Steal These 5 Newsletter Growth Levers You Can Start Today

Summary

Growth In Reverse Podcast: Episode Summary

Title: Steal These 5 Newsletter Growth Levers You Can Start Today
Hosts: Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop
Release Date: April 30, 2025

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of the Growth In Reverse podcast, hosts Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop delve deep into actionable strategies to accelerate newsletter growth. Drawing from Chenell's extensive "30 Days of Growth" email series, the duo explores five potent growth levers employed by top newsletter creators to amass substantial subscriber bases. This episode is a must-listen for anyone aiming to transform their newsletter into a thriving, profitable venture.

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1. Chenell's "30 Days of Growth" Email Series

Chenell introduces her experimental "30 Days of Growth" email series, a daily dispatches initiative designed to explore and implement various newsletter growth strategies. The series was birthed out of a desire for rapid data collection and real-time feedback, diverging from their existing slower-paced 45-day cross-promotion challenge within the Growth In Reverse Pro community.

• Notable Quote:
  [01:16] Chenell: "30 Days of Growth is essentially a 30-day email series where every day you get one actionable way that you can either grow or optimize your email list."

This series not only shares proven tactics but also repurposes content from previous deep dives, ensuring that subscribers receive both fresh and refined strategies. The initiative has garnered positive feedback, prompting Chenell and Dylan to discuss its effectiveness and share specific examples from the series.

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2. The Four-Hour Email Strategy by Jason Resnick

The first growth lever discussed is the "Four-Hour Email" strategy, pioneered by Jason Resnick, the mastermind behind Nurture Kit. This tactic involves sending a follow-up email four hours after the initial welcome message to re-engage subscribers who might have overlooked the lead magnet.

• Implementation Details:
  Upon subscribing, a reader receives a welcome email containing a lead magnet or freebie. If the subscriber doesn't interact with this email within four hours, Resnick sends a reminder email to ensure the lead magnet doesn't get lost in the inbox.

• Impact:
  This simple yet effective strategy boosted Resnick’s five-star engaged subscribers from 48% to an impressive 67%, marking a 40% increase in engagement.

• Notable Quotes:
  [07:57] Dylan: "That's just the nice nudge and that reminder to get them in."
  [10:10] Chanel: "And I get that number is now at $1.2 million from a Google Doc."

Chenell shares her own experience implementing this strategy, noting a 75% open rate and over 50% click-through rate from a sample of 20 subscribers who received the follow-up email. Despite the small sample size, the results are promising when scaled.

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3. Leveraging Social Proof à la Eddie Schlanger

Eddie Schlanger’s approach to incorporating social proof on landing pages is spotlighted as the second growth lever. As the curator of the Very Good Copy newsletter, Schlanger employs an abundance of testimonials and endorsements to build credibility and encourage subscriptions.

• Key Elements of Schlanger’s Strategy:

  • Company Logos: Displaying logos of reputable companies like HubSpot to establish authority.
  • Industry Experts: Featuring testimonials from well-known marketers and authors.
  • Reader Feedback: Showcasing genuine feedback from everyday subscribers who have benefited from the newsletter.

• Results:
  Schlanger’s landing page is adorned with multiple layers of social proof, contributing to an increase in subscriber trust and conversions. His transparent approach, including the mention of “Founded in 2014,” further solidifies his authority in the space.

• Notable Quotes:
  [13:03] Chanel: "He’s removing any question or doubt of, like, whether his newsletter is effective and helpful."
  [17:20] Dylan: "And the numbers speak for themselves too, because on that landing page, he even has joined some 80,000 email subscribers."

Implementation Tips:
Chenell recommends using tools like Senja to efficiently collect and manage social proof. Alternatively, creating a Google Doc to compile testimonials manually is a viable, cost-free option.

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4. Tom Orbach’s Free Marketing Idea Exchange

Tom Orbach’s innovative approach on Substack and LinkedIn serves as the fourth growth lever. As the head of marketing at Wiz and a member of the Growth In Reverse Pro community, Orbach offers free marketing ideas in exchange for engagement, subtly driving newsletter subscriptions.

• Strategy Breakdown:

  • Substack & LinkedIn Posts: Orbach invites followers to "Come at your startup" queries, promising to reply with personalized marketing ideas.
  • Value Addition: He provides multiple actionable insights per query, showcasing his expertise and fostering trust.
  • Call to Action: Each response concludes with a soft invite to subscribe to his newsletter for more insights.

• Results:
  This method has yielded substantial subscriber growth, with Orbach reportedly gaining over 650 subscribers from a single event across both platforms.

• Notable Quote:
  [20:01] Dylan: "Sharing your knowledge, showing that you know what you're talking about essentially and then genuinely asking people to subscribe."

Best Practices:
Orbach's strategy highlights the power of reciprocity—by offering valuable free content, subscribers feel inclined to return the favor by subscribing. Additionally, leveraging existing platforms ensures broader reach and engagement.

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5. Ollie Richards’ Comprehensive Google Doc Lead Magnet

Ollie Richards demonstrates the efficacy of an extensive, un-gated lead magnet, using a detailed 118-page Google Doc to attract and convert subscribers.

• Strategy Highlights:

  • Depth of Content: Richards’ document outlines his journey to $10 million in revenue as a solo entrepreneur, providing in-depth insights and actionable strategies.
  • Accessibility: Unlike typical gated lead magnets, this Google Doc is freely accessible, encouraging sharing without barriers.
  • Continuous Growth: Initially generating $175,000 in revenue, the lead magnet has since scaled to $1.2 million, showcasing its long-term viability.

