← Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
The Future For Newsletters: Biggest Lessons from the Newsletter Marketing Summit
00:41:59
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- [00:00]
Chanel
Real life friends are like, what are you doing? Talking about emails. That's fun. More people came up to me and said, I love your podcasts or I love your YouTube channel than they did the newsletter. It's so cool to talk to other people who, like, write content and, like, spend 30 hours researching something and then put it into, like, a long form article.
- [00:17]
Dylan
You need good content to stay alive. I think that's just what it comes down to.
- [00:21]
Chanel
Huge. Newsletters are consistently saying this, but nobody wants to listen, so. All right, welcome back to the Growth in Reverse podcast. I'm Chanel.
- [00:34]
Dylan
And I'm Dylan.
- [00:35]
Chanel
And today we're going to talk about some takeaways and things that we've seen on the back end of the first annual newsletter marketing summit that happened in Austin, Texas. I got back over the weekend, and I thought it would be fun if we just sat down and kind of talked through what happened there, what I learned, some trends I'm seeing, and what we've kind of taken away from it.
- [00:56]
Dylan
Yeah, I'm excited because I wasn't there. And so I saw all the pictures and people on stage, including you, very jealous that I couldn't make it. But it looked like a great time, looked like a really successful event. So, you know, hat tip to Matt McGarry and his team putting that on. And, yeah, I'm just going to be really curious to kind of get firsthand feedback from somebody who not only was there as yourself, but somebody who also was, like, speaking there, which you were. And I also saw a lot of people summarizing your talk and saying how great it was, so we might have to touch on that a little bit too.
- [01:29]
Chanel
Okay, well, that'll be on your end. Cause I'm not gonna talk about myself.
- [01:31]
Dylan
So I know you won't, so I will prompt it. Don't worry.
- [01:34]
Chanel
All right, awesome. So I guess the first thing that I took away from this, just as like, a personal anecdote, was that I think podcasts and YouTube are like the trust builders. Like, more people came up to me and said, I love your podcasts or I love your YouTube channel than they did the newsletter. Which, as a writer, I was like, oh. But, like, I get it, because we get to kind of like be in your ears, like, while we're talking through all of these things. Um, so it's just. I don't know, it's just so fascinating, and I'm just. Couldn't be happier that we started this and are continuing to keep it going.
- [02:06]
Dylan
So I love that feedback that's really, really interesting feedback as well that people would say that over the. The newsletter too, which you've been publishing for over two years now.
- [02:14]
Chanel
Yeah. And I don't know if it's like, because it's a newer thing, a newer channel and people are so excited about it or. Or what, but I think it's probably a mix of both things.
- [02:24]
Dylan
I think it. I think it just puts a. A voice and a face to writing that you're reading. Right. So you're gonna be more inclined to approach somebody you've probably seen and heard. Cause you know their vibe and you kind of know what to expect to some degree from their personality. Unless they're totally faking it on camera and they're complete, you know, assholes in real life. But you kind of have a vibe in what you expect as opposed to a writer who you're like, you've seen like their byline photo and you've written there or read their newsletter maybe. And then you're kind of like, I don't know how to approach this person, what they're like, what vibe they're going to give off. So I could see that being something where it's going to build a little bit more affinity with people.
- [02:59]
Chanel
I think that's very true. People missed you, Dylan. They were like, where's Dylan? Is Dylan here?
- [03:03]
Dylan
It's like, no, next time, next time, next time.
- [03:06]
Chanel
We got to get him to venture out of. Out of Canadia, out of Canada.
- [03:10]
Dylan
Yes, yes, I will, I will try.
- [03:12]
Chanel
I will try.
- [03:14]
Dylan
Dig out of my igloo here.
- [03:16]
Chanel
Yeah, seriously. So funny. Yeah, I think the other thing that I saw a lot of. Well, first, I just can't stop thinking. I. I was sitting. I meant to go to a couple of sessions and I missed a few. Um, but I was sitting there talking to someone I've been, you know, going back and forth with since I started the newsletter. Justin Gordon. He writes Just Go Grind. He is also really relaunching his podcast here soon. But he writes Deep dives into startup founders. And I was like, it's so cool to talk to other people who like, write content and like, spend 30 hours researching something and then put it into like a long form article. Um, and then we were standing there talking and up walks this guy named Jermaine who neither of us had ever met before. And he also wrote Deep Dives. And I was like, yes, this is so cool. Um, I just looked at his website. He's actually written 1825 consecutive posts on biographies and entrepreneurship. Really interesting.
- [04:10]
Dylan
Um, 1825, like days or weeks or.
- [04:13]
Chanel
I don't know. That's a good question.
- [04:15]
Dylan
Quite the streak.
- [04:16]
Chanel
Yeah. You can click on like posts and it shows like every month. Wow, this is wild.
- [04:19]
Dylan
Go Germain.
- [04:20]
Chanel
Yeah, seriously. Um, but that was so fun just to like have three people who write deep dives talking about this workflow and like our research processes and like what we do every week essentially. I thought that was a, a fun little conversation that I was a part of. Really enjoyed that.
