← Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Live Creator Q&A: Real Strategies for Newsletters in 2026
01:04:58
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- [00:05]
A
We're going live. Yes. Excited to get this going. If you are new here or you just stumbled across our stream on YouTube or LinkedIn, welcome. We are Dylan and Chanel from the Growth and Reverse podcast. And today we decided to go live and answer some questions. Feel free to drop questions in the chat as we go. We will try and answer as many as we can in the next hour or so.
- [00:29]
B
Yes, we'll get through. Yeah, we'll get through a decent amount of questions, I think. I hope if for nothing else, we will just start talking about Thanksgiving desserts. So reading our favorite. Yes.
- [00:40]
A
All of the pie.
- [00:41]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [00:42]
A
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And you've already had Thanksgiving because you live in Canada, so that's fun.
- [00:47]
B
Yeah, it's like rearview mirror and then some month and a half ago. So, yeah, we've had it. It's been a little while since. Since we celebrated with Turkey.
- [00:56]
A
That's great. Awesome. I think we are operating at like a 30 second lag, which we are excited about. So this will be fun. We're trying to keep up with all the chat and everything. I see some people commenting over here, so that's super fun. Thanks for joining, guys. I see Kat, Matthew Renga, bunch of Growth in Reverse Pro folks in here. Awesome. This is gonna be fun. Very, very cool. All right, so what we've done, we have solicited questions from you guys over the last couple weeks via the email list and LinkedIn all of the places. So we're gonna kind of jump into some of those and then we'll be answering some from the chat as well. So I'm excited to do this. Where do you. What did I miss?
- [01:41]
B
Dylan, did you want to talk about your little promo code or have you not. Is that. Am I spoiling something here?
- [01:46]
A
Yeah. So I was not going to do a Black Friday anything. Like, I thought about it a month ago and I was like, yes, I should do it. And then I was like, no, no, I don't want to do that. And then Dylan was like, yeah, you are. So I was like, okay. So I actually. Let me see if this works. I set this up. Nope, that's the wrong one.
- [02:04]
B
That's a good link though, too.
- [02:05]
A
This one. So you. I have a pro, a product called the Growth Vault. And essentially I find all these really interesting growth optimization tips that you can use from other creators. And I record quick videos and like showcase how you can do this for yourself too. So it's called the Growth Vault. There's probably 30 or so videos in there at this point. And it's continuously being added to. I just added three this morning. So you can get $50 off with the code live. And if you click that, I don't know if it's actually going to work. Can you go to Growth and Growth and Reverse? Yeah, growth in reverse.com vault. Yeah, I will add that, too.
- [02:45]
Yeah. And you can grab 50 off. It's only available while we're live on the call, so it will expire. I think it's 2:30 Eastern that code expires.
- [02:53]
B
So everybody who may be watching this tomorrow, next week, whenever. Sorry, sorry. But there's benefits to showing up live. So there you go.
- [03:03]
A
There are. Cool. So good.
- [03:06]
B
So should we get into some questions?
- [03:08]
A
Yes, let's do it.
- [03:09]
B
Okay. So maybe for those who don't know, Michelle runs the Growth and Reverse newsletter. She's been doing that for. Geez. Coming up on, I want to say three years.
- [03:20]
A
Yeah, three years in like nine days. Yeah.
- [03:23]
B
Yes. And I run the Growth Currency newsletter, which will be about five years in January, roughly. And so we. We started a podcast a year ago. This is kind of a sort of a celebratory episode where we're like, hey, after a year of podcasting, we should try a live episode. And we may or may not live to regret it or just enjoy it and do it again in the future. But we published every week for the last year, so we're answering questions all about newsletters, newsletter growth, even podcasting questions since, you know, we've done it for a year and we sort of know what we're doing, but also very much don't. So we're happy to entertain any questions around that as well.
- [04:02]
A
Yes. And thanks, Kat, for stating the obvious that I could just throw the link into the chat on YouTube. Thank you.
- [04:08]
B
That is something we can do. That's rookie. Rookie live broadcasters right here.
- [04:13]
A
Oh, good stuff, Good stuff. Cool. Where do you want to start here, Dylan? I know we have some questions in a Google Doc, and then we got some this morning, too.
- [04:24]
B
Yeah, yeah. So again, feel free to drop any questions in the chat. We'll try to answer those in priority. But we have teed up a few here that came through over the last week or two since we promoted this episode. One of the first ones, I think. And this might cover the answers to this, might actually cover a few of the other questions we've had come in that were kind of around the same line. And Terry, actually, from our community, Terry, I don't want to say your last name because I might butcher it, but Terry from our community. Yeah, Okay. I was going to do the English version of it. She. She's a member of the Growth Reverse Pro community, a friend of ours. We've hung out in person in real life. She asked us she'd love to see the full range of metrics from return on investment ROI to rof, which is the. What she coins as the return on fun. For me, the return on fund has been kind of, like, infinite because, like, it's been. It's been a lot of fun doing the podcast. It's been a whole new venture for us. I think we both wanted to do podcasts for a long time, and the opportunity just kind of serendipitously arose that we could kind of join forces and do this together. So for me, it's been a lot of fun learning the ins and outs of podcasting and, you know, how we can repurpose that content over the year and all that sort of stuff. So. And I couldn't imagine somebody better to do it with. So the return on fun is definitely, likewise, is definitely infinite. And is that your answer? Likewise?
- [05:50]
A
We get to do fun things like this.
- [05:53]
B
The roi, I said, though the ROI is a little bit harder to calculate. And Chanel, you're. You're putting more of the investment into this podcast. So I'd be curious. Not necessarily even. It's really hard to calculate, like, a direct ROI from doing the podcast. But what are some of the things that you've noticed from the last year of podcast publishing? This where you're like, I think the podcast has actually benefited me or us in this way.
- [06:18]
A
Yeah. So I think that it just builds trust faster than written content ever will. We launched the podcast in December of last year, and I went to a conference in February. So, like, three months in, and probably 90% of the people that ran up to me was like, hey, I love your podcast. Like, they didn't even mention the newsletter. And I'm like, I spend like, 40 hours a week on those deep dives, and nobody mentioned them. They just mentioned the podcast. And I was like, this is not. I mean, it's awesome. Don't get me wrong. It was just, like, very eye opening, I think. So there's something about being able to see us, like, make mistakes live on air or talk about personal things that we might not have talked about in, like, a more professional written piece of content that I think really builds that community aspect to it.
- [07:03]
B
Yep, absolutely. I think the, you know, from a direct monetization standpoint, we had a sponsor in the beginning for the first, you know, five or six episodes. And all of the other revenue essentially has come indirectly from as many of you know, like top of funnel. Content is notoriously hard to attribute revenue to. So that's a lot of what this is. Sure, we've gotten some probably growth fault sales from the podcast and some growth Verse Pro members and stuff like that. But like Kat saying here, video, video does build trust really fast. So for me, it's kind of like the foundation of building trust is writing. Proving that, you know, you can think, you can write out your thoughts and share those on the page or on the screen is kind of the base, the foundation. The next step up is like audio. You're building more trust when people can hear your voice. So they're putting, you know, a sound to your writing. They can't put a face to it yet, but they can put like this, this kind of like your voice to it, right? And your inflections in your tone and all that sort of thing. And then to me, the, the third highest level of trust is the video. Video plus audio. So now you've got this stack, this layer of written audio and then video all in one, where people can now see you and feel like they know you that much more because they see your face, hear your voice, and they can relate all that when they read your writing as well. And then the one thing I didn't actually think about before, I'm like, that's the peak. That's the pinnacle. But no, the peak is in person, right? Like when you meet somebody in person when, when you go to, when you're a speaker at a conference, like you've done Chanel, many times when you are just going to a conference like you and I both did in Boise for, for Crafting Commerce this past June. It just builds that much more trust with people when you can interface face to face with those people. And so I think those are kind of the four level, levels of, of trust that you can accomplish with content. And really the first three, you don't even have to meet people in person. You can do it. But I think it really, really comes down to the video audio aspect. So that is my long winded way of saying the ROI is hard to calculate, but it's definitely there.