• Results:
  The thoroughness of the Google Doc has attracted a highly engaged audience, increasing Richards’ subscriber count from 12,000 to 18,500. More importantly, the quality of subscribers translates to higher revenue despite a modest list size.

• Notable Quotes:
  [27:58] Chanel: "I saw it in almost every newsletter she opened at one point."

Why It Works:
Richards’ approach underscores that quality trumps quantity. A small, engaged list can drive substantial revenue, especially when subscribers find immense value in the content provided.

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6. Amy Nelson’s Speaking Circuit Strategy

Amy Nelson’s collaborative approach to virtual events emerges as the fifth growth lever. Through strategic partnerships and webinars, Nelson effectively expands her subscriber base by tapping into complementary audiences.

• Strategy Components:

  • Joint Events: Partnering with complementary brands to co-host virtual events or webinars.
  • Mutual Promotion: Both parties promote the event to their respective audiences, maximizing reach.
  • Value-Driven Content: Offering specific freebies tied to the event’s topic to incentivize sign-ups.
  • Content Repurposing: Utilizing event recordings and insights to create additional content for newsletters and social media.

• Impact:
  Each event can drive up to 1,000 new subscribers, with scalability as the framework becomes more streamlined.

• Notable Quotes:
  [33:21] Dylan: "Once you've got that, you kind of have a bit of playbook or a blueprint of how to do it again and reach out to other brands and show the success of the first one."

Advantages:
This strategy not only increases subscribers but also enhances brand authority and fosters mutual growth through collaborative efforts. Additionally, live interactions elevate the trust factor, making subscribers more likely to remain engaged.

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Conclusion

Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop encapsulate a wealth of knowledge in this episode, presenting five actionable growth levers that can be implemented immediately to propel newsletter growth. From strategic follow-up emails and leveraging social proof to innovative content sharing and collaborative events, these strategies cater to diverse newsletter niches and objectives. By adopting these tactics, creators can enhance both their subscriber count and engagement levels, ultimately transforming their newsletters into profitable businesses.

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Final Thoughts and Takeaways

• Retention is Vital: As highlighted through the four-hour email strategy, retaining existing subscribers is as crucial as acquiring new ones. Engaged subscribers are the backbone of a successful newsletter.

• Social Proof Builds Trust: Implementing robust social proof mechanisms can significantly boost subscriber conversions by showcasing credibility and authority.

• Reciprocity Drives Subscription: Offering free, valuable content fosters a sense of obligation among potential subscribers, encouraging them to join and stay engaged.

• Quality Over Quantity: A highly engaged, smaller subscriber list can often yield better revenue results than a large, passive audience.

• Collaborative Growth: Partnering with complementary brands or creators through events or joint initiatives can exponentially increase reach and subscriber acquisition.

By integrating these growth levers, newsletter creators can navigate the competitive landscape with enhanced strategies, ensuring sustained growth and profitability.

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Remember: To access more insights and join the "30 Days of Growth" email series, visit growthinreverse.com or check the show notes for direct links.

Transcript

[Chanel]

I texted Dylan. I was like, is this crazy? And you were like, yes, but do it. I was like, okay.

[Dylan]

We haven't really talked about this growth lever. In some ways, it's kind of an unsexy growth lever. It is super effective.

[Chanel]

You're saving that subscriber. They might not have ever opened another email from you if they didn't see.

[Dylan]

That it's clearly worked well for her with, you know, one event driving a thousand subscribers. That's not too shabby at all.

[Chanel]

He said that number is now at $1.2 million a Google Doc. All right, welcome back to the Growth in Reverse podcast. I'm Chanel.

[Dylan]

And I'm Dylan.

[Chanel]

And today we're going to kind of talk through some of the fun growth levers we've been finding or sharing, I should say, through the 30 days of growth email popup series that I created. We're on about day eight at this point, and it's been, it's been going really well, like getting a ton of great feedback on these. And so I just thought it would be fun to kind of like walk through some of the ones we've already shared, in case you missed them, give a little bit more context, um, and just kind of talk through how exciting they are and maybe some results we're seeing on testing them out ourselves. So I love it.

[Dylan]

Chanel, I got a question though, for people who don't know what 30 days of growth is. Can you give it a, A quick summary softball question?

[Chanel]

Dylan, thank you. 30 Days of Growth is essentially a 30 day email series where every, you get one actionable way that you can either grow or optimize your email list. Uh, so these are things I reached out to 30 separate creators, which was an undertaking for sure. Um, but they all shared something that's helped them either, like I said, grow or optimize their email list and newsletter. Um, and a lot of these are things you can implement within like an hour or two, which is super fun. I think that, like, it's just helping people improve their, their work. So if you're not signed up yet, you can go to 30 days of growth code, uh, or the link will be in the show notes as well. But yeah, it's, it's awesome. It's free, totally free. It's just a daily newsletter. You can also set up a weekly option so that you don't have to get a daily email if that's not your thing. How's that sound? Good.

[Dylan]

I think that sounds great. So maybe your inspiration as well behind why you started 30 days of growth when you very clearly have a lot of stuff on the go. I think you're prepping for another, like, talk at a newsletter conference too. And you're running a community and a newsletter. So why this?

