← Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
How to Turn 1 Subscriber into 10: Get More Referrals With These Tactics
00:36:28
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- [00:00]
A
What if every time someone joined your email list, they brought a friend or 10 growth isn't always about more traffic. It's often about what happens after someone joins. And so today on the show, we wanted to talk through how you can turn your One subscriber into 10 with some simple tactics and strategies you can use. Welcome back to the Growth in Reverse podcast. I'm Chanel.
- [00:24]
B
And I'm Dylan. I like how you've also titled this as the underrated growth strategy that every newsletter should be using, because not only is that, like, a nice hooky kind of sub headline, it's also, like, super true.
- [00:35]
A
So true. I say this all the time, but retention and, like, getting your subscribers to share is one of the most underrated ways you can grow. And so today we want to dig even deeper into that and say, like, what does that actually mean? What does that look like? How can you do that?
- [00:48]
B
And of course, since we're talking about it, we both are doing this all the time. Really well, right?
- [00:52]
A
All the time. Yep. Eating your own dog food or whatever they say.
- [00:55]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [00:56]
A
Most newsletters treat subscribers like the end goal, but they often forget that you can actually use your subscriber as a distribution channel. So this isn't the most straightforward and obvious thing, but I'm sure you've seen a ton of people do it. You know, referral programs, all that good stuff. But there are some easy ways to do this as well that don't require a ton of setup.
- [01:13]
B
I think the. The whole point of here is like, creating this sort of subscriber flywheel effect. Right? Flywheel is a pretty hot buzzword lately. All in the creative space, especially kind of in the kit community. We heard it a lot when we were at craft and commerce. So the idea is, like, every subscriber, the spy, the flywheel turns to get, you know, if you could get 10 from those, and then from those 10, they could. You get another 10. Right. So it can create this real sort of exponential growth if it's done properly. So very important if you can execute this and.
- [01:43]
A
And do it well, definitely. And this isn't a silver bullet strategy, but it's something you can set up pretty much one time, maybe tweak it here and there, but you set it up once and you end up with more subscribers incrementally over time. This isn't like you're not going viral in a sense, but if you can get one subscriber to add an extra subscriber, you can over time, like, effectively double your list in a way. So I think this is a pretty powerful tool.
- [02:07]
B
Yeah. It's like. It's not a silver bullet, but maybe it's a copper bullet. You know, copper's pretty. It's worth. We're something. It's not quite as valuable as silver, but it's. It's pretty good.
- [02:15]
A
I don't know. People steal copper out of pipes and stuff. Don't they do that in Canada too?
- [02:20]
B
They do, but if there's silver in those pipes, people would be just like taking houses down and like, you know, I think. I think it would be that much worse, so.
- [02:28]
A
Got it. Yeah.
- [02:29]
B
But copper definitely has some value to it.
- [02:31]
A
I like it. So the copper bullet strategy.
- [02:34]
B
This is the copper bullet strategy. Yeah.
- [02:35]
A
New title.
- [02:37]
B
No.
- [02:37]
A
Yeah. We'll put a penny emoji next to it or something.
- [02:40]
B
What President's on the penny? Lincoln.
- [02:42]
A
It is Lincoln. Yeah.
- [02:43]
B
Boom. The. The Canadian. Got it right.
- [02:46]
A
Cool. So I wrote down a couple of. Of these ways that I've seen referrals happening and ways I've used myself. So I thought we could walk through those. Is there anything we should touch on before we get into this or just.
- [02:57]
B
I think we need to touch on. I think this can be done in some ways with just about any esp. Even if you're using something like Substack, which doesn't have like a really robust automation system set up inside it, you could still just use your. Your words and your messaging and a link in your welcome email to. To make this work. So don't write this off just because you're not using an ESP that has. That has. That lacks automation. I think it's still very powerful and useful.
- [03:23]
A
Great call out. Just jumping into some of the tactical ways that we can talk through because I feel like people hear referral programs or they hear get your readers to share and it's like, cool referral program. That's it, we're done. There's nothing else. But I think I've written down like at least six or seven other ways that we could do this. And I'm sure as we talk through them, we'll brainstorm a couple more. So. And we'll jump into the referral system after that. But I think the first one that comes to mind for me, and we actually had Tyler Cook come into the Growth and Reverse Pro community. He's a deliverability guy, but he was sharing how he gets all of his clients to try and get shares within their welcome sequence. And so I think that's the number one thing.