- [09:06]
A
Yeah, I agree with you. I think the other cool thing about video is that, you know, we can come on here and talk about interesting things we're seeing or how we think about a certain piece of this puzzle and then we can turn that transcript into a blog post and it's so much easier because we've now thought through it together in a way versus me sitting there in my, like, basement office by myself, like typing things out. I'm like, well, yeah, that's kind of cool. But I don't always have like added context or other questions that you ask. And so it's really interesting to have someone to bounce ideas off like that. And I think that's almost invaluable in a way.
- [09:38]
B
It really is. It's a, it's a collaboration and it's like the, you know, one plus one doesn't necessarily equal two. It equals six or seven in this case, where we're getting value from having. Having our multiple thoughts bouncing off each other too. Yeah, nice. Do we have any questions in the chat? I am really bad at. I've just noticed this is way harder than I thought it would be. I can't even fight the live stream.
- [10:00]
A
So Lao7 said, do you think it's mandatory? Oh, it moved.
- [10:04]
B
Oh no.
- [10:05]
A
Do you think it's mandatory for newsletter writers to also have a podcast video channel to succeed as a professional creator? Oh, I think over time it's probably helpful. You don't have to. It's not mandatory, but I think after a while, after you've mastered like the systems and being able to actually put out a piece of content every week, I think it's beneficial to have something like this so that you can collaborate and do more, I don't know, interactive type of things, but I would highly recommend focusing on one in the beginning. Like focus on figuring out your writing things first, like the format. Make sure your audience loves the content before you spread your wings and go go onto another platform first.
- [10:45]
B
Yep. Yeah, I agree. For the most part. I think there's some people who might find themselves actually more comfortable though on camera.
- [10:54]
A
Totally.
- [10:54]
B
Than writing. So maybe you don't love writing, but you do love showing up in short form video or doing even maybe long form video or maybe long form podcasting. So whatever your mode, your main mode is, your preference, your preferred way to communicate, go with that leverage, that leverage the platforms that um, can highlight those skills that you have. And then once you've kind of got those nailed, then you can adapt and grow. And yes, we always recommend newsletters because email is just so valuable and having an email, a growing email list is super valuable. Um, so you do want to think about that while maybe you're doing short form video or an audio podcast. Um, but really once you've got that main message in that main platform nailed Then you can really branch out to the other things.
- [11:39]
A
Okay, so I just realized I don't think LinkedIn chat is coming through here.
- [11:42]
B
Oh, no.
- [11:43]
A
Okay, so Terri is live on LinkedIn, and she said it's loan. Yay. Like, the bank gives you a loan and says, yay.
- [11:49]
B
Okay.
- [11:50]
A
And you say, yay.
- [11:51]
B
Okay.
- [11:52]
A
So interesting.
- [11:53]
B
Kind of like Kanye and then. No.
- [11:55]
A
Yeah. Angeline had a comment about your trust pyramid idea and said this is almost like a pyramid from bottom to top, written, audio, video, in person. So I think that's exactly what you got to at a certain point.
- [12:07]
B
Yeah, that's kind of when I was visualizing what I was saying in my head. That was kind of what I was saying. You know, the hierarchy of needs sort of pyramid. The base. The base of that would be, in this case, the writing for trust.
- [12:17]
A
And then lots of people are saying, happy Thanksgiving. So Happy Thanksgiving to you all as well.
- [12:20]
B
Yes. Thank you. Yes.
- [12:22]
A
Yes.
- [12:22]
B
Anybody else looking forward to a full day of football or. No, just me. Oh, there we go. Are the Bears playing Chanel?
- [12:29]
A
Go Bears. They're playing Friday.
- [12:31]
B
Oh, okay. Right. They have the Friday game. That will be fun.
- [12:34]
A
Yeah. Yup.
- [12:35]
B
All right, what else we got going on?
- [12:37]
A
Okay, do you want to keep going through some of the ones that we got there or we have some in the chat?
- [12:43]
B
So let's do. Let's do one from the doc here. I want to pull up another one from another Growth Inverse Pro member. Nope, sorry, I lied. Totally lied. Let's pull up one from Tom Gibson. He asked us in my LinkedIn post about this episode. He said, which part of the workflow is have you stopped doing or plan to stop doing? My assumption is he's talking about for the podcast. So do you want to field a little bit of this one first, Chanel, or do you have thoughts or do you want me to dive in?
- [13:14]
A
Somebody was like, wait, Chanel's a Bears fan? And I said, yes. So I was just putting that, yes, Eagles are my second team because it's a home team, but the Bears have always been my first real football.
- [13:24]
B
Because you were born and raised in Chicago.
- [13:25]
A
They're playing the Eagles, and I'm very. It's going to be a tough day.
- [13:30]
B
Yeah, that'll be a tough one. And you, you were not born and raised in Chicago, correct?
- [13:35]
A
I was born in Illinois, but I was only there for, like, a year, so I don't remember any of it. But my mom was a big Bears fan, so there you go. Thus, the Bears.
- [13:42]
B
There it is. Okay. So did you hear my question about the workflow?
- [13:47]
A
No, I did not.
- [13:48]
B
Sorry. So Tom asked, which part of the workflow have you stopped doing or planned to stop doing? And I'm assuming he was talking about the podcast because that was kind of the premise of my post on social, on LinkedIn. For this question, for these questions, what do you, what do you think in terms of the workflow? I feel like we're doing even more than we were.
- [14:06]
A
Yeah, well, because you've kind of started to take over the editing process, so that was different. Yeah. But I think one of the things aside from the editing, I think what we're going to try and do more of in the new year is just like, tell stories of like, community members and, like, have really interesting people on. It's so fun for me and you to like, figure out a topic and talk through that ourselves and not have anyone else on there. But it's also like, kind of a lot to figure out logistically of like, what are we gonna talk about this week? Oh, wait, now we have to make notes. And like, there's just a lot that goes into it. Whereas if you're talking about someone else, it's kind of easier, especially if you've already written a deep dive about them.
- [14:44]
B
Yes.
- [14:44]
A
Or know their story. So.
- [14:46]
B
Yeah, that's very true.
- [14:49]
Just to speak to like the, I guess the behind the scenes stuff. I think the. Definitely the kind of podcast editing that I've taken on has been kind of added to the workflow. But in the same way I've loved, I've really enjoyed learning how to do the podcast editing. We had a, an editor for the first seven or eight or eight or nine months, really for the first eight months of the podcast. And we have simplified our edits. They're maybe not quite as fancy as we had our editor.
- [15:16]
A
They're definitely not as fancy. That's okay. But Tim, Tim was a very good editor in that respect of being able to like, put all this crazy work into it that probably takes him like three seconds where it was. It would take us like two hours. So. Yeah.
- [15:31]
B
But now it's been, it's been a lot of fun kind of cutting up the intros and that sort of thing. So I've, I've enjoyed that. So that's something we have not stopped doing. We've actually added to our plate. Is there anything that we have planned or that we've stopped doing that we or plan to stop doing in terms of the podcast production?
- [15:46]
A
Um, well, we're not putting out an episode in December. That is what you're doing. Alluding to. We decided just to, like, take a couple weeks off, you know, start focusing on improving the community and new group coaching product and so that kind of thing. So, yeah, I'm excited to kind of just chill for a little bit. Obviously it won't be chill, but it'll be different. And we'll come back in early 2026.