- [04:37]
Dylan
I love it. Your note sums it up here in, in our show notes that we. Your internal notes where people who write deep dives are cool. I think that's just like nice. Very, very well put. And there's. I think, I think it also goes to say that we've talked a little bit, we've touched on exclusives and we're probably going to do a whole episode on exclusives and deep dives are like a version of that. And I think my hunch is if you, you know, forward thinking people who are doing these more exclusive content, deep research and you know, are able to actually write well as well, is that's kind of a key component too. I think that's just going to be more and more valuable for, for the future in terms of getting attention, getting subscribers and, and having content that people are going to be willing to share. So I think those people who are writing deep dives are kind of onto something.
- [05:25]
Chanel
I think so too. And you just learn better about what the person has done and like how they actually grew or did whatever thing you're writing about. It's fascinating. So I guess, does this lead us into content is king? This is like one of the main themes that I heard and talked about myself.
- [05:41]
Dylan
Yeah. Either we could start with you sharing why content is king and your little, your cool acronym that you've come up with for, for content, valuable content. So why don't we start there and then you can lead us into other reasons why you've come to that.
- [05:57]
Chanel
Yeah. So I was creating my deck, I guess you will call it, for my talk at Newsletter Marketing Summit and I was like, oh, I could share so many cool growth stories and like ideas, but every time I do that I feel like it doesn't work as well. And the reason is like the underarching theme is that like if your content isn't good, like none of these growth quote unquote hacks are going to work. I was just sharing how like insanely valuable content, which is like IV content. I don't know if I love this acronym Moving forward. But here we are.
- [06:26]
Dylan
I think I do you need, you need an iv. If you're sick and in the hospital, you need, you know, hook up to the IV and it's just like it's medicinal. You need good content to stay alive. I think that's just what it comes down to.
- [06:37]
Chanel
And it was, it was interesting. I got a lot of good feedback on it. I think I probably disappointed some people who were looking for like the cool growth hacked, like the cool growth hacks and stuff.
- [06:48]
Dylan
Right.
- [06:49]
Chanel
I also got a lot of people telling me afterwards, like, it's such a good reminder to like, go back and rework your content if you're not getting replies or people sharing, sharing your content without you asking them to, to make sure it's actually decent. And so hopefully I'm going to see if Matt will let me share the talk on the podcast feed in the future just so we have people can hear it for themselves even if they weren't there. But yeah, I, I just think it's the overarching thing. Like every time someone says, like, my newsletter is not growing fast enough or I'm not getting enough subscribers and I look at their content, I'm like, I'm sorry, it's not good enough. Like, no, like people aren't going to share it. It's just, yeah, it's, it's a hard thing to hear, but I think it's a helpful guiding point.
- [07:29]
Dylan
Yeah, I think the, the content, you have to spend a lot more time creating really good content than you kind of do almost anything else. And that's hard too. Right? Because you need to also like, promote your content and revenue streams going and find collaborators and write on social media. You know, you've got to do all these things. But if again, if the content isn't good and falls flat, then none of that really matters.
- [07:52]
Chanel
And that doesn't mean that your content has to be long form. Like these super in depth pieces, like spending time on content can also be refining it and making it shorter and more helpful for people. So I don't want people to take away from this that like, it has to be long form content. That's not what I'm saying at all. I just think it needs to be valuable and when you spend more time on it, refining it, making it more valuable, it ends up that way.
- [08:11]
Dylan
So good clarification.
- [08:12]
Chanel
And I mean, one of the, the coolest things, like I was able to, uh, chat with Alex Lieberman back in like the speaker green room, which is like so fun.
- [08:21]
Dylan
Like just and for those not in the know, Alex Lieberman is.
- [08:24]
Chanel
Yeah. Founder of Morning Brew. Co founder of Morning Brew. So he has a little bit of experience in the space. And so he. He was. I was telling him, like, what I was talking about, and he was like, yeah, I mean, it's. It's totally. That's exactly the thing. Like, if your content stinks, like, nobody's going to share it. And he said people always talk about the referral program and how well it worked, and it's always used as an example of, like, a great referral program. And he's like, it kind of annoys because people kind of leave off the fact that people use a referral program to share your content. And if your content's not good, they're not going to share it just to get a sticker. Like, they want a sticker of a brand or a newsletter that they love because the content's good. He's like, so that was the underarching reason it took off. Thank you. Yes. Correct.
- [09:09]
Dylan
That's great. That's a good reminder.
- [09:11]
Chanel
So good. And it's like, coming from somebody who essentially started one of the biggest newsletters in the space. And, like, a lot of people these days are trying to be the next Morning Brew for X or what, whatever, but they forget that that is, like, the underarching theme. Um, the other one that was really cool, Yosi Levi, who I wrote a deep dive on, the car dealership guy. He has a fascinating business, but I kind of shared one of his pieces of content in the talk, and he was in the audience, which was cool. And so later when he was on a panel, they asked him, like, how he grew, and he was like, well, Chanel said it earlier, like, you have to have good content. I was like, this is so cool. Like, thank you for closing the circle on this, because validating. It was just like, these huge newsletters are consistently saying this, but nobody wants to listen.