- [03:58]
B
And so in the welcome flow. Because we know that statistically their engagement is going to be highest here. We want to leverage that. We want the most amount of people to see that. We want referrals from them as possible. The second thing is this is also when they are most likely to take action on any number of our requests. And so by asking them now, we are trying to make sure that we kind of leverage that emotional mental thing for them on getting referrals.
- [04:31]
A
I'm going to start doing this more. I think I call this out at the bottom of every email and I'm sure it's a link that no one reads. So if I can make this more intentional and that kind of thing, I think it's going to actually do well. So this first one is just like adding a call out in your welcome sequence. Like ask people to forward, share, reply to a friend. And I think you can do that right away.
- [04:53]
B
And I think Tyler had said he does it even twice in his onboarding sequence quite often. Um, he's.
- [04:59]
A
Which made me cringe.
- [05:00]
B
I know, right? He shared a seven step onboarding sequence for new subscribers. So there's seven different emails in there and two of them, I think it was the fifth and the seventh email is you're asking for a referral. And so that feels like a lot. But at the same time he's seen it. He's worked with a lot of companies and he's seen this work. So if it's got his backing, it's got, it's got mine. And I think at the very least if we can just add it even just once in our welcome sequence, we're already kind of ahead of the game. Cuz I know it's something that I don't currently do. As I joked before that of course, you know, I eat my own dog food and I do this all the time and really well, but I don't actually do this.
- [05:36]
A
Yeah, same. And I think when he said the, the two shares that really did make me cringe a little bit. But maybe you just put yourself out there or maybe you try and start with one and then maybe you add an extra if it's actually working. Um, and you can see what links get clicked or how many people share from that. So I think it's a pretty interesting way to kind of experiment with this. What's next the next one. It comes from the recent 30 days of growth that we did. Um, Dan Oshinsky talked about how with his clients he often just asks them to. He'll create like a templated email and so you can use a tool, um, I'll have to pull up the exact one he used. But you can use a tool to create like a mail to link so that when someone actually clicks on this link, it actually opens up a new email in Gmail or whatever system you're using. And it will have like the body of the email filled out and the subject line if you include it. Yeah. And so you, you essentially are writing the email for them so these people, your readers don't have to think about, like, okay, how do I ask a friend to sign up for this? You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to come up with that wording if you're not doing this every day. So as the author of the newsletter, you can create that wording and phrasing for them. So I think that's a pretty powerful thing to do.
- [06:47]
B
Yeah, it's really easy. Even if you just, you can even hint at that saying, like, click this link and your, the email that you send to friends is already created. You just have to like add your name to it kind of thing. Like, it's, it's really simple and it definitely reduces the friction of getting somebody to take action on something like that for sure. I really like that one.
- [07:07]
A
As you were saying that I envision like a sentence that just like click this link and I will magically write the email for you or something and then click it and it's open and it's done. I think that could be interesting. Yeah. But he said this has gotten people from one email, like over a hundred subscribers. Like, I think that's pretty powerful. Even if you can get a tenth of that, I think that's pretty, pretty cool.
- [07:28]
B
Yeah, it doesn't take a lot of work. I think if I'm not mistaken, you have the code or not the code, but there's like link utms or something. You have to add in that link. Right. To make sure that it fills everything in properly. But all that we can provide in the show notes, or it should be at that, at that link that Dan shared with us.
- [07:47]
A
Right, the tool. Yeah. I'll have to find which one it was, but we'll put that in the show notes. But yeah, it's such a powerful tool. I think it's. Again, it's such an underrated one. Like, you don't think about this stuff. It's like you ask people to share, but then you forget about like the mental toll it's going to take on them to like actually come up with phrasing and Wording and like how do I talk about this thing? And oh, what's the link I share again? And so it's just like make it simple and they might actually share it.
- [08:12]
B
And you could even prompt them like share with a friend. It's like, that's super vague. Be more specific if you want to be like, hey, share with like somebody in your community, online community or share with, share with your community. Share with your coworker or colleague if you're more specific. Right, that's going to be that much more helpful.
- [08:29]
A
Yeah, I was going to say like if you're in the plant space because you were just playing with your plants. If you're in the plant space you could say hey, send this to your plant bestie or something like that. Just like call out the specific person. That would be a good reader.