- [16:12]
B
Yeah, yeah, no, we'll be. We'll be back. Back with a vengeance. No, it should be fun.
- [16:19]
A
Okay.
- [16:19]
B
I've got a few other questions here that are kind of in the same vein as Terry's question. Like, what were the biggest benefits of doing the pod? That sort of thing. I think we've kind of touched on those, so I don't want to, you know, hammer those home. Uh, but another question here, unless there's one you can pull up from the chat that you want to address, but.
- [16:36]
A
I'm trying to find a good one, so go for it.
- [16:38]
B
Okay, so question here was, what would you do differently if you were starting in 2026? So what would you do differently from. Again, I, I believe this was a podcast directed question, because the first part of the question was, what were the biggest benefits of doing the podcast and then what would you do differently?
- [16:56]
A
Well, we, when we started, we had like eight episodes in the can ready to go. And then, you know, I would keep canceling on Dylan. I'm like, well, I don't want to do it this week. I don't want to do it this week. And then here we are, like, trying to figure out one for that exact week. So. So it's. We've completely dis. Like our lead time is completely disintegrated. But so I would say just like, stick with the plan and don't let yourself realize that you have eight in the can because then there's like a situation where like, I get bronchitis and it's super hard to record a podcast. And we're like, ooh, let's just take a speech that you gave three months ago and throw it up as a episode.
- [17:35]
B
We've done that. Or you're like all of a sudden, oh, I'm going to a conference and I need to speak and, you know, prep my notes and all this stuff. And so like, life happens essentially is, I guess what we're saying. So, yeah, having a totally on. I would like a comfortable Runway would be like a month worth of episodes essentially, like in the can, ready to publish. So you're always going a month ahead. So that's one thing I think if I was starting, I would do differently, which ironically, we actually did in the beginning. We kind of fell off that wagon, so. But that would be a great recommendation. Same thing goes for newsletters too. Like, I wouldn't start a brand new newsletter without like having maybe a month's worth of additions ready to fire off. So to relate this to newsletters, I think that all goes the same way for like, planning your content and thinking through. You don't have to have every word written necessarily, but at least knowing, like, what topics you're going to cover for the next four to six weeks, who you're going to feature, any promotions you might be running, anything like that, being able to plan those out and think them through. And I know this sounds probably super obvious, but sometimes the most obvious things we just sort of ignore and fly by the seat of our pants when a little bit of planning can go a long way.
- [18:42]
A
Yep. This goes for everything too. Podcast, newsletter, anything you got going on?
- [18:47]
B
Yep, A hundred percent. Right.
- [18:49]
A
All right, we did that one. Sorry, I was trying to go through and then I got distracted by LinkedIn comments. Oh, no.
- [18:56]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [18:57]
A
This is hard.
- [18:58]
B
We need a producer.
- [18:59]
A
I know. And then as soon as someone comments, it like messes me up.
- [19:03]
B
Yes.
- [19:04]
A
Trying to find. Okay, here's one that's interesting. What do you think about AI integrated into email providers?
- [19:10]
B
And who's that from?
- [19:11]
A
Hold on, let me 24k wills. Hold on, I gotta add it again. I know. Here we go. Okay. There was like an auto 10 second timer when you click on something and then it goes. Okay, example Gmail summarizing emails could be bad for open rates and revenue. Yes. So I think they're referring to this new feature in the last couple months that Apple Mail Gmail have rolled out where before you even open an email it'll say like, this email is about blank.
- [19:40]
B
Yeah.
- [19:42]
A
So I know Apple Mail will show it like in the left hand sidebar if you're like looking at all the emails you have and then Gmail shows it at the top when you open an email. I believe so, yeah. I mean, it's totally going to impact stuff and I think we're just going to have to be able to iterate and pivot and think through this as well as everything else that we've already been thinking through, um, before sending an email. So it's just another one of those things. It's kind of like the new preview text. Like preview text might not actually show anymore or the way you want it to Show. So I think that this is kind of just the new format is actually a thing.
- [20:14]
B
What preview text not showing up or showing the way you want to?
- [20:17]
A
Well, I think for Apple Mail. Yeah, I don't even think it shows preview text anymore. It'll just show like a summary. If you have the feature turned on, I think you can turn it off.
- [20:26]
B
I see. Okay.
- [20:26]
A
But I think it's default on and it'll say Chanel is asking you a question about blah, blah, blah in the email.
- [20:33]
B
Right.
- [20:34]
A
So you can like see that before you even open it. And so I think that's what they're referring to in this one.
- [20:39]
B
Okay. I, I'm not an Apple user, so you can throw your. Throw your tomatoes at me if you want, but I did not know that, so I could see that being a challenge. I think just going back to the original question, I think for me it just comes back to what you preach about. What you've literally preached about on stage is insanely valuable content. So I think if you are really writing something that people want to read and get some kind of gratification reading it, whether it's like educational, informational, like keeping you informed or entertaining, then people will open your newsletter and read it and not want AI to read it. It's like, why would you like. Yeah, I could summarize, like your favorite TV show, but you're not going to, you know, get a hey, tell me what happened on, you know, so and so TV show this week. Like you're gonna actually want to watch it and enjoy it. So I think for me, that's kind of what it comes down to.
- [21:31]
A
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you kind of have to overcome all of these challenges that we're going to be facing with these platforms, with AI and all the new features that are going to be happening. And now, like with Gmail, you could even take, you can look at all your subscriptions and it'll show you a list of every email thing that you're subscribed to. And you can just like unsubscribe, unsubscribe all at one place. So it's like, I actually think that's a good thing because a lot of those people were probably never opening your emails anyway, so.
- [21:59]
B
Or to flip that they might love your content, which hopefully they do, and then they'll just unsubscribe from a bunch of other stuff that's distracting them in their inbox. So that totally, you know, the good stuff still remains. So again, it comes down to publishing stuff that people enjoy Reading and want to open and read.
- [22:15]
A
Yeah.
- [22:16]
B
All right.
- [22:17]
A
I like it.
- [22:17]
B
What do we got? Anything?
- [22:18]
A
That was a good question.
- [22:19]
B
Anything else in the chat we can pull up? I saw on.
- [22:21]
A
I'm trying to scroll.
- [22:22]
B
I was gonna say I saw LinkedIn. While you're scrolling, I'll filibuster a bit. Um, Juliet asked favorite pie. So totally on topic that it is nearing Thanksgiving, I would say. I mean, because Thanksgiving, I'd say pumpkin pie is probably. Probably right near the tippy top for me.
- [22:38]
A
For favorite pie, I would say one that. That's usually at a Thanksgiving event that I like is apple pie. However, there are, like, some really interesting ones, like blueberry, that usually doesn't show up at a Thanksgiving event, but is delicious. Yes. My wife Anna, is a huge pie fan.
- [22:57]
B
Does she make pie?
- [22:58]
A
No, no, she does not make pie. But, like, we went to Arizona last year, and the only. Not the only thing. One of the main things she planned was there was, like, this roadside stand that, like, going from the airport to Sedona, like, on the highway. There was, like, a pie place. And she's like, we're going there. And I was like, I love that that's what you planned for a vacation. It's great.
- [23:16]
B
That's amazing. I. I would be there.
- [23:19]
A
Yes. Yes.
- [23:21]
B
If you. I got a question here. If you're still. If you're still trying to find one.
- [23:25]
A
Yeah.
- [23:25]
B
Okay.
- [23:26]
A
I think I need a new system because this just keeps all the comments keep making it go down. No.