- [09:57]
Dylan
So, yeah. So, so important. Did you know he was in the audience when you were giving your talk?
- [10:01]
Chanel
I did not. I did not. So that was really cool. And I just, like, happened to walk into their panel at, like, right before he said that, and I was like, okay, this is awesome.
- [10:10]
Dylan
It's good timing.
- [10:11]
Chanel
It's good timing. It was good timing.
- [10:13]
Dylan
Love it.
- [10:13]
Chanel
Yeah. I mean, even in that talk, I was like, you know, AI is kind of removing a lot of newsletters. Like, curated newsletters aren't going to be as valuable because AI can create some of those. So there's just more and more competition than ever. Find your angle, find your competitive advantage. Keep creating content around that thing.
- [10:33]
Dylan
Absolutely. And I think. I don't know if we'll get into this right now or if we can wait on this, but Adam Ryan from Workweek, he just put out, I think yesterday, a really in depth thought experiment, I suppose, and his prediction on how AI is going to impact newsletters, a link to that as well, maybe in the show notes. But really interesting how you're basically the, the whole. To paraphrase the whole thing. It's like AI is going to sort what you see even in your inbox. So you better make sure that your newsletter that's going to inboxes is really high quality so that people are opening it and AI sees that signal and they keep showing it in the inbox.
- [11:07]
Chanel
100%. That was such a good piece by him. Um, I know there's some, some areas of it that people are like. Well, maybe not quite, but I think the overcharging underlying theme is like, yeah, he's totally right.
- [11:18]
Dylan
And I think the. You got to be bold when you make stuff like this and not everyone's going to agree with you anyway. So I just appreciate the, the boldness of kind of taking a, a position and a stance on, on anything, even if I don't fully agree with it or even if I do. So I think we could use a little bit more of that probably in the newsletter space because we are a little bit of a kumbaya kind of, you know, everybody gets along and I love your newsletter. It's great.
- [11:38]
Chanel
Everything's great.
- [11:39]
Dylan
But, you know, a little bit of spiciness doesn't. Doesn't hurt, I think.
- [11:43]
Chanel
Not at all. Okay, I think the next one, let's get into something more fun because people are going to be like, really content. That's what you're talking about right now. So Steph Smith had a. She's just incredible, like an incredible speaker and thinker and just creator. She had a whole talk about the. Some of the best tools out there that you can find, like different trending topics or ways to use data online to help create content. So some of the ones that she called out were Gummy Search, which is essentially a tool that you can use. And I've heard her talk about this before, but I never actually looked into it. It's a tool you can use to like find trending topics on, on Reddit. And it's not just like, hey, this one got the most upvotes. It's like, hey, this topic in general on Reddit, like, posts about this topic are getting more reach, or here's what people are upvoting and talking most about. So I thought that was really interesting.
- [12:39]
Dylan
Kind of like a ahrefs for just subreddits kind of thing, or in topics and subreddit kind of.
- [12:44]
Chanel
It's actually way more interactive, too. Um, you can actually, like, go in there and see all of the posts and that kind of thing from Gummy Search, too. So you don't even have to go to Reddit, which is fun. Um, it was like 29 bucks a month. I might test it out in a little bit, but I was using the free side of things, which you could still get quite a bit of data out of. So I thought that was fun.
- [13:03]
Dylan
Nice. I'll be checking it out. I've been spending a little bit more time in the Reddit, the newsletters, subreddit lately, so it's been an interesting experiment. Yeah.
- [13:11]
Chanel
Um, yeah. And then she was talking about this tool called App Magic, which I did not know existed. You can see, like, what apps are, like, earning the most money every month, et cetera. Pretty insane. Um, what? Yeah, and so she showed this, like, screenshot here. I can share the slides with you in here, just so you can see it. Um, she shared this screenshot of essentially, the App Store, and you can see how much money each app is making. And, like, my favorite, I'm, like, such a nerd. I have a plant app. So you can, like, take a picture of a plant or an insect and it'll be like, hey, this is a blah, blah, blah bug. And you, you know it's going to hurt your tomato plant or whatever. Yeah, but, yeah, so the app is called Picture this, I think, and it's earning. Earning like, $2 million a month.
- [13:54]
Dylan
A month.
- [13:54]
Chanel
A month.
- [13:55]
Dylan
A month.
- [13:56]
Chanel
A month. And, like, okay, even if this isn't perfectly accurate, it's, like, pretty. Pretty good in terms of, like, comparing to other apps. And it was, like, the top. One of the top grossing apps. And I was like, this makes so much sense because.
- [14:09]
Dylan
Wait, what's it called?
- [14:10]
Chanel
Picture this.
- [14:11]
Dylan
Picture this.
- [14:12]
Chanel
So I'll find, like, a weed in my backyard. And I'm like, what is this thing? You know, Because I don't want it to, like, hurt the garden or whatever.
- [14:18]
Dylan
I thought you were talking about, like, house plants. So I was, like, going to be 100.
- [14:21]
Chanel
Oh, you can use that. It's the same thing.