- [08:40]
B
Exactly. Yeah. I think that's, that's one other way to get this done because I see, I see the benefit in like oh, I just have to click and then opens up this email with everything pre filled except the email address you're going to afford it to. Is there still a bit of friction there? Right, like who am I going to send this to? So that's where I think the prompt of who get them already thinking about ideas of who you know might find this valuable and they, a lot of people already know. But I think it's still, I think it's still worth, worth trying to add that prompt for them.
- [09:10]
A
As we're talking through this, I'm thinking this could be super powerful with lead magnets. Like if I sent someone a lead magnet and then instead of asking them like hey did you see this? Maybe like the next day or two days later, I'm like hey, I saw that you clicked on this. Hope you really enjoyed it. I think it could be powerful if you send this to a friend or send this link to a friend and they'll get it for free or something like some kind of phrasing that way. I think that could be pretty cool.
- [09:35]
B
That could be very powerful too. Then you get, you're getting people to share which some people might be doing already but just like giving them the idea like oh hey, you could be like a hero to, to someone or maybe they're going to share it in their newsletter or on social media or anything like that. If it's a quality lead magnet, which you should be creating quality lead magnet, lead magnets that are share worthy then that would be a great way to do it too.
- [09:57]
A
Which is another touch point like you don't just have to do this as soon as someone signs up or at a specific cadence. Like, it could be done after they download something or you give them a freebie or something like that. Just another good reminder.
- [10:08]
B
Yes, yes. I kind of, I think that's. It should be almost like a default. Hey, don't forget to share this. If it helps you, it's gonna help someone else. It's free. Yeah, totally. I like that.
- [10:17]
A
And I know like, some of the, some of the reasons people don't do these is because you feel salesy and you're like, I don't want to ask people to like, essentially sell my stuff for me, but at the same time, especially for something free, like, I think, I think you can get over that hump. Like, you're not asking them to buy something, you're not asking them to, you know, whatever.
- [10:35]
B
No. And again, like, if it's, if it's something that is helpful and fun and cool, if it's a new tool or a new, like, custom GPT bot or, you know, who knows what, then I think anything like that is going to be interesting for, for people to share and fun for people to share as opposed to a general, like an article. Articles used to be like the thing that people would share, but I don't know, those have kind of become less exciting as more and more articles are written every day and more and less and less by humans. Uh, I think the quality of the thing that, not the quality, but the, the type of thing that people want to share is, is evolving and changing again. I think if it's, if it is something worth sharing and valuable, then people are going to be more inclined to do it. And again, you have the opportunity, it'll be like, even have the messaging, like, you know, be a hero to a friend who needs this or something like that. Right. Like, if you can really like, position them as like doing their friends or their colleagues or whomever a favor by sharing it, then that's going to help that much more too.
- [11:30]
A
And I had this one written down separately, but it kind of ties in here, including social share moments, essentially. So if you are big on social media, maybe you're on Instagram or you wrote this like really epic LinkedIn post. You could even embed that in your content and get people to share that. Like, they don't necessarily have to share your content or your email. They could also just share like your really good content on social, which some people will then filter into becoming email subscribers. So I don't want people to think it's just sharing your email either. Um, I think if you can ask people to share like and we talk about this all the time with growth loops. Harry Dry did this really well with marketing examples. Um, he would, you know, in his email he would link to the, the LinkedIn post or the Twitter post that he just wrote. And so people would go back over there and engage with it and share that. So it's just a good reminder that like it doesn't have to be a landing page that you're asking them to share or something super concrete. It can just like a social post.
- [12:28]
B
Yeah. Or the, the classic share my newsletter with a friend. It's just like kind of uninspiring, like be more creative with it and that's a good way to do it.
- [12:36]
A
The other one I was thinking about is because you clicked email, so essentially you know it as newsletter operators, email operators, you can see who's clicking on certain links or emails or that kind of thing. So you can go through and like segment people based on what they're clicking on, how many clicks they've had or that kind of thing. And so if you see someone clicking on a specific type of content, you post a lot or like a lead magnet like we were just talking about. You can have email system like automatically send them something like 20 minutes later and be like hey, I saw you really enjoyed this thing. Would you mind sharing it with a friend? It took me X hours to create. I would love if you could just like promote it to someone else or something like that. I think that's just like a little roundabout way to do this.