- [23:30]
B
Okay. Andy asked, is it okay to just start without a clearly defined audience in mind and work it out as you go along, or is that kind of a waste of time? He says he's already launched his newsletter on substack, but he's still, you know, pretty vague on who exactly it's for. And so I. I related a lot to this question because unlike you, who published, like, this really smart concept for a newsletter on your very first try, which maybe you didn't know would resonate so much, but it. It ended up working out. When I started publishing my substack in 2021, I had no idea who I was writing to, except for, like, maybe digital people, people on the Internet. So I was writing about, like, marketing and leadership and personal finance and all this kind of stuff. Even, I think, crypto, like, because it was 2021. Yeah. So I had this swath of things, and I just kept publishing and leaning into my interests and also seeing, like, checking out which links were getting clicked more and letting that be some signal for me to what people were interested in reading about. And yeah, I didn't have a ton of subscribers, but I did have. And that eventually kind of. I meandered through the first 20ish editions of my newsletter and finally started landing on hey, people seem to like it when I write about newsletters. And Justin Moore actually kind of pushed me a little bit as well to write more about newsletters and kind of niche down a bit. And so I guess my point is after publishing repeatedly, I was able to figure out where I wanted to go. So I don't think it's a waste of time. As long as it's lighting you up from a place of a passion and you have a long term mindset knowing that you're not gonna, you know, make probably a ton of money from this, especially not in the short term. Then I would say start writing if you have the time and energy for it and desire to do it and see where it takes you.
- [25:16]
A
Yeah, I did not know that growth in reverse was gonna take off that way. So that was purely. I was like, I'm excited about this. Hopefully other people are. I haven't found anything like this before. So I don't know. We all start from zero and it just happened to be a good idea. Although I will say, just to remind you, I had started a gardening blog, a blog about my paying off my student loans blog about quitting my day job and this was the first thing that stuck. So I've been at this for a while, so don't think that I came out of the gates swinging like this is not a new thing for me. I just want to remind you of that.
- [25:51]
B
Agreed. I can relate a little bit to that. I had a music blog 15 years ago, like when WordPress was like the thing, Wordplash blogs. Um, and I had a health, like health, I guess blog which I had no place writing about. Cause I'm definitely not in the health space or really licensed to write about it. But that was just another passion thing I was doing but eventually did land on this. And it's also stuck. So sometimes it takes a few at bats. Right?
- [26:19]
A
Yeah, totally. Keep going. Just follow what you're enjoying. It doesn't have to be perfect or a business from day one. And honestly, if you can do it on the side for a while before figuring out monetization, I feel like it's going to be built on stronger foundations anyway, so.
- [26:35]
B
Yep, I agree. I've got another one. Unless you want to pull any and go for it. Okay, so this is getting a little Spicy maybe. Ooh, it's not that spicy. Okay, now, now I've oversold it. The littlest bit of spicy. So you sent out an email earlier this week that I think the subject line was Beehive or Kit. Something along the lines. Yeah, Beehive versus Kit versus okay, okay. Wow. Not just or, which one's better? So you got called out on that subject line. Which one is better? Since you didn't actually say in your email. And I guess the question is the best. Yeah, does it really matter?
- [27:12]
A
So the best part was Tyler Dank, like three minutes after I sent that email, replied to my newsletter, which I didn't realize he was on, which is fun. And he was like, great subject line, haha. Or wink or whatever. And Tyler Dank is the CEO of bi.
- [27:26]
B
I was just going to say.
- [27:28]
Kind of started the whole thing.
- [27:29]
A
I was like, oh, that's fun. Yeah. So as I sent that email I was like giggling to myself and then I got that reply and I was like, this is fun.
- [27:36]
B
Yeah.
- [27:36]
A
But yeah, I was just saying like essentially the short of it is the tool is not going to make you successful. Your consistency, your content, stick to it. Iveness, if you will, is going to be the thing that actually stands out.
- [27:49]
B
Cop out answer. Cop out answer.
- [27:51]
A
I know. Okay, here's my framework for what I usually say. There are two things. So Beehive and Kit both have great recommendations platforms. So to substack this, I'll bring substack into the full tier.
- [28:02]
So what I typically say is look for where the people in your niche are. So if your peers are all on Beehive, maybe you should go with Beehive because they might recommend your newsletter. You can't really recommend a Kit newsletter from Beehive, if that makes sense. So you want to stick on the platform that has your peers on it. Purely if you're going to use recommendations, if you're not going to use them, great, don't worry about it. That is not something to worry about. The other thing I think through is, do you have a website? Because if you don't have a website, Beehive or Substack is going to be preferred versus Kit. Because with Kit you have to have your own website. Build something on WordPress, build something somewhere else, Webflow or whatever. And so that's just another layer of this puzzle that you're going to have to figure out. Those are my two questions for you. Where do all of your peers hang out? And second, do you have a website? And so that would be what I would look through Beehive is getting closer to Kit with the new things that they're launching. But I would say I still think Kit has more robust automations. But again, Beehive is probably catching up pretty quickly. So.
- [29:07]
B
Yeah, yep. Yeah, I kind of lean the same way. Yeah. I think with substack2 you've got the built in network effects which the other two sort of have as well. Like I've grown a lot with the creator network in Kit, so they all offer this these days. And I think Substack is turning into. Trying to turn to less of a newsletter platform, more into this kind of all in one sort of social media slash, you know, written platform. I do kind of feel though, and I started my newsletter on Substack because I didn't have a website. I didn't know any different and so that's where I started. But I do feel as though you're very much kind of walling yourself off a little bit in Substack. And to me it kind of feels a little bit like Medium. And I say that because Medium turned into a platform for Medium people. So like if you wanted to write and make money on Medium, you had to write to people who were on Medium, writing about Medium, trying to make money on Medium and grow an audience on Medium and it just turns into this kind of. I'm not saying this is all Substack. I know there's. There's a lot of really good writers on there and people doing different things, but I feel as though it's got a little bit of that in it where the content that really kind of rises to the top can have that feeling again, not total. I know there's people writing really great stuff on there, but I just worry that maybe that's kind of what it could turn into as I see like hints of that.
- [30:31]
A
Yeah, I think right now the writing on substack, 80% of the writing on Substack is very much more thought out, I would say, than, you know, a Beehive or a Kit newsletter. However, I feel like that's going to change. Marketers ruin everything. So soon enough it will, it will be different. But for now it is a great place for like, I don't know, unique writing.
- [30:54]
B
Yep, that's fair. And that's why I think Louis Grenier says everyone hates marketers or something along those legs.
- [30:59]
A
Yeah, totally ruin everything.
- [31:01]
B
We sure do.
- [31:02]
A
Yeah.
- [31:04]
So as a quick reminder, we have this coupon code up on the screen for $50 off the growth vault. It's only available until 2:30pm Eastern while we're on the stream. So I literally have that set to automatically turn off because I will forget. So that coupon code will go away if you are planning on potentially joining us in there. So just wanted to call it out.
- [31:26]
B
Nice call out. I want to do one other call out about pies. Yeah, you know, it always comes back to that. Oh, pecan pie is getting some boat. Some love in the comments. I've. Yes, I saw that. I figured out how to find the comments here. So yeah, pecan pie all day. Cat also said pecan pie is great. I have never had pecan pie. Huh.
- [31:45]
A
Wow.
- [31:46]
B
Y. So that ain't good. I definitely need to get on that. Get on that really soon.
- [31:52]
A
Yeah, no kidding.
- [31:53]
B
That sounds amazing.
- [31:53]
A
What are you doing?
- [31:54]
B
I don't know. Not living fully, apparently. I. I see another. Another question here about metrics. So which metric? Let's see. Who's this? I gotta move around to get away from my mic stand, so forgive me. Which metric inside your email newsletter tool do you actually look at every week? And can you please share a recent decision you made because of it? There it is. Thank you.
- [32:17]
A
Yeah. What. What do I look at inside a newsletter tool?