- [14:22]
Dylan
Okay.
- [14:22]
Chanel
It works on house plants.
- [14:23]
Dylan
Okay, sweet.
- [14:24]
Chanel
And you can set it. All right, before I rant too much about this. But you can set and say, like, okay, I own this plant. And it'll help you if you pay for the app, which is how they get you. It'll let you set up like a schedule, so it'll remind you via push notification, like, hey, it's Tuesday. You should water your blank plant. Which is pretty fun.
- [14:42]
Dylan
Yeah, that is. I. You know, it's funny because I had. This is totally editable content for. For our lovely editor, but I had an app like this and I think I was killing my plants because it doesn't know how much humidity is in your room and how big your pot is and how much sunlight it's getting. Exactly. It's all like, just speculation. So I was like putting little dribbles of water in my plants like, like on a. Almost by. By every other day kind of basis. And I don't think they liked it very much. So I just kind of trashed the app and now I've got. Now I've got my own spreadsheet full of my plant watering tracking. So.
- [15:15]
Chanel
Dylan, I love that we're both like plant nerds. I can't keep indoor plants alive, but I can garden.
- [15:20]
Dylan
But that's amazing. That's amazing. I can't grow. I grew like three total tomatoes from three plants, I think last summer, so. Oh, wow. I could use your green thumb in the garden for sure. We just need to swap skills.
- [15:31]
Chanel
Yes, we do.
- [15:32]
Dylan
Yeah.
- [15:32]
Chanel
Cross promo our skills.
- [15:34]
Dylan
Back to newsletters.
- [15:36]
Chanel
Back to newsletters. Um, but yeah, so there are. I'm sure she's had. She has this talk somewhere else. I'll see if I can, like, link to some of these tools. But it's just another way to add an extra piece of research to your content. Talking about exclusives, like you want to add some original research. Here you go. This is exactly how you can do it. So she shows you, like, where to find data sets and, like, things that just other people don't include in their content. And that's going to make your content stand out for sure.
- [16:03]
Dylan
Well, yeah. And Steph was the kind of the main lead when it came to running trends in the beginning, right when the Hustle started up their paid subscription of Trends. The whole point of that was like doing this kind of deep research into what was trending in terms of topics on Google, in keywords, research and all that sort of stuff. And like pull exposing those for their paid subscribers. Right. For like business trends and ideas. So she of many people or of. Of all the people you should listen to, she's going to be somebody who knows how this stuff works and what you should look for.
- [16:34]
Chanel
Definitely. So that was a really cool talk. I actually only got to listen to half of it because then I had to go get ready for mine, which I was bummed out.
- [16:41]
Dylan
Right.
- [16:41]
Chanel
But I'm excited to watch the replay when it comes out.
- [16:44]
Dylan
Yes, absolutely. And I think you can buy the replays for all of these talks, too, if I'm not mistaken.
- [16:50]
Chanel
Interesting.
- [16:51]
Dylan
I know it's not. It's not cheap, but he. But. But Matt was selling, I think back before the. I think right before the weekend was over, he was selling them for 200. So you could watch all of the. Every single Talk for about 200 bucks. Um, I don't know if that's still up or what that price is at now, but just maybe we could include a link to that in the show notes. If anybody's interested in checking out and paying for those talks, I'll.
- [17:12]
Chanel
Before this goes live, I'll message Matt and see if he can get us a discount too.
- [17:15]
Dylan
Ooh, I like it. Okay.
- [17:17]
Chanel
Okay. So TBD and check the show notes if there's a discount.
- [17:21]
Dylan
Yeah, there may or may not be.
- [17:23]
Chanel
If not, I totally get it. Uh, I didn't think it was too expensive for him, but. Yeah. So the other. Okay, the next thing I want to talk about. I am just so freaking bullish on Community after this conference. So we had. Just to give you context, there are. I think there's 80 members in our growth and reverse pro group, and there were, like, 10 to 12 that were at the conference.
- [17:45]
Dylan
So, like, that's sweet.
- [17:46]
Chanel
Like, a good chunk of them were there. And it was just so fun getting to know these people in real life. Yeah. I mean, like, the one day I was sitting at lunch, and I look over across the room, and there's, like, five of them sitting together. And I was like, I know. None of these people knew each other before the community started. And I thought that was, like, the. Like, it was so heartwarming. I was like, yes, this is so fun. Like, bringing these people together in real life was just awesome.
- [18:09]
Dylan
Yeah, that's so great. I see you being just, like, this puppeteer almost of, like, all these people. Not, like, in a negative way at all, but you're just like, I'm bringing. I'm bringing my sheep together to flock.
- [18:20]
Chanel
Yes.
- [18:20]
Dylan
It's, like, it's really cool that I don't know that you created this thing, and now people are, like, connecting because of it.
- [18:28]
Chanel
It's so fun. We had a meetup the day before the conference started, we did a collab meetup with Jay Klaus's community. Yeah, right, Collab. And for me, like, think about this in the moment. But it was so full circle because I started in Jay's community and so, like, having a collaborative meetup with his community and my community also, like, it was just coming full circle from, like, where I started this whole growth and reverse thing at.