- [13:18]
B
Also actually got one of those emails today. So that's, that's funny that, that you mentioned that. I think that's another kind of low hanging fruit missed opportunity that one. You would need an ESP that has some kind of tagging automation features built in. But, but it's still, it's not too hard to put together and with, with you know, tagging links and stuff like that. So I think that could be a, again a pretty low lift and something that a new subscriber who's clicked on something again you're just getting that flywheel spinning of having them share that um, they clicked on it, they've shown interest. I guess my question comes, comes to mind is like how do spam bots or inbox email clients who click on everything like Apple Mail, how does that work with this? Would that, would they get triggered into getting one of these because you clicked emails?
- [14:07]
A
It's going to happen. I Think sometimes it's like an edge case that you're kind of working towards. And like, like for this, for instance, this, this week I was testing out a new thing at the bottom of my email and I put if you need a break from these emails, click this link. And like over 400 people click the link. Now are all of those people probably not. However, I'm going to keep like using that as not. Yeah, I know. Ouch guys. So essentially I'm just going to like snooze those emails for a month and see what happens. Could it hurt my deliverability? Maybe. I don't know. It might also help because people don't want to necessarily get those emails every week. I might actually change this to be a poll moving forward. Like I don't know how that would look or work, but I feel like there's something there to like make it more effective. So for people who don't know in Kit you can use polls instead of a link trigger essentially. So you can have a poll embedded to say like, hey, do you want to like skip these emails for a month? But the UI there is a little, it's bigger than I want it to be.
- [15:09]
B
How do you mean? The ui?
- [15:11]
A
So if I embedded a poll like yeah, like near the unsubscribe link, it would be a little weird.
- [15:15]
B
If it's in the foot of your email though I think it could be valuable despite the size of it and you could just frame it as like, are you getting too many emails? I am too. That's why I give you the option to pause these emails for the amount of time you choose from these options and you can give them 1, 2, 3, 4. However many options Kit allows or that you feel like giving them is like pauses for a month, pauses for, you know, six weeks or don't pause at all or something like that. You could, you could go that route too.
- [15:41]
A
As we're talking through it. I think I could just set up a separate form and like have people click the link and just enter their email and then I'll snooze them a little easier. Definitely more friction on their end.
- [15:51]
B
But they'll be annoyed that they have to actually enter their email address.
- [15:55]
A
Oh well, I'll see if I can like get it auto populated or something.
- [15:59]
B
The other thing I just wanted to say too about say the Apple mail who's clicking these links and then that person is then triggered to receive the. Because you clicked email from you half the time, like I get so many emails and I'm clicking through Emails all the time. I don't even remember what I clicked on and what I didn't like that email. That said, because you showed interest, I'm like, did I? I don't remember. Like, maybe I did. I don't know. So I guess my whole point is like, don't overthink it and be too concerned about what people are and are not clicking on. Yes, some people know exactly what they click on and what they don't. And those people are probably already a little bit touchy when it comes to email marketing and all the inbox behavior. But I guess my point is I wouldn't, I guess to worry, worry too much about it because they probably will be like, oh, what did I click on? And then they'll, they'll open the email, see the request, and probably not be overly upset that, that they, that you're asking a small favor. So I guess that's my way of just saying I wouldn't worry too much about it.
- [16:54]
A
The next one I was thinking through is adding just a PS line to every email. So it doesn't have to be every email either. It could be every third email or whatever you feel comfortable with. But you're sending out broadcast emails all the time. The PS line is often one of the most read things by your raving fans. So people who are going to share are probably going to get to the bottom of your email. So if you ask them, like, hey, I spent so much time on this piece, I would really appreciate it if you could just share with one person or share the newsletter or whatever the phrasing is. I think just having that call out is, and like being direct about it, I think is a really good idea.
- [17:30]
B
Yeah, it is. Again, going back to kind of the verbiage that Harry Dries used in the past is like, hey, take me a long time to put together this free email for you. It would mean so much to me if, if you were able to kind of return the favor and just share it with a friend. We talked before hopping on this call about call. Before hopping on the podcast. We talked about kind of the law of reciprocity and is when you're giving something, somebody something of value, they're going to be more likely to reciprocate a favor. And sometimes people take advantage of that and ask for a purchase of something or something big. But just sharing it with a friend or sharing it on social media, I think that's a pretty low lift. Especially if you've been delivering, like we said, a lot of value. If it's in a lead magnet especially, that's free, easy to share. It's like, oh, yeah, I'll share this with somebody. This was really great. I love this. I love this. I got tons of value out of it. I'll share it. So going back to the ps, having that verbiage and that kind of context in there could be helpful too. Would you put this in every email or would you kind of like switch it up?