- [32:22]
B
Yeah, so. So in kit, I would say, like, what metrics are you looking at? I'm. I'm assuming. Let me assume what you look at. I'm assuming you look at your open rate.
- [32:30]
A
Okay.
- [32:31]
B
I'm assuming you also look at subscriber count. Not as much. Okay. So yeah, share with us. What do you. What do you. What do you check?
- [32:41]
A
I. I look at. I look at the open rate in terms of. Yes, like, what is the open rate? I don't take that as like the number. Cause I know it's wildly wrong these days with certain platforms that automatically open every email. And so we can't really trust that number as like a true number. But I do look at it in terms of like week over week. So if it's dropping or if it went up, that's a good sign that maybe, I don't know, the subject line resonated, that kind of thing. If it drops significantly, there might be something wrong. Maybe I included a word or something that forced the email to go into the spam folder. So those are. I'd look at it like just week over week in terms of like, trends, but not actually as a, I don't know, factual number.
- [33:27]
B
Well, I think if you're sending an email broadcast on a recurring rhythm. So whether it's every week or every, you know, Twice a week, whatever it is, you have at least a benchmark. You know that your open rates, even if they're not accurate, you know that, that everyone says they are not. But you can see, like if the last 10 emails you send were hitting say 50% open rate, and then the one you just sent was like down in the low 40s or even maybe below that. That's where, I mean, that would be a signal to me like, oh man, maybe something I did went this, sent this to spam. Maybe the email got clipped, who knows what, Right?
- [34:01]
A
Totally.
- [34:01]
B
So that's, I think, something that you should be looking out for. Not necessarily the, the open, the open rate as a vanity metric. It's more of like, it should be like your guide of what you're doing, how your content is engaging. And if it is slowly going down, try to figure out what, why, what's changed, what's different, what can you do to maybe your subject lines. You've been kind of thinking put in the first thing that comes to your head and you haven't really been putting in a robust subject line. Or maybe your content hasn't been great in the last few weeks or you felt uninsp. All those things could be reasons why the open rate is slowly trickling down. But if it's like this drastic jump.
- [34:37]
A
Or your list is growing a lot, totally, yeah, it could be going down.
- [34:41]
B
Growing list will always be. I mean, it's almost possible to get a hundred percent open rate when you only have, you know, maybe 20 people on your email list. But as you grow, it's going to come down and down and down.
- [34:52]
A
Yeah, totally. But that, that question threw me off because the thing I think through the most is like, how many replies did I get that week? And so that doesn't actually live inside the newsletter tool. That's more in like Gmail. So that's the one that I pay attention to the most. But those are some other ones. Yeah.
- [35:08]
B
The knowledge enthusiast has another actually great question. I don't know if you see this. What's one thing most newsletter creators overinvest in and one thing they underinvest in?
- [35:18]
A
Hmm. I would say over invest in subscriber count, under invest in content quality.
- [35:25]
B
That was almost too easy, short and sweet. I'm aligned with that. I'm aligned with that.
- [35:31]
A
Okay. I know this person, Andrew said not seeing a discount. Is the vault normally $200? Yes, it is normally $200. And so that $50 off is the coupon code to get you for 150.
- [35:42]
B
And the coupon code is. Is the word live, right?
- [35:46]
A
Yes.
- [35:47]
B
So the subject line is the significant push in the open rate. What others do you think? I think the, the surgery line can be a significant push in open rate, especially for new subscribers who aren't used to your getting your content. So you kind of have to, you know, stand out from the crowd of other things in their inbox. But for people who have been on your email list for a while, they're probably going to. And they like your content. They're probably going to open your. Your newsletter because they know what to expect, they know the quality that's coming at them. And. And again, if it's good, they'll open it regardless of your subject line. For the most part. For people who are newer on the list, I think that's where a subject line can have more of an impact. So. So if you are. If you do have a higher growth rate, meaning you're getting more and more people to your list day by day, week by week, that's where your subject line's probably going to either help you or hurt you that much more, versus maybe somebody who's growing a little bit slower, who's got a more established list, or maybe whose list has matured to some degree. Um, the subject line still matters for sure, but I don't know if it would have quite the same impact.
- [36:50]
A
Yeah, and there's also something to be said, like, because my deep dives were so long form, people would put them into a folder and not open them until like all at once. They would read all of them. They'd like, be like, okay, I have an hour and a half. I'm gonna sit down and read the last four deep dives. And so sometimes the open rates fluctuate. Sometimes people just throw em in a folder. They're like, I'm gonna get to it later. And they never do. So if you can, you know, every now and then and every now and again, you know, kind of change things up and send out like a shorter email or send out something different with a different subject line that they're not expecting, you can probably kind of win back some of those people too.
- [37:26]
B
I agree. Changing things up never, never hurts. Uh, Matt's got a good question.
- [37:31]
A
Here we go. How do you prevent burnout?
- [37:34]
B
And also shout out to Matt, who's loaded questions.
- [37:35]
A
Who's a growth of.
- [37:37]
B
Yeah.
- [37:37]
A
Ugh, yes. Well.
- [37:42]
Probably ask for help, talk to people, ask a break, maybe ask questions, take a break. So for context, I, I ran like a Facebook ads business essentially back in 2020. Well, 2017 to 2020, one and a half. 2022 did really well during COVID people needed help with ads, so I was doing super well and I took on way too much work. I didn't ask for help. I wasn't asking peers for help or questions or anything like that. And so I severely burned myself out and slowly, just like watch that business light on fire and crumble. So I have a lot of experience with burnout in that respect. So in, in this current business, I've tried to ask for help. I've been so much better about, like I'm in a mastermind and I'm actually talking to people and asking questions and like doing things and not joining a bunch of courses and lurking and, you know, not asking. So I think that's the biggest thing is just ask for help.
- [38:39]
B
Oh, I got. I like that. I think, I think that's it. I think one other thing I've noticed you do just in our communication is like, I'm just feeling spent this week and I don't want to push it. So whether that means doing something a little deviating from the plan, the content plan, the podcast plan, whatever that might be, you're okay to, to make that sacrifice for your mental health and the ability to kind of press on in the business. You with more of a long term mindset. So I don't, I didn't really know you back in the Facebook ads days when you were burning out then, but I can tell just in the way that you communicate, in the way that we do things that you've been, you've been very protective of that. So I think, I think it's working.
- [39:22]
A
Thanks. Um, I saw this one come up before.
- [39:26]
B
Okay.
- [39:26]
A
And we didn't get to it. So let's do this one. So get a life. 1, 2, 3, 4.
- [39:31]
B
Such a good name. I'm here for the name.
- [39:35]
A
How would you grow a bi weekly newsletter about a university ecosystem like Harvard's from 0 to 1K subscribers organically, especially in markets where newsletters aren't common. Okay, so I guess is this like you're working at a school like this and you're trying to grow their newsletter, or is this just like totally separate? I guess if you're writing about Harvard itself and like maybe the sports programs or that kind of thing, I feel like it's pretty simple in a way. I mean, you could either start posting on Instagram about this stuff. You could reach out directly to people who are interested in college sports or whatever. The actual Focus is. I'm not super sure, but I think honestly, most people get stuck in the beginning. 0 to 1k in my head is mostly like personal outreach. Figure it out. Go find these people talking on Twitter or LinkedIn or Reddit comment. Help them provide value. Maybe you have a link to it in your profile, but you're not like pushing it. Like, people will find it if you're just helpful. So I think usually 0 to 1k, 0 to 500, whatever it is, the easiest way to do that is go out into your network and just be a human. I think that's the easiest way.