- [18:53]
Dylan
It's like this meta meetup.
- [18:55]
Chanel
It is, yes. But that was super fun. So then people got to meet before the conference started and, like, not have the introvert thing of not knowing anybody there, which is what I try to avoid at conferences.
- [19:06]
Dylan
So it's like, hey, I recognize your profile picture. But too. Too nervous or awkward to come say hi or too shy.
- [19:12]
Chanel
So that was fun. I will definitely try and do more of those in the future at conferences because I think it just helps people, like, get to know each other beforehand. The community in general is just so fun to talk about. Like yesterday we were on a call for an hour just nerding out about sponsorships. Like, that's fun.
- [19:27]
Dylan
It was. And there's some really interesting insights. People were sharing about, like, what they were thinking of doing, some ideas they had and what would work and what wouldn't work for them. So, yeah, it was really fun and so super casual too.
- [19:39]
Chanel
It was bringing it back to Adam Ryan's piece. Like, he was even saying, like, what's so important now is, like, take your newsletter and start building a community off of the back end of it. Like, that is the future of this stuff. And while I don't think that's, like, imminent, like, right now, I'm sure in the next few years, like, newsletters are going to be harder and harder to, like, reach the same number of people just with, like, Google spam and, like, all the stuff happening. But having a community of people is a good way to go in terms of.
- [20:06]
Dylan
Yeah.
- [20:07]
Chanel
You know, bringing them together.
- [20:08]
Dylan
Oh, you can't really lose on that. Yes, it's a time commitment for sure. It like Adam, he wrote his. His heading for this section is the only way to win, of course, winning at, you know, the newsletter game one, create content that can't be summarized, which is quite, quite a bold statement. Hard to do, but very powerful if you can own the relationship beyond an email address. So that's what you're talking about here. Right. He. He mentions, like, SMS lists and community spaces and direct relationships. So community spaces being whether online or offline or both, which is kind of what you started to Create now that these people are meeting in real life. And his third one is don't be a commodity. And that falls in line to me with the IV content. Right. Great content that. That's not commoditized, that only you can create, or that takes a lot of work to recreate. I think those are really great points on. On that.
- [21:00]
Chanel
So I am more bullish than ever on Community as well. I need to stop using that word. I don't know why I said it twice now in our chat, but bullish. Yeah.
- [21:08]
Dylan
Hey, when you're bullish on something, just go all in.
- [21:10]
Chanel
Yeah. I'm so excited about it. Like, just beaming with ideas. And then there was a panel with Steph Smith and Sam Parr talking about how they grew trends, like the trends community in the early days. And, like, trends was supposed to just be a content play. And then, like, the night before they launched, Sam was like, I'm gonna launch a Facebook group. And he just, like, created it randomly, like, on a whim. And, like, that was the most popular part of the trends community was the Facebook group.
- [21:37]
Dylan
Of course it was, because it was not planned out, not strategic at all. Just like, a hunch, a gut feeling, and he did it. Isn't that the way it goes? Eh?
- [21:44]
Chanel
100 a. He.
- [21:48]
Dylan
My Canadian is showing.
- [21:49]
Chanel
I'm sorry, you're beaming with pride over there for Canada.
- [21:53]
Dylan
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
- [21:55]
Chanel
No, but he was talking about, like, how he grew it in the early days, and I just thought it was so fun. He was saying that he would, you know, seed content. Like, he would write pieces of content and have members actually post it. So he would write the whole. The whole post, send it to a member in a DM and be like, hey, can you, like, post this? Because it was, like, either about their business or, like, something he saw them do online elsewhere, and he just wanted it to look like a happening party. And I thought that was really funny, but it obviously worked.
- [22:22]
Dylan
Yeah, no, absolutely. They did so much stuff. So much wild stuff. And I think we have a. A deep dive on Sampar coming out. Oh, we do a little bit. It might actually be. Might be out by the time this episode airs.
- [22:34]
Chanel
So that was really fun. I need to go back to that replay as well, because that was amazing. But, yeah, I think the only. What else we got the other thing. I think the last thing. Maybe people are just sick of social media, like, using social to grow their newsletter. It's just like, yeah. Oh, my gosh. I heard so many people. Like, I just can't with X Platform or I guess is X, but Twitter.
- [22:58]
Dylan
What do you mean exactly with Twitter.
- [23:00]
Chanel
Or LinkedIn or any of them? It's just like, like you get it, you figure it out and then everything changes and you're like, oh, my gosh, how am I going to spend more time figuring this out? And it's just like this hamster wheel. So, yeah, it just feels disingenuous because you're playing the game of, like, how can I make sure that the algorithm likes me today, but also making it something that people want to connect with me later about. Yeah, yeah.
- [23:24]
Dylan
How do I just write what's on my mind and also get seen by people and not sound like everybody else on the platform? And it's a pain. Is a pain. I think I'm not surprised to hear that either because, yeah, it's like, you know, you think you've got the algorithm figured out, so to speak, and then all of a sudden the next month your impressions are down, your engagement's down, you're just like, just kind of got to throw your hands up in here and be like, I don't know, I don't know what to do.