- [18:29]
A
Switch it up for sure. Yeah, I think I wrote every email, but I think switching it up like every third, like I mentioned, or when you are really, really proud of that piece, I think that's a good idea.
- [18:39]
B
A really high value one. I like the idea of keeping a PS fresh because otherwise it just becomes part of the scenery, like part of the background and it just kind of blends in. So if you can always leave like some kind of, what do they call them, Easter eggs or something interesting or fun kind of in your ps, I think that's where this strategy is going to work. That much better is if people know to go check out your ps. You always have something useful or something interesting or something funny or engaging to, I don't know, check out. This could be, this could be a place to do that.
- [19:08]
A
On the same token, you can also put this in your email signature. So if people are replying to your welcome email, which is something you should be trying to get more of if you aren't actively doing so if someone's replying to your welcome email, you can say, hey, really appreciate you replying. And then in your email signature, like, mine has my picture, it says growth in reverse. And then it talks about kind of what I do. But I could also say like, or even just have like a text expander thing to include that in every welcome email reply to be like, hey, if you know someone else that would enjoy this, like, would really appreciate you sharing.
- [19:42]
B
Not even the signature. You could add as a PS text expander in your, like in Gmail or something like that, right?
- [19:47]
A
Yeah, exactly. So I think that's a really powerful one, especially if you're, you know, you're replying to every welcome email, which again, you should. Which you should be. Yeah, it gets unwieldy after a while. But if you use text expander, I think you can actually have something. Yeah, that could be pretty powerful.
- [20:03]
B
It's a good problem to have if, if it's taking a lot of time to respond to all of your emails. Welcome emails from subscribers. That's a, that is a good, is a good problem to have. And then you can figure out ways to make that faster, like using a text expander tool or hot auto hotkeys. If you're on Windows, which I use, all that stuff can be really helpful. Windows, Windows, baby. Going strong since 95.
- [20:27]
A
Oh, man.
- [20:28]
B
You know, this iteration of Windows. Wait, when 95, man, 30 years. Windows is like move past the young adult stage. It's going to start getting married, having kids soon. Good for you, Windows. You're really growing up.
- [20:42]
A
Oh, boy. Yes.
- [20:44]
B
Anyway.
- [20:47]
A
Congrats, Windows.
- [20:49]
B
I like this next point you have here about Lean Magnus. Can you explain that one a little bit more? I'm curious what you mean by that.
- [20:55]
A
Yeah, so I put create a lead magnet that they only get when they share it with a friend. So I know often we talk about referral programs and like having some robust system that like auto tracks if someone shares something. But I think you can make it simple. Like you can do this manually. Like just have people reply to your email and be like, hey, I shared it with Brett or John or whoever. And then you can give them a specific thing that they can only get if they refer someone. So this isn't your typical lead magnet. This isn't something they see all the time. This is like something unique that they only get if they refer a friend.
- [21:29]
B
Okay, I like this. Let's build on this a little bit. How about, how do you feel about this? First they CC you in in the forward or bccu, whatever they're comfortable with doing, so then you actually see it. It's like legit. The challenge there, of course, is then you have their email address and that might be some privacy issues there. So take this idea with a grain of salt. I'm literally just spitballing. So that's one way you can guarantee that they did send it. And you could also up the ante by saying you and the person you're forwarding my newsletter to will both get this free lead magnet.
- [22:02]
A
So it's almost like giving them something free because you shared.
- [22:06]
B
Yeah, it's kind of like when somebody uses a affiliate code, for example, and the affiliate code goes to the SaaS tool or whatever, it doesn't do anything for the person who gets the code. Like they don't get any discount or any kind of advantage of using your affiliate code. And it's always boggled my mind why people do that, as opposed to when you actually probably work with a brand or a partner and you get anybody who uses your affiliate code, like a 20% discount. I feel like this is Kind of in that same ballpark. Like, hey, share it with a friend. Yeah. But actually share with a friend and you both win because you both get this lead magnet, for lack of a better term or whatever it might be.
- [22:43]
A
Yeah. The only downside to this that I could see is that like now that new person is not going to have an incentive to share with anyone else because they already have that thing. But I still think it's a good idea.