[Chanel]

Yeah, so we are doing a 45 day challenge inside the growth and reverse pro community, all about cross promotions and collaborations. And typically with a cross promo, you're doing one a week. So you send out one email a week in your newsletter and you're sharing one other person's newsletter and they're doing the same for you. So it's, it's good. But for me, it just felt super slow for this challenge and I wanted to get like more data and understand like how these work, how to do them better. Just get like real time feedback, if you will. So I was like, what better way to do that than a daily newsletter? So I had the idea for this like two and a half weeks ago and I texted Dylan. I was like, is this crazy? And you were like, yes, but do it. I was like, okay.

[Dylan]

So yeah, why not, why not do a daily newsletter? And I like how you're calling it a pop up newsletter as well. Because it's just like it's here for now.

[Chanel]

Yeah.

[Dylan]

Kind of low commitment because it's only 30 days, but at the same time it's like 30 days of awesome tactics. So people can like get all 30 days and read them daily or they can just binge them. I think they're live on your website, except you have to actually subscribe to read them. So they're kind of gated, which is another interesting aspect to this. So another kind of growth lever in and of itself. So I think this is a really cool, really cool experiment.

[Chanel]

Thanks. Yeah, And I think it's fun. People have actually been like secretly messaging me and being like, I love your deep dives, but they're so long. But I'm so excited about these because they're like quick to read and quick to implement. So. So no hard feelings if you don't get through all the deep dives I write. I know they're lengthy and beast like, so hopefully the shorter format is, is nice. It's a nice change.

[Dylan]

And I think we should call it too that maybe half ish of these, maybe not quite half are growth levers that you've pulled from previous deep dives as well. Right. So they're kind of like taking maybe one growth lever you found super interesting or that works really well for that creator that again is more replicable and tactical. For a listener or, or a reader to use and you're kind of like resurfacing those. So I like that you're kind of highlighting that content. You're repurposing existing content, which I think we could all do more of because we all have tons of content and always feel the, feel like we're compelled to always create new stuff when really our old stuff can sometimes shine. So you're taking advantage of that. So I think it's, I think it's great. And yeah. Excited for the short, these short nuggets to hit inboxes daily.

[Chanel]

Yeah, yeah. And hit podcast inboxes daily. So I'm even crazier and decided why not do a pop up podcast to go alongside this. So if you join 30 Days of Growth and refer one other person, you get automatic access to the private podcast feed. Um, so if you enjoy, you know, this format, you can get like 5 to 10 minute episodes each day as well. So that's fun. Um, and you also get entered to win some cool prizes. So I reached out to Brennan Dunn of Right Message and Ali from Senja and they're both giving away five annual licenses for software. So people, if you enter to win, you. Well, you sign up, you enter, you get one entry. Um, and then if you share, you get extra entries to win. So I'm, I'm also throwing in a couple of newsletter audits too. So just free prize.

[Dylan]

So more than more than 10 winners, 10 plus winners will be chosen for one of these prizes, right?

[Chanel]

Yep.

[Dylan]

So, so that's really cool. More than 10 prizes to be, to be won. I have started sharing, but I'm probably not in the running to win any of, but I think it's fun. Anyway, so you signed up, you're in the running.

[Chanel]

Although.

[Dylan]

Exactly.

[Chanel]

If you win, I don't know, probably.

[Dylan]

Probably not a good look.

[Chanel]

So might have to repull that name if you do win. Sorry, Dylan.

[Dylan]

Yeah, no, it's all good. Well, why don't we dive into these. We're gonna what, we're gonna go through about five or so of some of the growth levers that you've already been sharing in the first seven or eight days of the 30 days of growth. And, and so if you have already received these, I mean, stick around for your listening pleasure if you want to hear us kind of drone on about them. But if you haven't, this is kind of a snippet of what people are getting in their inboxes every day. So I think we're going to go through Five or six, like I said, and just share some of our kind of favorites or ones that we think are super interesting that seem to work really well.

[Chanel]

So the first one I want to share was actually the first one I sent out with Jason Resnick. He runs a newsletter and business called Nurture Kit. So he's like a kit, aka ConvertKit Expert. Shares a ton of great behind the scenes, like technical and tactical tips. And I remember him talking about this four hour email months ago. And I was like, it just stuck with me. Although I never implemented it, so that, what does that say about me? But it stuck with me. So I reached out to him. He was one of the first ones I actually reached out to because it just felt like this is the kind of content I want to be sharing. So what Jason does is he, he gets his new readers way more engaged than just like sending a single welcome email. So he'll send a welcome email and he typically has a lead magnet or a freebie inside of that email. Um, and so if you click on that link, that's great, you got your lead magnet, et cetera. Um, but if you don't click on that link, four hours later he sends you another email that says like, hey, just a reminder, like, I wanted to make sure you got this link. Here's the freebie. Sometimes they get lost in your inbox kind of thing. And he said his five star engaged subscribers went from 48% to 67% from doing this one tactic that might not sound like a lot when you're listening, but that's 40% difference. Like 40% increase. Like, that's insane. Of like how many people are now more engaged with his newsletter than they were before sending that four hour email.