- [23:49]
Chanel
Yeah, it's frustrating for sure. So I was talking to people and I was like, would it be helpful if I, like, created a guide on like, how to grow without social, like a course kind of thing? And people were like, abso freaking lutely. So I think I'm going to move on this one. You know how to better do. Yeah, how to better do cross promos and swaps and collaborations and like, what templates you can use and case studies and that kind of thing. So. Yeah. So if you're interested in this, email me Chanel at Growth in Reverse dot com. Let just let me know.
- [24:21]
Dylan
Yeah.
- [24:21]
Chanel
Add you to behind the scenes list, if you will.
- [24:24]
Dylan
Yeah. Like, what do you want to know? What do you want to learn about? Also is helpful because sometimes we wonder what or we think we know what people want to learn about and we don't actually.
- [24:33]
Chanel
Yeah.
- [24:35]
Dylan
Because there's a lot of different ways it could go, for sure.
- [24:37]
Chanel
But the few conversations I had at the conference, I sounded like a good move. So I'm happy to share what's worked for me and others I've seen doing it in the past. So. Excited about that.
- [24:47]
Dylan
Well, you've got a little bit of a catalog to pull from. Yes. Examples of people who've done something along these lines.
- [24:54]
Chanel
Yes, Just a minor catalog.
- [24:56]
Dylan
That helps.
- [24:56]
Chanel
Yeah. Well, so what, what did you see in some of the. The recaps that you, that you read that you thought were interesting. Do you wanna share?
- [25:03]
Dylan
Yeah, there were some good ones. Yeah, we, I don't think we've talked at all about Jay Close. And he was, I think, correct if I'm wrong, but I think he was the very first talk from the whole conference.
- [25:14]
Chanel
He was the very first talk. Yeah.
- [25:15]
Dylan
And. Or guest speaker. Yeah. So his talk, the way I'm going to sum it up, sounds very simplistic, but it's like very also, I think a lot of people need to hear it. And the big takeaway, Brad Wolverton wrote about this. I think Nathan May wrote about it as well in his recap. Spend your time on things people remember was kind of Brad's main lesson. But he pulled out Jay by saying, pick your spots. So choose one discovery platform. And he references like social media essentially as a discovery platform, even though we just railed about growing without social. But if you are going to do social, just choose one and for example, LinkedIn and then choose one relationship platform. So your newsletter where you can be world class and I thought that line really stood up to me is like, where you can be world class, where can you position your best self or where can you really leverage your talents and skills? Maybe it's writing, maybe it's not. And you got to figure that out. But pick one of each and go hard at those and grow on those and don't try to do everything and be everywhere. I think is kind of the main takeaway.
- [26:15]
Chanel
Yeah, I, it goes back to, in so many deep dives I've written, I say this so many times, people grow to X number of followers and then they go to a second platform. So like figure out one. Like, don't try to be everywhere. And so when Jay said this, I was like, thank you.
- [26:30]
Dylan
Yes. Yep.
- [26:32]
Chanel
Go to one platform, figure it out, learn what people want to hear from you about and then you can move on once you've mastered that.
- [26:39]
Dylan
And I think we've railed on this in past episodes too. It, but it, it bears repeating. Like it's worth, it's worth hearing again. And the other thing he said, bullet point was build on own land. So prior prioritize trust over attention. Right. So building owned relationships like in a newsletter instead of trying to be discovered on social media. So essentially like he goes on to kind of a sort of a bonus lesson here and that is really like write high quality longer form content or create longer form assets as opposed to just always prioritizing like quick social posts or maybe short videos. That stuff can go viral and can get a lot of eyeballs and attention. But that being said, if you don't have anything long form to really build that relationship with people, they're just gonna like your stuff and move on and you're not really gonna create that connection that you need to create a newsletter subscriber, a follower, and eventually maybe a customer. So I thought those were some great bullet points.
- [27:32]
Chanel
Yeah, he had a great talk. Always enjoyed Jay's takes on everything in the creator space.
- [27:38]
Dylan
Yeah, yeah, Jay's. He's been doing this for a while. He, he knows and he's been very successful at it. So anything he says, I, I definitely don't take with a grain of salt. I I listen closely. One other thing that came up in in a few of the recaps I read were about Nathan Barry's speech or speech talk about flywheels as business drivers. Brad pulled out a example about leaning on your audience to basically produce content for your newsletter. And he suggested doing this by asking every newsletter or new newsletter subscriber to tell you about their biggest pain point and then you can turn that into content that you write about. So it's not always easy getting people to reply to your welcome email especially. But if you can position it in the right way, you might not get 10 out of 10 replies. But even if you get three out of 10 replies, you've got three pain points. Whether they're all the same or they're all different. That gives you something that you can focus on when it comes to writing your next newsletter or creating a product even potentially to solve these problems that you may not have otherwise known. So I thought that was an interesting point. And of course, the more people works as a flywheel because the more people that subscribe to your newsletter, the more intel you're going to get, the more content you can create to attract even more people. So it's just kind of this thing that spins and just keeps on spinning faster and working better.