- [22:53]
B
But if it increases the amount of people that share it by a certain amount, then you're. Then you're ahead of the game anyway.
- [22:58]
A
Totally.
- [22:59]
B
Because if only one in three people were going to share it, now two or three people are going to share it then. I'm not a mathematician, but it feels like that's. Those are good. Those are better numbers.
- [23:08]
A
Yeah. The other thing I come back to a lot is in the early days of Growth in Reverse, I used to ask people to share it with X number of friends. In the beginning it was five. And then I would link to their newsletter in my own newsletter. So at the bottom of every email there was community spotlight section. And I would say like, hey, this person writes this newsletter. Go check it out. It's about xyz. And so they would get subscribers from that. Like people would actually go from those links and subscribe to their newsletter. So they actually ended up getting way more than five. But they also got to see their name in my email. And I think a lot of people really enjoyed that so much. So that one pretty decent sized copywriter, he was like, I saw that section for weeks and weeks and weeks. He's like, eventually I was like, I don't even need the subscribers from you, but I'm just going to share this in my newsletter so that I can get over that hump and then see my name in your newsletter. And I got like 150 email subscribers.
- [24:03]
B
From that one share from this one copywriter.
- [24:06]
A
One copywriter. Wow. I should probably bring that back. I think that was a really interesting referral program. And I actually stole that from Ali Abulata who runs first 1,000 copies. He did something similar to this in the beginning of his newsletter. He eventually shifted it to be like every month there was a new lead magnet. So you'd have to share 10 people within a month. Share with 10 people in a single month to get like Apple's pitch deck or whatever the company was. Because he was like VCs and that kind of thing. We're reading his newsletter.
- [24:37]
B
Interesting. I like that. That puts some urgency time scarcity and.
- [24:43]
A
A lot of pressure on the creator.
- [24:45]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:47]
A
Because you'd have to create something new every month.
- [24:49]
B
Yeah, I mean, that. That itself is a whole other conversation. But I mean, if you can even plan, even plan it out for like six months, see how you can see if you can create six months worth of lead magnets or products or whatever it might be and yeah, that could be really fun.
- [25:05]
A
Yeah, but then you're still. I was just going to say, because then you're still getting like, if person A shared it with five people in that the first month and then the next month they shared it again with another, like 10 folks, you're getting way more referrals. However, if your folks that are readers don't actually have that many, like, contacts or people in their audience, it could be kind of frustrating for them.
- [25:25]
B
How would you track all this?
- [25:26]
A
Can you, like, set up a new campaign or something? I think he built his own system. It was like custom coded. But maybe AI could help you build something.
- [25:35]
B
You could probably use a tool like Sparkloop. Or would you use viral loops for 30 days? 30 days of growth?
- [25:40]
A
I did use Viral Loops. I don't know. It wasn't like the best tool ever. I had. I think I bought like a lifetime license like eight years ago or something, and I was like, oh, this thing's still alive. Let me see if it works. And it worked, but it just wasn't like the most, like, intuitive.
- [25:57]
B
Yeah, that's fair. I think you could probably, like you said, with like Google Sheets and ChatGPT, like create a really simple Google script in sheets and get it to track things there for you if you need to. Nice.
- [26:09]
A
Channel your inner Ben Collins.
- [26:11]
B
Yeah, exactly. If we don't want to do that, if that sounds like a nightmare, I like the Community Spotlight idea as well. And I think that is something that you could probably turn on and off as you're doing your newsletter. Once you kind of feel like it's sort of run its course for a little while, turn it off for like a year or six months or whatever and then kind of relaunch it. And it could be exciting, especially to all the new subscribers you've gained in that period of time where you've had it off. And then that can kind of reignite the excitement for it or change it up, make it. Make it a little bit different, more interesting. Put it at the top of your newsletter, the middle, instead of at the end, wherever it might be. So there's a lot of different ways that you can switch this up. If you just spend a few minutes getting creative.
- [26:49]
A
I think I want to bring it back. I think that'd be fun.
- [26:51]
B
Bring it back. Let's go to this one. Is this the last one? Last idea here?