- [40:49]
B
Yep. I think my first thought was Morning Brew started on a university campus. It was not a. It was not a newsletter about their university, but it was. That's where it started. Right. And they were, they were just. Just look it up. Just search Morning Brew, you know, story, growth story or whatever it might be, how they started up, and you'll see a lot of great ideas there. However, I think what I think about with something like, you know, Harvard or a maybe a major university is like, if you can bring in content that's very exclusive behind the scenes, that's going to help future students, that might help current students, whatever that that kind of content is, I think that's going to just help the newsletter grow in and of itself. So I remember there was a newsletter sort of similar to this where the writer was. It was a paid newsletter even, and she was doing amazing. And what she did was basically she was finding grants for people to get into universities or get money for universities, kind of like scholarship sort of thing, like grants. Right. And so she would basically surface these grants for people and they would pay her money to basically get. Have her collect all these grants. They could find this on their own, definitely. But she was doing all the hard work of finding these grants, kind of like creator wizard as well, where he would find all of the sponsorships that you didn't know about, and he curates those for you. And I don't even think he was charging people for that and he would just deliver them to you. So if you can, that's just one version of this. But if you can like basically get this content that people either have trouble getting themselves and getting that in front of them, or getting some kind of exclusive nature to the newsletter, I think that's going to be that much more interesting and engaging and will help it grow organically kind of on its own to some degree.
- [42:35]
A
Yeah. And I think the me, the last part of this said, especially in markets where newsletters aren't common. You don't have to position it as a newsletter. You could just position it as like, hey, get the blah, blah, blah every week. Like, it doesn't have to be, oh, sign up for an email list. Like, most people don't want that anyway. So if you can position it differently and actually take. Make it more fun. Uh, if you're trying to get college kids, just be like, hey, here's some coupons to local bars or whatever. Every week you send them a new coupon to whatever it is. Um, I mean, you'll get people signing up left and right for that one.
- [43:07]
B
Yep, very true. Yeah, very true.
- [43:10]
A
This person said, oh, I'm trying to change the layout. This is fun. Uh, what was your first digital marketing role? So I had mentioned that I was working doing Facebook ads, but I actually worked at aaa, like the towing company in America, and I was doing Google Ads for them for a long time.
- [43:27]
B
So, yeah, that's how you got good at it.
- [43:29]
A
Short good at it. Yeah.
- [43:31]
B
I was.
- [43:31]
A
I found SEO through Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income. And I took it to my boss and I was like, we need to be doing all of these things. And they were like, cool. You go do them on your. Like, on top of what you're already doing. And I was like, oh, okay. And then their paid ads guy left and they were like, you should do this too. And I was like, okay, sounds good. Nice.
- [43:50]
B
And. And the rest is history. Yeah, here we are.
- [43:53]
A
The rest is history.
- [43:54]
B
I scrolled up and I saw one for a question here from.
- [44:00]
I'm not sure how to exactly pronounce that. What advice do you have for people that say, I know I need a newsletter, but I'm terrified of starting. What if I run out of things to write and I disappoint myself and others?
- [44:07]
A
I know I need a newsletter. Okay. Yeah, I would just. My best advice for this one. If you have an idea of something you want to write about, I'm going to hide this. This is huge on the screen.
- [44:17]
B
It's really big.
- [44:18]
A
If you have an idea of what you want to write about, just make a list of, like, try and come up with 30 ideas, 30 topics that you could potentially write about. Make that list. Just like, brain dump them into a Google sheet or whatever. If you can't come up with 30, I would say it's probably not the right idea. However, once you start writing, you're going to naturally come up with more ideas. I know it sounds crazy, but as you start writing one piece, you're gonna be like, oh, yeah, that whole other topic. And then you can add that to the list. And over time, you're just gonna have, like, unlimited ideas to be able to write about. So I wouldn't worry too much about running out of ideas. But there is something to be said about strategizing in the beginning and being like, okay, do I have enough content to potentially keep going? Starting is horribly scary. When I first started Growth in Reverse, I don't even think I told my wife. I think I published the first one. And then I was like, hey, by the way, same doing this thing because I naturally have so many hobbies, and so I get nervous to, like, share something because she's like, oh, another one of these that you're with for three weeks. And then so you don't have to tell anyone. You could just, you know, write it on your own. I started posting on Twitter, but I didn't know a ton of people on Twitter, so it was kind of like me hiding from others in the Internet. Yeah, that.
- [45:35]
B
That reminds me of what Millie Tamati shared with us, where she's like, I. I can post on TikTok so freely because I don't even, like, know anybody there. And it's just like a playground. Like, it's a bunch. It's a sea of, like, random people. So I can experiment there. I don't worry about looking like an idiot, because people just are. They don't. They don't judge you. They just, like, if they're not interested, they swipe. Like. It's not this thing where people are, like, being harsh and critical and judgy. And most people our age are not spending as much time there necessarily. So. So that's kind of the approach you could take with it of, if you're posting on LinkedIn, that's one thing, because you very well may have some colleagues there or people you know in real life. So I totally understand that. But if there's a social platform that you feel like you can experiment, like Substack, for example, that's. That's a. Both a newsletter platform and a social platform where you can start experimenting there and publishing stuff and see if any of it gains traction.
- [46:30]
A
And.
- [46:30]
B
And one other thing just to wrap up my thought on this is use social media as like a. A feedback loop and a. A rapid feedback loop. Right. If there's something that you kind of are interested in, you want to write about and see if anybody else wants to hear your thoughts on it, start publishing and writing about it and see what traction it gets if any. Or use the signal, the questions that people are asking you and that, like Chanel said, the more you write, the more ideas will come to you naturally. And also from maybe comments people make or questions people have or other people you follow in the space. All of a sudden the algorithm is showing them up in your. In your feed, and maybe you get some ideas based on what they're writing about. So starting is scary, but as soon as you do it, you'll be like, man, I wish I didn't wait so long to start.
- [47:12]
A
Totally. I kind of wanted to answer this question somebody had about how to. How I snooze emails.
- [47:19]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [47:20]
A
Do you remember this question?
- [47:21]
B
Yep.
- [47:21]
A
So take a break or whatever. Yeah, I was trying to pull up an email. I guess I could just do it in kit.
- [47:27]
B
You're gonna screen. Are we gonna share a screen on our first live stream? This could go.
- [47:31]
A
I'm gonna try.
- [47:32]
B
This could go horribly wrong.
- [47:33]
A
What do you think?
- [47:33]
B
Do it.
- [47:34]
A
This could go really wrong.
- [47:37]
So fun. Try not to share my Gmail screen. Okay. All right, so at the bottom.
- [47:43]
B
Can't see anything yet.
- [47:44]
A
Wait. Okay, so this is one of the community emails that we send out. And so at the bottom, you can do something like, oh, wait, this isn't the right one.
- [47:54]
B
Oh, no.
- [47:55]
A
But anyway, so at the. At the bottom of my emails, it'll say, like, do you want to skip, like, snooze these emails for 30 days? And so you can click here and to snooze the email. And so essentially what I do is I send them over to this form. And so because naturally, like, inherently, people are going to have too many emails, especially during a Black Friday week or holiday week or maybe it's the last week of December and people are just like, I am checked out. I do not want to get more emails. So I set up this landing page where people can go and they can enter their email address and it will automatically snooze them from getting any of my emails for the next 30 days. So how that works is I have this automation set up. So essentially, if they submit that form, I know this says clicked, but that's just because I named the tag clicked. They submit the form, it'll go to this. So is this the rule that I have? I don't know. I don't know what's what. Try not to show email addresses. Yeah, if somebody submits that form, they get added here and then it snoozes them for 30 days.
- [49:02]
B
It's just a tag. That's Applied.
- [49:03]
A
Right, right. It's just a tag that's applied essentially skip emails. And so when I go to send my broadcast, I will exclude those people. And Then so after 30 days, this removes the tag.
- [49:13]
B
And the nice thing with that is you can just keep that filter on for every send. Right. And it'll just automatically snooze it for the people that want it. And when the 30 days up, they get it again.