[Dylan]

And it's so simple too. Like, it's just like a. This is why, you know, I love this growth lever that it's like super tactical. Basically anybody who has any bit of automation in their ESP can do this. Who's. Who's sending out a welcome email that maybe includes a freebie or a lead magnet? I guess if you, you're sending it in a welcome email, it's not necessarily a lead magnet. But even if you have a lead magnet, this is a really great way because I'm sure you're guilty of this as well. I've signed up for many lead magnets and then just never downloaded them. They're sitting in my inbox because I just never clicked through. So this is just that nice nudge and that reminder to, to get them in. And when you Mentioned Jason was in the Growth Reverse Pro community a few months back talking about this. I think that day I was like, oh, I gotta. Or that day or that week at least I implemented it. And it's been, it's been interesting to see. It's. It was on a lead magnet. I don't promote super often. Um, but the four hour email got sent to 20 people and 75% of them opened it and over half of them clicked also on the link. So those are small numbers. I totally get that. But that just shows that you extrapolate that over a larger sample size. Maybe those numbers go down a bit, but that's still about 50% of people who didn't originally get the. Didn't originally click on that link in the first email that did click through. So it's just kind of like, I don't know, capturing a wider net and just covering all your bases to use every cliche out there to make sure that you get the. These subscribers, what they've signed up for and engaged and nurtured in your. With your newsletter.

[Chanel]

Totally. I think this is like, even if you got one extra person that's worth it because you're, you're saving that subscriber, they might not have ever opened another email from you if they didn't see that. Because then they'll get the second email and be like, who's this guy? I don't remember him at all. But now they're like, oh yeah, he sent me this cool thing. No, I think that's a great, great tool. I actually. So like a minute after I sent this email yesterday, I was cracking up because I got a reply from Jay Clouse and he just said, this series is going to crush, exclamation point. I was like, awesome. Because he loves this one. And so it was just like, just validation of like, okay. Yep, this is, this is something people are really excited about.

[Dylan]

Yeah. And it's. This isn't a traditional growth lever, so to speak. But I think one thing that we don't talk about when we talk about growth is retention. And this is just like a really strong retention play because the more people you retain, in some ways, the less you have to grow, the more churn you have with your subscribers and unsubscribes, the more you have to focus on growing. Right. So I think retention is a really important aspect of growth. Even though it sounds kind of counterintuitive and just nurturing your subscribers, getting them engaged with that second just gentle nudge is a really easy way to Kind of do that. And I think there's one other benefit to this too. Um, if you want to share that, like what Jason also includes in that four hour email. Um, I think he has a question or something like that.

[Chanel]

Oh yeah. So he'll say, hey, just checking, did you get the download? Okay? And then he'll end the the email saying like, what are you hoping to learn from this? Like, why did you initially sign up? So it's almost like re asking that question to get people to reply. And getting those replies is like just an extra boost to show that these people actually wanted your emails. Gmail will probably start showing them in the inbox more often. Um, it's just you're hitting on, on, on multiple angles and I think you bringing up the retention piece, it can't be stated enough. Like you could get a hundred subscribers, but if only 10 of them read your second email, like that's not a great number. Whereas if you only got 50 new subscribers but 25, like 25 of them read the second email, it's like a huge increase. You're not having to work as hard to keep those people.

[Dylan]

Yeah.

[Chanel]

Which is nice.

[Dylan]

Yeah, exactly. And one other great thing too with that reply piece is that yes, it's a good signal for the email client and inbox and all that stuff, but it's also like a data point that you can use. Who knows if it sparks a new content idea or you can support that person by answering their question. If it's a simple, if it's a simple thing, you're just going to be like a superhero in their minds if you reply and give them a quick win or an answer they've been searching for. So I just think it's a really great touch point as well. And you wouldn't be able to do that. I mean, yes, you can include it in your initial email, but why not also include that in the four hour email just as a kind of follow, follow up.

[Chanel]

I really love this one. I'm gonna have to implement this here soon.

[Dylan]

Which one do you wanna do you wanna go through these like in order of we, how we sent them or should we just kind of bounce around?

[Chanel]

Let's bounce around. Your next favorite one that you're excited about.

[Dylan]

Okay, so where to start? Let's go to. I think this, I think something sort of other end of the spectrum is Eddie Schlanger. We've had Eddie actually on the podcast and you've done a deep dive on Eddie. So we have talked about him a decent amount. But when we were prepping for this episode. Chanel, you mentioned we haven't really talked about this growth lever for Eddie all that often. And it's in some ways kind of an unsexy growth lever. It is super effective. So Eddie's like, I don't know. When you look at landing pages and websites, Eddie is kind of like the master of social proof. Yeah, it's everywhere.

[Chanel]

So Eddie has a newsletter called Very Good Copy and he shares like, copywriting tips and all this stuff. He actually has a course around creating better landing pages, which just tells you everything you need to know about this. But what. The thing that stuck out to me the most when I was doing his deep dive was like, on his signup page on his homepage, there was just like social proof upon social proof, like testimonials and shout outs and quotes and all this stuff. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, is this necessary? But it's just like the number. I wish I could count them. I should have counted them before this. But he has like three, three main layers of social proof. The one he has is like logos of, of companies he's worked with, like HubSpot and that kind of thing, which is cool. If you don't have that. Oh, well, it's fine. But then he has like industry experts. So maybe these are either well known marketers in the creator space or people who have written books and that kind of thing. So he'll have testimonials from them talking about his work, which by itself would probably get you to subscribe. And then he has just everyday readers, if you want to call them that. So, so these are people who, you know, read his newsletter, have replied with really helpful things like, hey, this helped me in my job, or this helped me sell X number of more courses, that kind of thing. Um, and so his landing page is just covered in testimonials for a free product. Like, you're not even paying for this thing. And so that's what stuck out to me most. I was like, this isn't even a sales page. It's just like getting me to sign up for your newsletter.

