitely the opposite of like finding your monetization angle. It's more of like let it find you. Yeah, definitely a once in a million thing. But I think the content was so good. Like he was writing about these cultural topics and like historical like unknown stories that people weren't aware of essentially. And David Prav was like, absolutely not. Keep growing. Because he hit like 100,000 followers on Twitter in two months. So like David was like, do not do this. Yeah, he was like, keep growing for free. I'll pay you. And I think he actually asked Shein, like, how much do you need? And she gave him like this really small number and David's like, how about this number instead? He's like, okay, great.
- [35:17]
Jillian
So that's amazing.
- [35:18]
Chanel
So interesting to see like another creator supporting an up and coming one.
- [35:22]
Jillian
Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, that's really cool. It's almost like kind of like a scholarship style investment which was. Which you be cool to see more of in the, in our industry, but it's cool to see that one.
- [35:33]
Chanel
Yeah, it's a good one to call.
- [35:35]
Jillian
Out any, anything else you wanted to share, any of these other kind of one offs monetization revenue strategies that you find interesting?
- [35:43]
Chanel
I think we covered quite a few. Yeah, I think that should get the wheels turning for some people.
- [35:48]
Jillian
Totally.
- [35:48]
Chanel
The software one definitely is something interesting I think, but definitely takes quite a bit of work to get up and running. But yeah, I mean the, the tried and true, you know, sponsorship course or paid subscription. I think there's a reason that most people are doing them, but there's also something to be said about going the other direction. So take it with, with what you feel is right and kind of figure that out. We are also doing like a whole month about sponsorships in the community, which I'm excited about jumping in. We actually kicked it off with Justin Moore. Um, and then we're having James from marketing meetup come in and talk, which I'm really excited about because they're doing like hundreds of events every year. For free? Like, no. Paid. Like, everything is free. And it's all from sponsors. So I'm excited to kind of dig into his brain and figure out how they're doing that. Yeah. And then we have some other great guests coming in, too, so it'll be fun. I'm. I'm pumped for, for this month.
- [36:43]
Jillian
Yeah, it's going to be great. By the time people are listening to this, it'll be in the second half of. Of February, I believe. But we'll still have a few events going on. So if you do want to check out what we're doing in the Growth and Reverse Pro community, head over to growthinreverse.compro and learn more about it. Uh, if you have any questions, Chanel's. I know chanel's inbox and DMs are always open for. For people wanting to check that out, or you can always message me as well. Um, we'd love to. We'd love to answer any questions you have about it.
- [37:10]
Chanel
Yeah, this is fun. I'm excited to do, like, a part two of this because I think there are some other ones that we'll probably get some messages about in the coming days after this gets released.
- [37:18]
Jillian
Yeah.
- [37:19]
Chanel
So I'm excited to kind of dig into those.
- [37:21]
Jillian
Well, I mean, like, let's call it out. Like, if you have a cool story about monetizing your newsletter, that's kind of different off the beaten path that we. Than what we've talked about, like, definitely reach out and, and share it with us. We'd love to. We'd love to talk about it.
- [37:33]
Chanel
Yeah. And if you have any ideas for future episodes, feel free to send them along. You can email me at chanel growth in reverse.com and. Yeah, pretty much it. I think it's a wrap. I'm excited. All right, we'll see you in the next one.