- [49:23]
A
Exactly. So I actually found this through a newsletter called Sigma. Actually, I can just show this. So this is kind of what the, the growth vault looks like over here.
- [49:32]
B
And Growth pro the whole community. Yeah.
- [49:35]
A
Um, so this is the one that I was looking at. So I record these videos and I'll just showcase like, hey, I found this from this newsletter. And so they actually were where I found this. I kind of walk through how I found it, give you the automation template that you could plug in if you're using kit. It shows you the page you're taken to after you submit the form and all of this stuff. And so this is kind of, oh, I gotta fix that. But so I have like a bunch of these in here that just kind of showcase like how you can optimize, retain your subscribers, monetize, better grow all that stuff.
- [50:09]
B
This is a shameless plug for the growth Vault, by the way. Just so anybody, it's totally a shameless plug.
- [50:14]
A
I'm horrible at these and Dylan always yells at me, so I figured I would do that.
- [50:18]
B
Good for you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Well, we got, we got a few minutes left. I. I had one question here that I thought was a good one about lead magnets. One, how do you feel about lead magnets? So that's first and then the second part of that question is what is your favorite lead magnet format you enjoy the most? Personally enjoy the most. Now my. There's. That could be you enjoy receiving and consuming or enjoy creating. So let's answer those three questions as quick as we can.
- [50:42]
A
Okay, so what's.
- [50:43]
B
So how do you. How do you feel about. How do you feel about lead magnets for one to grow newsletter?
- [50:47]
A
Okay, I love lead magnets. However, they must be extremely related to the topic you're typically sending. So if you are sending a deep dive about growth levers, don't give a lead magnet about like how I'm handling the books for my business, like the finances. Like that's totally unrelated from what people are going to get. It might be interesting to them for a lead magnet, but they're not actually going to enjoy your typical newsletter. So they're going to unsubscribe fast, which is why I don't like those kinds of lead magnets. But a lead magnet can do wonders for growing a newsletter. It just has to be super related to the topic you always talk about.
- [51:23]
B
Yeah, fully agree. Okay, so what is your favorite lead magnet format that you enjoy the most consuming like ones you find yourself like downloading a lead magnet or getting access to it and actually using I like.
- [51:39]
A
Like a workshop recording of something that's actually very valuable or it solves a.
- [51:44]
B
Specific problem problem essentially. Yeah. Or an email course.
- [51:48]
A
Email course. Email course is my favorite as a creator. Um, I want to create one of these for myself. Haven't done it yet, but we'll do. Um, but for creators, I think an email course is probably the highest impact thing you can do. Just because you're teaching people to open your emails and it's getting sent every day. Typically you're like, if it's a seven day email course for the next seven days they're going to get an email from you. They're going to learn to open the email, they're going to learn to take action from that email. And so I think that is just like setting the relationship between you and your subscriber off on the best foot possible.
- [52:19]
B
Yes, I agree. There's. There's one other lead magnet that's kind of popped up in the last year. Ish or type of lead Magnet and that's AI bot lead magnets. So GPT. Yeah, GPTs, exactly. That's the right word. You've created a few for the community. Like, and I think in the growth vault, if I'm not mistaken, there's the. Is the Hook Helper in there?
- [52:40]
A
It's not, but I will put it in there.
- [52:42]
B
So Chanel created this great custom GPT with ChatGPT called Hook Helper. And so the premise of this is you put in a LinkedIn post.
- [52:51]
A
Such a unique name that has.
- [52:52]
B
Yeah, it's. Hey, it works. But um, it's clear, right? You put in a LinkedIn post that didn't perform with you or perform very well for you. Or maybe you have a draft of a LinkedIn post you want to post, but you want to make sure that people actually click on it and read it, engage with it. So you plug it into Chanel's Hook Helper and it will give you some different iterations of how you could craft a hook for that post. So it's not writing the whole post. For you, but it's just giving you some ideas that you could use maybe to at least get people's attention or you could modify them, what have you. And I've found it very useful to like, not necessarily just always copy and paste the answer, but think about my post from a different angle and usually if it doesn't, you know, surface a great hook that I can essentially copy and paste, I will come up with one on my own based on what it's. It's presented to me. So Hook Helper is really cool. So that's one example of how you could use. Chanel could use that as a lead magnet if she wanted to. It's somewhat relevant to her content. Maybe not directly relevant, but you've got another custom GPT you created recently about landing pages and how to make those convert better. So that might be a better lead magnet for you to use. But yeah, these GPTs are, are pretty wild and very functional and tactical if they're built properly. And I think there's a just gonna be a whole new opportunity for creators to use those to grow their email lists.
- [54:13]
A
Yeah, I agree. Caitlin Burgoyne is someone who does this really, really well. Uh, and so if you don't know Caitlin, go to learn learn why we buy.
- [54:22]
B
Com.
- [54:22]
A
Her newsletter's amazing. Such good stuff. I was trying to find this other question. Are you done with that question? I know we're at the time, but done with the person. You're done. Okay, this one. Okay. Anyway, a service based business, landscaping, house cleaning, etc with local customers, sees value in a newsletter but doesn't want to compete with events media. How would you do it? Okay, so I would say. Is there. Oh, did I hide it too?
- [54:49]
B
Yeah, you did.
- [54:50]
A
Sorry.
- [54:50]
B
There we go.
- [54:51]
A
Okay, so if you're, if you have a service business like landscaping, house cleaning, you have local customers, I think I would follow kind of like what? You know, there's this guy named Matt giovanesi, he has swimuniversity.com now he doesn't sell locally, but I think the content play that he does and like how he presents his content is so good. And I think that a local business could do something similar. I actually recently we had wasps in our basement. This is so random. I'm going to tell you the story because I think it's so on point. Okay. So we had wasps in our basement and I was like, I, there has to be a nest. We were getting like eight or nine a day. And so I was like looking around the basement, I'm like, where Would this nest be. So I went on YouTube and I searched how to find wasp nest in basement or something and a video came up from this guy and it was super professional. He was walking through this stuff and I was like, man, I wish I could hire them. I bet these people are so far away. Wouldn't you know that YouTube showed me a video from someone literally in my area and I hired that company based on that YouTube video. And so I think just the targeting that YouTube's coming up with. I know it's not a newsletter, but similar kinds of vibes here. I think, I think there is something to be said about creating content that is just helpful for everyone even if they're not going to be using you personally.
- [56:10]
B
Yeah, I, I think that is very valuable and you know, your experience is proof that that can work. I think back to. In terms of local, like Matt or not Matt, Ryan Sneddon from.
- [56:24]
Naptown Scoop. Thank you from. He runs a local newsletter for the town of Annapolis, Maryland. And it's a town of like 40, 45,000 people. And he's got almost half of them on his newsletter. And his goal was not to necessarily run a media business with this local newsletter, but really to actually use it as a marketing tool to promote businesses that he has stake in or that he maybe owns. So he's bought like a luxury toilet rental, if for lack of a better term, which people, people rent for weddings, for events. Right. To have like a restroom on site that isn't just like an outhouse, which is gross. So he's bought, you know, companies like that that he promotes in this local newsletter. And of course it's a local business. So the audience is, is perfect. Right. So what you could do with a service based business is you could not just start up a business or a newsletter for your business, but you could start up a service business for the town and you can promote your businesses and you can promote a whole bunch of other businesses. It doesn't just have to be, oh, here's our, you know, here's five tips to, you know, taking care of your lawn this fall. It doesn't have to be that. It can be for sure, you can have that kind of content. But really what I would lean into is the one newsletter that people would want to subscribe to in your area that's, that's going to help them deal with, you know, maybe floods in their home or they need a new roof or like there's, there's just a whole swath of businesses that probably would want to be in there. And you can also promote your own content too, in that. So that could be an angle. You go lots of really different ways you can go. But I think it's worth probably competing, if you will, with the events media. I'm not sure exactly what that means.