[Dylan]

Yeah, he's basically like handicapping his subscriber conversion on landing page. Just like testimonial social proof. Like, look at all the people that have learned something from this that, that enjoy it. Just genuinely enjoy it. And seeing that wall of social proof just makes it like a very easy sort of obvious thing to sign up for. And if it's not your cup of tea, you can unsubscribe it's not like it's costing you any money, right? It's, it's totally free to sign up. So it's just like if you have that social proof, um, why not include it? And I think an important thing too is how you collect social proof. Like if Chanel, do you want to touch on like different ways that you can go about doing? Cause you've done that as well for your newsletter too. Um, I'm not as good at it, but there's tools and ways you can go about doing it, right?

[Chanel]

Yeah, I go in waves of being good at it. Um, but the tool that's been helping me the most is Sendra S E N J A. They were an early sponsor of this podcast, but Senja makes it super easy. You can like highlight text in an email or on LinkedIn or something. If someone shares something nice about you. So you can highlight the text and then like right click and save it to Senja, which is so easy, like it's almost a no brainer. It's still like an extra step. So I don't always do it, but it is. They do make it super easy to use. Um, and like I mentioned before, they're giving away free licenses to Senja. So if you want to sign up to 30 days of growth, that would be cool. You could potentially win a free year license. But Senja is a great tool for this. You could do this manually if you want to. Just like create a Google Doc and dump everything in there. Takes a little bit more work. It is an option and it's free, so you could do that. Um, but yeah, I mean there are tons of ways to do this. It's just a matter of keeping it organized and using it. Remembering to use it as the hard part.

[Dylan]

Yes. Yeah, very true, very true. That's. That is the hard part. But even just having, you know, two or three replies from readers that have said, I love this edition, getting their. Just a quick reply saying, thank you so much for sharing. Do you mind if I share that testimonial, that feedback, that social proof on my, on my website? And most people are probably going to be okay with it. And even if they're not, or if you don't want to ask for whatever reason, you can blur out their name and their email address and all that information and just, you know, kind of caption their reply. Unless you don't feel okay with doing that, then don't. But I've seen many, many people go that road as well.

[Chanel]

Totally. I think most people are more than Happy to have you share, like, their name and their, their image on your profile. So I wouldn't hesitate to do that if, if you want to. But yeah, I mean, his just, it's removing any question or doubt of, like, whether his newsletter is effective and helpful. You're just scrolling, you're reading these testimonials. You're like, okay, fine. And then there's like a signup box and then there's more testimonials from different kinds of people. And like, it just keeps going.

[Dylan]

Yeah.

[Chanel]

So we called it the Social Proof avalanche, because I thought that was pretty funny. It just keeps going.

[Dylan]

Very, very. And I think the. And the numbers speak for themselves too, because on that landing page, he even has joined some 80,000 email subscribers. So first you. You're hit with kind of a significant number of people who are subscribed. Then you've got the social proof underneath it, these companies he's worked for. And then one last thing that he adds just for some, some bonus social proof, or maybe not even social proof, it's just kind of credibility and authority, which is also important on a landing page is he includes basically like founded 2014. Right. So, you know, he's been doing this for, you know, a while. He didn't just get AI to make him a better copywriter or, you know what I mean? In the last year or two, he's, he's studied this stuff and he's gone deep into the rabbit holes and how to do it. So, yeah, I think that's another valid point that he does.

[Chanel]

Yeah, I think Social proof is very effective. And even when you're looking for a new podcast to listen to. So if you are enjoying this podcast and you enjoy our episodes, it would mean a lot if you went to your podcast listener that you're using to listen to this episode and just give us a rating or say something nice. We appreciate it. We read them all. Helps a lot. I think we have like 29 at this point, so small numbers, but we're getting there. Appreciate that.

[Dylan]

Well done. Look at how you just weasel that one right in there. I try, I try to do it, actually. I. In all honesty, I hadn't thought about it, but.

[Chanel]

Okay, very good.

[Dylan]

Okay, which one, which one do you want to hit on next?

[Chanel]

Let's go to Tom Orbach from Marketing Ideas. This one is just. It's fun. Tom is actually a member of the Growth and Reverse Pro community, so I see his stuff a lot because I'm just a big fan. And he, he runs Marketing Ideas.com which is a newsletter about marketing ideas. But he shared this one with me and I thought it was super good. He did this on both substack and LinkedIn. So he just shared a substack note. Um, and then on LinkedIn it was just a regular post and he said, come at your startup and I'll reply with a free marketing idea. Now Tom works as the head of marketing at a company called Wiz, which is a big company. Like even if you don't know it, it's in like the security space I think. So he has a lot of experience with this stuff and so people love getting custom feedback and having Tom just be like, hey, I'm going to give you a free idea was just like amazing. So he had hundreds of people responding and then Tom just replied with a comment. Some of these, he gave like three or four ideas for them. He just went above and beyond. But then at the end of his little comment he said, PS I share more ideas like this in my newsletter. Sign up here. And so it was just like a little. He gave them a ton of value and then he just subtly asked them to subscribe, which I thought was cool.

[Dylan]

Really easy to like just having a little call to action. It's natural. It's not like forced down your throat or anything like that, which is sometimes the case. So I really like how, how it's. This is like super helpful for one. Like that's the most important thing that you're showing. Sharing your, your knowledge, showing that you know what you're talking about essentially and then genuinely asking people to subscribe. And usually, you know, with the law of reciprocity, when you give, people are more inclined to, to return. Right. Return the favor. So whether or not they're doing it just out of the kindness of their host hearts, probably not. But genuinely, I think people will see that Tom knows his stuff and this was super helpful and maybe, yeah, maybe I should subscribe to his newsletter too. How to do this whole newsletter marketing bit better. So I think this is, this is a great hack and I don't even like calling it a hack, but it's a great, a great strategy that you can use like you said on just about any platform that allows, you know, this kind of back and forth communication interaction.