- [26:59]
A
Yeah. And it was kind of just like tagging off of a referral program in general. Like, we talked about how referral programs are obviously like the natural thing you probably think of if you're like, oh, how to get people to share. But I think the one thing I heard a lot was like, from. I think you and Louie and all the people were like, like, the easiest tier of sharing is one share. So, like, have a gift that people get if they just share it with one person. And so I did this with 30 days of growth and I gave away like the private podcast feedback if you just shared it with one person. And that was great. Like, a ton of people love that. And I think that was just like, I could have given it to everyone, but I'm like, if you can't share it with one person, like, everybody's got to know one person, right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
- [27:46]
B
I'll send this to my Hotmail or Yahoo or work. Yeah, no, I. And some people I'm sure did that. But then there is legitimately other people who will share it with actual decent email subscribers. So I think the one thing you'd want to do here is just make sure you have a bit of a kind of a cleaning, subscriber cleaning sort of system set up for. For these recommendations. Because I could see it getting sort of unwieldy if the thing you're. If the thing that you are are giving away for that one reward is like super valuable and really coveted. A. You probably should not be giving it away, but you're just gonna get that many more people who are just gonna like, get. Do the bare minimum just to get it right and use their. Their alias Gmail account or whatever it is just to get it. And then you'll have all these kind of duplicate email addresses, which could be problematic. So my whole point is just make sure you have on your backend system something set up where you're. You're protecting yourself against a bunch of random email addresses that are not actually going to be the right subscribers.
- [28:42]
A
Moving to a different type of referring, because I know we talked about. These are mostly like very intentional ones, very like direct asking people to share. I think this one just sticks with me. We bring this up all the time, just like in our calls or talking to other people, and that is getting people to subconsciously refer. And so you don't have to rely on people, like on pushing people to refer others. You can also just get them without directly asking for them. So Akash Gupta from. He writes a newsletter about product and product strategy. He actually optimizes for the internal share and we had him on a recent episode that will. We'll link that below too, if you want to go.
- [29:20]
B
Listen, about 50% of my content is.
- [29:23]
A
A really good fit, not just for.
- [29:26]
B
Product managers and growth people, but for developers, designers, executives, founders, other people within tech companies. And so for me, as I think.
- [29:36]
A
About how do I kind of grow out of my niche? Like any creator naturally will grow out of their initial niche of product and growth.
- [29:42]
B
For me, the internal share is enabling a lot of that.
- [29:46]
A
And so I think if you can be more strategic and think deeply about who your reader is, this becomes so much easier because you know who you're talking to and what they enjoy and what they're going to share. So I think that one always just sticks with me.
- [29:57]
B
Yeah. And this is kind of like, this is kind of real growth in reverse. Right. Like you're reverse engineering what's going to get somebody to share and working backwards to that point. Right. So, yeah, I think this is really smart. You don't have to outwardly ask people to. I mean, you still can, but if you're creating something that is going to be useful and helpful to a group of people, especially if you're in the B2B space. But even if you're not, I'm sure you can, in your niche, you can figure out something or a topic that your subscribers would be most likely to share with their cohort of people of the same interest. If you're not sure, again, we've called out Chat GPT a few times or any other AI system. Just like if you're. Ask them, ask it whatever you want to refer to chatgpts. Ask it what you should, what you should create. I'm sure it's going to probably give you some meh ideas, but it'll probably give you some decent ideas that you can build off of too.
- [30:49]
A
Yeah. And the other thing you can think about is. So I'm often like sending Instagram stories to my wife and vice versa. Like this is like, I don't know, we do this all the time. So if you can think, I get.
- [31:00]
B
A lot of every day for mine too.
- [31:01]
A
Yeah. So it doesn't have to be the internal share. It could also just be like, who would I share this? Or what would I share on Instagram with X person. Right. So, like, think through, like, what somebody would share in their DMs, because that could be a really killer piece of content too. And so I. I don't know. I just think that's another way to. To think about it if you're not in the B2B space or working with teams and that kind of thing.
- [31:22]
B
Yeah, I, like, I go back to that. Sean Purry, he's got those, like, he wants your content to spark a specific reaction in people or emotion in people. I'm trying to Google it right now because I can't remember them all, but they're essentially like different emotions that people will see with your content. Like, it has to make them either, like, laugh or make them kind of like, angry or upset or want to see whatever you're sharing change or to make them like, oh, my God, I can't believe that, like, surprising shock value.
- [31:51]
A
Did you find them?
- [31:52]
B
No. Did you?