- [28:53]
Chanel
One of the other things Nathan said in his talk that I thought was just a small takeaway, but it was so interesting. If you're trying to grow on a certain social platform, like ask your newsletter subscribers who they follow on that platform because then you can like either collaborate with them or start posting on your their content. Like commenting on their content, sharing their stuff. So I thought that was interesting to like, oh, that's like another research point of like, where are my people hanging out and who are they following? I thought that was interesting. Like, it's such A small, I think he said it as like a throwaway comment and I was like, like, oh no, that's really smart.
- [29:25]
Dylan
Yeah, I, I could, I think that is smart. I, I could see that being a challenge getting the, the responses. But if it, if you could just even frame it as like reply with like just one person, one other person you follow and enjoy their content on social media or something like that. Because if you say who do you follow? Or name a, a list of people, as soon as you have to make people think a little bit hard, they're just gonna do it. So. But I like that. That is, that is smart. It's very smart. There was a few others, I think. Let me just pull up Nathan's list here. Yes, this is what I want to talk about. The Assist. So the, the heading for this section from Nathan, Nathan May was negative. CAC is the new black cac. CIC stands for Customer Acquisition cost. And basically what he's saying is the assist are spending $50,000 a month on ads to our customers and yet they are recouping that all up front. And so I had to check it out. So I went to the Assist and I'm not the Demographic, it's a women in business focused newsletter. But I want, I need to figure out what they're doing. So I subscribed. And as soon as you subscribe, you fill out a quick five question survey. So they get some demographic data and they also know what position you are at a company or what you do, what industry you're in. And then after you fill out that survey, they take you to the next screen where it's this long page of here's what we think would be the best, you know, tech stack tools for you for what you do. Here's a great resource or article that you should check out. And they just have this list of all these things. And so these are. My assumption is these are almost all affiliate links or their own products. And so they're going to make recoup some money because yeah, not everybody's going to click on these things and purchase, but there's bound to be some people that will. And so my assumption is when Nathan says they're recouping all of it up front, they probably are. You were. Did you see this talk when you were at.
- [31:18]
Chanel
Didn't. It was directly after mine and so I was like not out there. Yeah, got it.
- [31:22]
Dylan
You're in the green room just rubbing elbows with all the.
- [31:25]
Chanel
No, I was like coming down from my like panic attack. Just kidding. No, so yeah, I walked backstage and then called Anna and then I went and saw the Steph Smith Sampar panel. So unfortunately they were at the exact same moment.
- [31:38]
Dylan
Yeah. Oh, sorry. And I missed a point here as well. They're not just affiliate deals. They're actually like partners. Like they get. It looks like they have sponsorships from certain people like Monday, Monday.com, notion and other B2B companies. So not only would they probably have some affiliate arrangements with some smaller of partners or maybe even not, they would just have straight up partnership deals. Like we know people are. X amount of people are going to be driven to the site, they're going to see your product and they'll get some conversion data from that and then that just makes it that much easier to pitch the next one. Right. So I thought this was really smart. If you can figure out all the backend to do it and you have the money to spend on. On ads, like $50,000 a month is. Is not anything to sneeze at. But yeah, I thought this was pretty cool.
- [32:23]
Chanel
I think Tori Dunlap does this too. I remember from a deep dive on the back end she would. Because you fill out a quiz and then based on that you go to a different page.
- [32:32]
Dylan
Smart.
- [32:33]
Chanel
Yeah, smart. So that was a good one. Yeah. So Alex Lieberman, he kind of shared, I think it was like the morning brew and 36 pictures or something. So it was just 36 slides. And he just walked through his backstory and like how it got started. And he was sharing some screenshots of like emails he wrote and like how he found Austin Reef, who was his co founder.
- [32:54]
Dylan
Right.
- [32:55]
Chanel
And so it was just. That one was just a really interesting business take on like someone who built like this huge multimillion dollar newsletter of like how it happened. And he did share this like behind.
- [33:07]
Dylan
The scenes kind of thing, right?
- [33:08]
Chanel
Yeah. And he shared this really interesting, like Google Doc, you know, here are the marketing things we could try and like then next to each idea was like a column for the effort. This would take the potential results and like, then they would figure out like based on those numbers, like which one to actually pursue. So I thought that was pretty cool.
- [33:27]
Dylan
Um, that is really cool.
- [33:29]
Chanel
Yeah. Because I have so many ideas and I never know how to categorize them. And I was like, oh, this is interesting.
- [33:35]
Dylan
Yeah.
- [33:35]
Chanel
And then I heard Nathan Barry talk about this on a different podcast that he was doing and I was like, yep, I need to start doing something like this.
- [33:42]
Dylan
So basically creating almost like a scorecard of like exactly Is this worth it?
- [33:46]
Chanel
Yeah. So like effort, return and like that kind of thing. Uh, so if you can just like come up with. It's not a perfect way to do it, but I think it's better than my random oh, I'm gonna do this today idea.