[Chanel]

Yeah. And he, So I, I have a feeling Tom had fun with this because he, this is like his thing, right. He loves doing this, he loves ideating on strategy and growth. And so like I want to do this eventually because I think this would be fun for me too. Is like how do I grow this newsletter? Um, it's always fun to kind of, like, test your skills and, like, show your expertise and, like, be able to pivot and think on the fly. Um, but the other cool part about this is, like, it wasn't only the people who got a reply from Tom that subscribed. Like, there were a bunch of lurkers in the comments. Just like, reading these and then seeing him say, like, PS subscribe to the newsletter. And so they. A lot of them did. And so the substack post that he shared got over 400 subscribers. From that one post, the LinkedIn one, I think he said he got 250. And now Tom's newsletter is on substack. So that was probably like, within the first couple days, but after that, all of the attribution gets a little hazy. So I have a feeling that these actually have driven more subscribers than that. But those were like, the. The hard numbers that he gave. So I'd almost estimate that you could probably add like, double, and that's probably the real number over time, because these things live on the Internet. Um, yeah. And then one reader even screenshotted his reply and posted it as their own post on LinkedIn and got even more engagement to this. So I thought that was cool.

[Dylan]

That is awesome. Yeah, I mean, that's what you can do with this kind of post when you. When you give out. I know Josh Spector, who we've talked about on the podcast before. He does this quite often. He'll say, you know, share your landing page or share your newsletter, and I'll. I'll give you a point of feedback or how I. How I'd improve it, or, you know, that kind of comment as well. And so the challenge is to balance how often you do it, because you don't want to see somebody posting stuff like this every week or daily, of course. So you need to be a little bit more thoughtful on how frequently you'll do it. I think this is a. A really easy lift for most people. If you are like Tom is, if you know your stuff when it comes to marketing and that sort of thing, then why not do that? And it also can give you content ideas down the road, too. Various different problems people are having or challenges that they faced, or maybe somebody shares. Somebody shares their substack. That is like, really good. And you're like, oh, dang. You know, I look what this person's doing. This is like a new way I could level up my own newsletter. So it's like, it's got all these different angles that could be beneficial for you.

[Chanel]

Yeah. And in this one, I actually gave a couple examples because I know that when I give thoughts and advice and growth levers like this, people are like, well, I'm not in the creator space. I'm not in the marketing space. I can't do this. So I gave three different examples that I would personally be interested in. And I think two of these Dylan would probably be interested in maybe, if not three. But I was like, okay, so if you're in the gardening space, I would love if you did this and said, like, share a picture of your backyard and I will help you figure out how to set up your garden or where to plant what or, hey, I want to plant these four things. Which one should go next to each other? Because I know, like, just personally like, tomatoes and cucumbers not good together. Maybe you can set the separate them by, like, that other plant. So that could be a cool one. Um, running would be a fun one. If you gave me, like, ask me my age, like, how advanced I am with running, that kind of thing. Like, what, are there hills near my house, et cetera. Like, give me ideas for training, nutrition. Um, and even, like, DIY home improvement ones would be the next one. So if I shared a picture of a room, you could say, hey, you should, you know, throw this thing on the wall over there. It would look cool. Move the couch over in that corner. You'd have so much more space. I think that would be so fun. And so if. If you do any of these, please, please message us because I think we'll both comment and be excited.

[Dylan]

And that totally reminds me of. This is mildly off topic, but you know, what's. What's a good ramble sort of rabbit hole tangent on a podcast if you can't do it right? So there's a guy on probably everywhere but Short form TikTok YouTube, and he does, like, feng shui. So he basically takes people's rooms. Like, there's no way I can, like, make this room look nice. And so he's like, no, you can do it this way. And he, like, draws it out and he's at the end of his videos, he always tags it with, like, so now you know, and it's like. It's like a really. He does it quickly but, like, really effectively. And he's got like a really, like. I don't know how to describe very, like, bubbly personality. So he's like, charming, but, like, what's his name? It's really funny. I was Just trying to look it up while we were talking. If you. I'm just going to Google Feng Shui YouTube guy and that probably will not work, but let's see because I know.

[Chanel]

There is one guy named Hans Larai. No, no, not him.

[Dylan]

Nope. No, not him. His. Oh, so it's Dear Modern is the YouTube channel. I think his name's Cliff. Yes, that's it. His name is Cliff.

[Chanel]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Dylan]

Cliff Tan from Dear Modern. Yeah, he's, he's, he's really good. His shorts are really entertaining. I'm not into feng shui or like interior design or like anything, but I still watch his videos because he's just really engaging. So anyway, that total side tangent, but that's what he does. He takes, basically creates content from sort of this Tom Warback type of lens. Right. Like share your problem you're having and here's how I'd solve it. So I think that most people who are writing about sort of an expertise topic, topic expertise of knowledge that they have experience in could kind of take this approach.

[Chanel]

Yeah, totally. I think this is, this is a fun one. I really hope if you do this, please send it to me because I want to see, I want to like see it, engage with it, talk about it. I'm so pumped about this one. This is like one of my favorites.

[Dylan]

You now have Chanel's permission to invade her inbox or her LinkedIn DMs, but.

[Chanel]

Only if you take action.

[Dylan]

Like growthinreverse.com. yeah, that's right.

[Chanel]

If you take action and send it to me, I'm into it.

[Dylan]

Yeah, exactly. Let's move on to Ollie Richards.