- [31:53]
A
I found it. Yeah. So it's seven key emotions. So it was like, lol. That's so funny. Oh, now I get it. The third one is, wow, that's amazing. Fourth is, Aw, that's so cute. Which is often what I'm sending. Number five is, yay, that's great news. Number six is wtf. That pisses me off. And lastly, finally, someone said it.
- [32:16]
B
Yeah.
- [32:16]
A
So those are like seven of those. And we can throw them on the screen too. But I think that's such an interesting. Yeah. List of emotions. Good call out.
- [32:24]
B
Thank you. Yes. And there's a prompt I just found. It's called the Sean Puri Emotion elicitor prompt for ChatGPT. We're just going full circle here. So I'm going to try this prompt. I don't know if we'll share this because I haven't tested it yet, but if it. If it works well, then maybe we'll. We'll share this prompt too. But you could also probably just search the thing I just said and, and try it yourself. So I guess my whole point is if you can't think of ideas, AI can help brainstorm ideas for you, and then you just, like, run with some of those. I'm sure that we can. We're smart enough to figure that sort of stuff out.
- [32:58]
A
That's a good one. Yeah, I forgot he. I forgot he put that together. It's a really good. I think that's a YouTube video too. He's created it into at this point.
- [33:06]
B
Yeah, he's leaned on that for a while. And the funny thing is he Got that from somebody that's not even his thing. Like he's brought this, he brought this up on a podcast episode. Like, oh, my friend, when I was, you know, doing my first startup, he told me you got to create content, that he just adopted it sort of as his own. And it's all like I just referenced him as the person who said it, even though he wasn't. But I mean, when you have the platform and you have the voice to share it, you become known for things that even you didn't necessarily come up with. So. But it is a good one.
- [33:33]
A
If you made it this far in the episode, I think that you would probably love.
- [33:36]
B
Congratulations.
- [33:38]
A
Congrats for listening to us ramble for this long. But you're probably as nerdy about the stuff as we are. And I recently launched this thing called the Growth Vault where I've just documented dozens of these interesting subscriber flywheel tactics and things you can use, fun little things you can insert into your emails or different ways to phrase things and what to say, how to set them up. I include like automations that you can copy and paste. So if you want to check that out, you can do so@growthinreverse.com vault and yeah, I'd love to see you in there. I'm constantly adding to this. This is stuff like we're finding these things all the time. I'll just record a quick video and pop it in there so you get access to them all. If you're interested in that, go for it.
- [34:22]
B
The coolest part about this is it's not a PDF or like just a one off thing. It's like something that is evolving and growing and so it's like it's a library, it's a vault, right? You can, you can always put more, add more into it. And I like, I really love that idea that it's just kind of like an ever living, evolving, growing, breathing document or I guess not document, app, tool, lesson, whatever you want to call it, it is, it is not just like you pay for it and that's all you get. It's like going to consistently return more ROI because you just pay once. It's not a subscription either, right? This is just like a pay once. And this thing keeps growing and getting better.
- [35:04]
A
And if you find fun stuff that you think I should include in there, let me know. I'm always open to adding in different things.
- [35:10]
B
Maybe you'll even provide a little discovery discount for people who are sharing really cool things there.
- [35:16]
A
Oh, you could also end up in there if you do something cool and share it. So that would be fun. Get yourself some discovery mechanisms or something.
- [35:24]
B
Get.
- [35:25]
A
Get more subscribers through the growth vault.
- [35:28]
B
Well, I mean, you do shout out quite a number of different creators who've been using some of these tactics in there. So it's totally.
- [35:33]
A
Yeah, I love it. Even like that thing at the end of the emails where I'm saying, like, give. Take a break from the emails. I found that threw it in the vault included the automation I'm using to tag and remove people, and that's it.
- [35:44]
B
I like that. I need to go check that one out.
- [35:46]
A
Yes, you do. Amazing. Cool. Well, I think this was fun. I enjoyed kind of walking through this, brainstorming some things with you. Maybe we'll do more of these.
- [35:55]
B
Yeah, it was kind of off the cuff to some degree, because you went to record this episode and you're like, I actually want. I don't want to talk about the thing that we had planned to talk about. I want to talk about this instead. And I was like, all right, I am not prepared, but this is great. I think it. I think it turned out all right. So thank you for the last minute pivot.
- [36:11]
A
Yeah, you got it. All right, well, we'll see you next time. Yeah. That's the pod or something. Something.