- [57:56]
A
There's a guy in Orlando or something too, and he's built this incredible business. He was. He's a real estate agent.
- [58:03]
B
Okay.
- [58:03]
A
But he didn't. He wasn't gonna like tell people he's a real estate agent up front. He just has this huge Instagram following. I think he has an email list off the back of it. I really hope he does. And he's been able to just explode his business because people see him for like the local content, but he's actually a real estate agent helping people. I know that's different, but the same idea.
- [58:22]
B
I mean, you could. Sorry, yeah, yeah, I cut you off.
- [58:25]
A
No, I was just going to say that I think the local newsletter angle is a. Is a great one.
- [58:28]
B
I. Yeah, I've. I've thought about this too, and I don't have the capacity to run a local newsletter, but our town is about the same size as Annapolis. Like 40,000 people here. And I just see the opportunity for a local newsletter and a local realtor or local business to like, position. Then, you know, create it, curate it, write it, publish it, even bring in a few sponsors. But really this could be like their marketing tool.
- [58:53]
For their realty realtor business. Right. So I don't know. I think, I think there's a mindset shift maybe that should be made with these kind of businesses. And there's a huge opportunity for. I mean, I still get a local newspaper. Like, it's like, literally it's right here, but it is full of like, ads, right? Like, that's all it is, is ads. There's like a few articles. So reach out if you want to start a local newsletter. I'm going on a tangent here, but if you want to do that, you could just reach out to the people that are advertising in these newsletters and grow your newsletter fast with. With paid ads if you wanted to. Because, you know, the local targeting and that sort of thing, I just, I don't know, I think there's so much you could do with it and you just gotta experiment and think a little bit differently maybe.
- [59:35]
A
Totally.
- [59:36]
B
Oh, dj. Yes, local newsletters. Sorry, buddy.
- [59:38]
A
Yeah. Oh, that's great. Any other questions we wanted to talk through?
- [59:44]
B
That's all I'm seeing that I've seen in the chat oh, somebody says they still use the hook helper after the 30 challenge. That's awesome. Not sure who. Laos 7 is fun. That's great.
- [59:55]
How tough is a music discovery niche to build a newsletter around?
- [59:59]
A
FOMI 2001 Music Discovery Niche?
- [60:03]
B
I think that's tough personally, because music is so personal and so, I don't know. Subjective.
- [60:11]
A
Yeah. But I feel like there's those people who. And I'm not one of these people. I'm like, let's listen to some 90s or like, old school stuff. And that's my go to typically. But I feel like there are audio files who will actually seek out new music. So they'll like, go into like the depths of Spotify and look for, like, people who only have like 100 followers and they're like, discover these new artists. So I actually kind of wonder. I feel like you could do this, but it would have to be for that very, very, very specific person, which is a good thing. Like, niches aren'. That's a good thing. You just have to make it explicitly clear that it's not for, like, me or Dylan, you know? Yeah, it's a very type. Specific type of person.
- [60:51]
B
Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think it would be. It would be. I see that as being a very hard nut to crack. Like, where do you promote it? Who do you. Yeah, it could be really tough. For a while I was posting like playlists that I was putting together in my newsletter just for fun, because I do love music and I'm kind of like one of those people like you mentioned Chanel, who likes finding sort of the random artist, but not everybody likes that. And. Yeah, and so I just kind of stopped putting that in there. But I think it's still. It's still something. Like we talked earlier about finding your passion and writing about that. And you never know. Right. Something what you think might just be something you enjoy. You could all of a sudden look at having 10,000 subscribers in a few years. If you do it right and you do it well, you never know. So I don't want to say not to try. I think. I think if you love it, you should try it. Just no, no end to throw in the towel if you're not loving it anymore, if it's just not getting. Getting the traction that you thought it would.
- [61:46]
A
Yeah. But on the other side of things, there is a newsletter all about 90s culture and stuff that I'm like, I'm here for this because this is like my stuff. Yeah. So, yes, it's a very specific niche.
- [61:58]
B
But yeah, I mean, there's a whole decade of people born in that. No, sorry. A decade worth of, you know, people born and growing up in that era that relate to it. So stuff works too. Alrighty. I think. Should we wrap there?
- [62:14]
A
Yeah, let's do it.
- [62:15]
B
Okay.
- [62:16]
A
We didn't discuss the wrap, did we? Or did we? And I'm missing it. Okay.
- [62:19]
B
No, I thought for a second you were just gonna go over to the end stream. No, we gotta say bye to everyone.
- [62:25]
A
No, no, no. I was gonna panic again. You have 20 more minutes to use that coupon code. The code is live.
- [62:32]
B
Okay.
- [62:33]
A
If you want to buy the Growth Vault, you'll get 50. Not 50 off. $50 off, which is kind of like 25 off, I think.
- [62:42]
Yeah. So you can use that for the next 20 minutes if you want to.
- [62:44]
B
Jump past the hour.
- [62:45]
A
The good stuff, half past the Very cool. But yeah, this is fun. I think we'll have to do this again.
- [62:50]
B
Yes, yes. And we will post this on the feed. Tj, don't worry, we're going to put this live. Um, it'll. It'll be live as soon as I think we're done. I'm not honestly not sure how YouTube lives work.
- [63:02]
A
Um, well, this'll be live on YouTube as soon as we're done. Um, but we will post it on the podcast feed, I think next Wednesday.
- [63:08]
B
Yeah, it's going out.
- [63:09]
A
Or does it.
- [63:09]
B
It'll go out to audio next Wednesday. But if you want to rewatch it or re. Listen to it on YouTube, you can do that. As soon as this is mostly basically over, you'll be able to watch it. The whole thing. Yeah, the awkward exit. That's right. I hope you're here for it.
- [63:23]
A
This is like my M.O. is the awkward exit.
- [63:26]
B
Exactly.
- [63:26]
A
That's it. Yeah. No, but this is actually our last episode of the year.
- [63:33]
So we will actually be back in January. Ish. With some new episodes. So.
- [63:40]
B
Yeah, we're going to do. We're going to do that thing that we talked about earlier about planning during December. Yes. So.
- [63:47]
A
And avoiding burnout.
- [63:49]
B
Yes, yeah, exactly.
- [63:50]
A
Now, this isn't causing burnout, but yeah, it's good to take a break.
- [63:53]
B
No, but we're drinking our own.
- [63:54]
A
Good luck to the Bears. Yes, thank you.
- [63:57]
B
Good luck to the Bears.
- [63:58]
A
This will be crazy if we win this. I will be shocked.
- [64:01]
B
There was a poll just to end on this note. There was a poll in a newsletter I read, fantasy football poll saying which is the fake team right now in the NFL. And the Bears were. Were second the Jaguars were first.
- [64:12]
A
Okay, we were.
- [64:13]
B
We didn't win. Jaguars at 7 4, the fakest 7 and 4 record out there. The Bears are second with their fakest record at 8 and 3. But, I mean, you got to give them props. They've won eight games, so that's crazy.
- [64:24]
A
Crazy. Anyway, well, go Bears. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. If you haven't already had Thanksgiving a month and a half ago, I'm gonna.
- [64:32]
B
Go with pecan pie. So that's what I'm gonna do next.
- [64:35]
A
Yeah, do it. You'll have to post about how it was.
- [64:38]
B
I will, if I can find any.
- [64:40]
A
Well, thanks, everybody. If you enjoyed this, please subscribe to the YouTube channel so that when we come back in January, you'll start seeing these again. And, yeah, I guess we'll. We'll see you then.
- [64:49]
B
It's a podcast.