[Chanel]

Yeah, this one's fun.

[Dylan]

So Ollie came into the Growth Reverse Pro community as well. And we're not just cherry picking people who've done that. We've actually had a lot of really great, we had a lot of really great guests in, in GIR Pro. So Ollie was one of those guests as well. And he basically shared how he created this 118 page, if I'm not mistaken, Google Doc as a, as a lead magnet. And it wasn't even a lead magnet. You could get access to it without even giving your email address, if I'm not mistaken. Right. You just had to.

[Chanel]

Basically the idea was to get your email address, but he wasn't like gating it and like trying to make it so you couldn't share it with friends, friend or that kind of thing.

[Dylan]

Right? Yeah, right. And what made it so valuable is he basically went through how he built his company story Learning, I believe it was called to $10 million in revenue as basically like a one man, essentially a one man team with some contractors helping him. Right. And so it's a, it's a very compelling story for anybody who's trying to bring kind of build like a solopreneur, somewhat automated business online. And so he goes through all the details of what he did in all different aspects of it. And again, 118 page thorough Google Doc for you to consume. Pushing this thing everywhere in the last year and a half that Chanel can attest to. She saw it in almost every newsletter she opened at one point.

[Chanel]

Yeah, I actually in this, this growth lover, I called it the Google Doc heard round the creator world because I was like, I saw this thing daily for like weeks and weeks, if not months. People like anybody and everybody in the newsletter space was just in awe of this Google Doc because it was so in depth, it wasn't fluff. He was detailing like marketing strategy, how he put this together, like everything in there. And so I was just like this, we have to share this again because when we first, when he first came into the growth in reverse pro community, what was this like September, October. And he said at that point the Google Doc had gotten him $175,000 in revenue. And when I reached out to him to ask him if, if we could do this cross promo and have him share in the 30 days of growth, he said that number is now at $1.2 million from a Google Doc. So just, it's just growing like it's consistently growing and I'm just in awe of this strategy.

[Dylan]

Yeah. Tangentially associate attributed I suppose to the Google Doc. The Google Doc isn't actually making him money necessarily, but he's gotten a ton of different newsletter sponsors, a ton of different coaching clients. Right. Because he's really demonstrated his expertise around these various different areas of growing an online business. Right. And so people are seeking out his knowledge and his expertise who maybe don't want to read 118 page Google Doc and put every single thing into place on their own. It's really smart and it's very clearly proven to be very successful for him.

[Chanel]

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy how this has gone for him. Um, at the time initially he had 12,000 subscribers from this Google Doc and now he's up to eighteen and a half thousand. And I, I just think that's awesome. Like it's not a massive list. Like a lot of people probably look at that and they're like, well that's, that's an okay newsletter. But 1.2 million from 18,000 subscribers. I would take that. I have nowhere near that.

[Dylan]

Yeah, so. Well, I mean that, that just goes to show the type of subscriber you have can really indicate how much you can earn from a newsletter. Right. His ideal subscriber is going to be somebody who is building a business online or aspires to or has been building one and has reached this point of maybe plateau or maturity where they can't break through or they're stressed to the max and they need to implement more system, implement more systems. They find all these Google Doc and his newsletter and suddenly they're shelling out, you know, maybe thousands of dollars for coaching and support. So he's not the only one who's shared this kind of information on a small list making six figures in revenue with a under 50,000 person subscriber list.

[Chanel]

I'm excited to share our conversation with him. That's gonna be a fun one.

[Dylan]

It also helps that Ali's very well spoken and he's a really good storyteller and a good writer. So yes, he's a bit of a unicorn. Um, that's not to say do what he's done. Be sure to stick around for that episode. Cuz Ali's really, he's really good storytellers. I use English as well, which is all that more exotic for us North Americans and we're just captivated, I'm sure that much more. So yeah, that'll be fun.

[Chanel]

It will be fun. But yeah, I think it just goes to show that like you could not have any sales page necessarily. Just have a Google Doc set up and like give away your, your ideas and your thoughts and people will naturally gravitate towards you and want to hear more. So um, I think for anyone that's like out there thinking I have to build a website, I have to have everything perfect and have all this stuff like just set up a landing page with a form on it for people to subscribe and share it in a Google Doc. Like that's literally what he did in the beginning. So you can start that way. And his sales pages are still in Google Docs. Like I was just looking at one yesterday and I was like, yep, he's still doing this just in a different form. Yep, crazy.

[Dylan]

Why not?

[Chanel]

Cool.

[Dylan]

Let's do. Should we do one more? Yeah, why don't we do Amy Nelson?

[Chanel]

Okay.

[Dylan]

I think that's an interesting one that a lot of people can get some inspiration from.

[Chanel]

Yeah.

[Dylan]

And ideas.

[Chanel]

I think so too. So Amy runs a company called the Riveter. So it's mostly for women in business. And so her story is pretty awesome. But like the way she's grown this, she initially, when I reached out, she said she's done a lot of speaking, like public speaking in person. But then she kind of like teased that she also does this virtually and it works just as well, if not better. So I think that might be the angle here. But Amy, I call it the speaking circuit strategy. Because she has been able to get like over a thousand new subscribers from a single event series online. It was all virtual. And so she'll just partner with like complimentary brands or creators who are complimentary, make sure that both parties are promoting these events to their audience. So like she'll promote it in her newsletter. They promote it in their newsletter. You get more people signing up for this event. So it's kind of like running a webinar just like jointly with another person. Just like a cool little way to collaborate. You get specific freebies that are tied directly to that presentation topic, which is cool. And then you can, down the road, like you can build hundreds of pieces of content from this event because you're having short form video, you have newsletter content. So you're able to not only get subscribers from this and like borrow other people's audiences, you're able to create content, content that can repurpose, can be repurposed down the road on social and other places. So I thought this was pretty, pretty interesting way to get subscribers.

[Dylan]

Absolutely. And if you wanted to even monetize that to some degree, you could package that all up into a course. Of course, if you were giving the recordings away for free to everyone, then that doesn't work quite the same way. But there's a lot of ways you could do this. And I like how it's a collaborative effort. You're not just doing this all by yourself, so you're doing this with another somebody else who's got a hopefully somewhat substantial audience similar to yours or bigger, who can also drive. I think that's kind of a key piece, right? Drive. Driving more eyeballs to the event and then, yeah, making it mutually beneficial. And it's clearly worked well for her with, you know, one event driving a thousand subscribers. That's not too shabby at all. You kind of get the framework. Once you do one, you kind of get the idea of how it works. The first one's gonna be the hardest because you gotta figure it all out. But once you've got that, you Kind of have a bit of a playbook or a blueprint of how to do it again and reach out to other brands and show the success of the first one. So although it might feel like a bit of a heavy lift, maybe this isn't one you could put together in an hour. Like we mentioned on the top, once you put it together, it could be something that just one hour of outreach and effort could get you another whole event set up and another thousand subscribers.

[Chanel]

It's almost kind of like a pop up podcast. Like if I were to reach out to Dylan and be like, hey, we should do this event, it's kind of just like us just like talking about this one topic, kind of sharing our tips about it. It doesn't have to be super, super produced and you're still going to be able to get some subscribers from it. And the cool thing is you're getting somebody else to collaborate with in the future. Like this will probably work, especially because it's a live event. You have two audiences coming together for this. And so I think it's just an interesting way that most creators probably are not thinking about something like this. I just, I thought that was a fun one.

[Dylan]

There's another mechanism here at, At Play as well. When you're on a virtual event, even if it's not necessarily in person, but you're seeing it live, you're seeing these people talk. Just the, the trust factor just is augmented that much more when you are kind of as opposed to just like reading somebody's words necessarily, that is, that is valuable and that, that obviously will work too. But I just think your, your trust factor just increases that much more when you're at a virtual event where you can interact with somebody you can see, basically share their knowledge, like live. So I really see that being. When you get a subscriber from an event like that. I guess my whole point is that's just gonna be that much more valuable of a subscriber who's not just gonna subscribe to one email, one newsletter and then go cold or unsubscribe right away. I just think the value of that subscriber is gonna be that much more.

[Chanel]

Yeah, I agree with that. It's almost like how when people listen to podcasts or watch a video, they feel like they know you more than reading the same content. It's the same thing At Play there. That's a good call out. And so I think this is just a great way to, I don't know, build relationships with other people in the space. Like even if you got 10 subscribers from this thing, like, I think you're just building that relationship with someone else, getting your name out there talking about your ideas in another platform. So I think it's pretty cool.

[Dylan]

And I think one other thing you said with the pop up sort of pop up live podcast kind of thing is it is one of those things that you can really tease as a. If you want to really make sure enough people showed up. Basically like join us live for this pop up event or this pop up podcast if you want to do this more of a. As a podcast sort of format, have people be able to ask questions, live like an AMA style at the end, a Q and A. And then you could just say this is, we're not going to reshare this too. I've seen, I think Matt McGarry has done this recently. I'm doing a free event. It's a webinar. It's a, you know, you're going to learn a bunch, but there's no replay, so you better show up live. So if you want to make sure that people show up and get them there to just listen, you could always gate it that way too.

[Chanel]

Yeah. And you should probably send an email four hours after they sign up to make sure that they're going to come.

[Dylan]

Good callback. Look at that. Back to back to our first strategy. Well done.

[Chanel]

I try, I try.

[Dylan]

You've already implemented Growth Lever one to Growth Lever five.

[Chanel]

There you go. I'm into it. No, this is fun. I'm excited to share more of these and if you're not already on the Pop up newsletter, if you will, you can go to 30 Days of Growth Co to sign up and get more of these in your inbox. And I don't know if you enjoyed this. Maybe we'll do some more of these and share some of these. I kind of. It was fun talking through them with you versus writing them. So.

[Dylan]

Talking is a little easier sometimes than writing.

[Chanel]

Yeah, sometimes.

[Dylan]

Yeah. No, I agree. It's fun and it's fun to reflect on them too. Just out loud. And you know, a few other interesting rabbit holes kind of popped up too. So just talking them through can. Can bring on some more ideas. So hopefully they were somewhat helpful too, and not just us rambling.

[Chanel]

Yeah. Oh well, at least it was fun for us.

[Dylan]

Yeah, exactly. All right, well, we can do sort of a recap of the first three. Ish. Actually we'll be almost done at that point, the 30 days of growth.

[Chanel]

So maybe we'll have to do a. A a final walkthrough of, like, how it went. Talk about the experiment, how many subscribers it got.

[Dylan]

Yeah, well, I think it's already proven its worth. We won't share the subscriber count that you've increased just in the last, what, week. Which is. Which is wild. So, at least from my perspective, it's pretty wild. So we'll tease that now, and you'll have to stick around to see how well this. This whole experiment went for Chanel.

[Chanel]

All right, this was fun. We'll talk to you next time.

[Dylan]

That's the pod.