- [33:58]
Dylan
Yeah. Yeah. There's a little bit more thought through and some numbers around it, even if they're very speculative. But yeah, that's smart. I think. I. One thing that stood out to me as well is how he made the referral program once you. Once you were one of their big larger referrals. He like hand wrote mess like mail to you and send you like on a lined piece of paper like, hey, thanks for, you know, thanks for recommending Morning Brew and you know, keep up the amazing work. And he's got some other words there but like, I just thought that was, that was really a really nice touch and that's just going to make a big fan an even bigger fan.
- [34:33]
Chanel
Definitely. Yeah. His. The way they built that business is just so scrappy. He kept talking about like being in the mud and I love that phrase. It's just like, yeah, you're in the mud, I get it.
- [34:44]
Dylan
And then the last point on. On him was that I thought was interesting was be patient. So that's what this is Brad, what Brad was saying when he was doing his recap, essentially like testing new. And this actually ties in really nicely with our episode with Ann Laura and like testing things and experimenting, seeing what the results are. And then if something is showing to be working, like expand with it. But don't just like commit to a direction just on a hunch that you think it's the right way to go. And then, you know, after three months find out you've sunk a whole bunch of money and time and effort into it and it's just failing miserably. So his. One of his examples was Dan Toomey, who I don't know if you've watched his good work videos. They're so good, so funny. And I, when I first started watching, I had no idea that's where it started. He just does such a good job and it would just started as like, it's almost kind of like a spin off from like the Daily show or, you know, how these people have their own little bits or segments and they turn them all into their own own. Their own shows. So I really like that approach. I thought it was cool.
- [35:41]
Chanel
It was a good conference. I'm excited for next year. I'm actually really excited in May, May 2nd. I think it is.
- [35:49]
Dylan
Yes.
- [35:50]
Chanel
Friday, May 2nd in New York. They're doing the newsletter conference which will be the second year of that one. I had a blast at that one last year. It was so fun to see different.
- [35:59]
Dylan
People and like you were on a panel last year.
- [36:01]
Chanel
It was on a panel. Yeah, yeah. Tbd on what, what I'm doing this year. I will be on stage at some point. Um, we have to figure out what that looks like. But that'll be fun to just kind of relive the Newsletter Marketing Summit, but in a different state. That's much closer to my home. Um.
- [36:17]
Dylan
Yeah, you can almost drive.
- [36:18]
Chanel
Yeah. And I remember last year that that conference was cool because there were people from like Bloomberg and like these big names and you probably me just saying that people probably cringe like Bloomberg. But like the things you can learn from someone who's running like 60 newsletters at a time is wild. It's not as flashy as like the creators that might have been on stage before at this past one, but it is very informative.
- [36:44]
Dylan
Yeah. There's fewer, maybe personal brands, but way more brands.
- [36:48]
Chanel
Correct. Yeah. But I think they're starting to incorporate more creators too. I know like Jaspreet Singh of.
- [36:55]
Dylan
Of Market Briefs.
- [36:57]
Chanel
Yeah. He runs Market Briefs, but he has a minority mindset. His YouTube channel.
- [37:01]
Dylan
Oh, okay.
- [37:02]
Chanel
It's pretty crazy, that growth story there too. But I know he'll be there, so I'm excited. I'm excited for that one. I just love in person conferences. It's just like the best. So good to see people and like be able to like, you know, talk to them in real life.
- [37:16]
Dylan
Yeah. Instead of this two dimensional screen thing.
- [37:18]
Chanel
In front of us, like, oh, you know, we only have 29 minutes left because I have another call after this. It's like, no, we're here all at the same place. Like that's it.
- [37:26]
Dylan
Yep.
- [37:26]
Chanel
Awesome. So.
- [37:28]
Dylan
And someday you and I will meet in person one day in three. In three dimensions. Someday it won't be in. It won't be in New York because I'm not flying across the continent for a one day event. But it's fair. Boise, Idaho I think will be. Will be where we connect at the Craft and Commerce Conference in June.
- [37:46]
Chanel
Yeah.
- [37:46]
Dylan
So looking forward to that one myself.
- [37:47]
Chanel
That's a one of my favorites. Yeah.
- [37:50]
Dylan
Excited. Cool. Anything, Any last parting words about the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin?
- [37:57]
Chanel
I don't think so. Not any last parting words about the summit itself. I think if you listen this far and you haven't joined the newsletter yet, Go join the newsletter growth in reverse.com Dylan and I share some interesting stuff on there, so I'm excited to kind of keep doing that and have more people reading. If you want to join a community of people, come check out Growth in Reverse Pro. Me and Dylan hang out virtually in there a lot daily. And sometimes there are in person meetups too.
- [38:27]
Dylan
That's right. Because there just wasn't Austin. And I'm sure there will be more.
- [38:30]
Chanel
Yes, definitely. In Boise.
- [38:32]
Dylan
Mini. Yeah. Yeah. And the mini conferences Chanel goes to.
- [38:36]
Chanel
Yeah. Too many.
- [38:37]
Dylan
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's good. Cool.
- [38:40]
Chanel
Awesome.
- [38:41]
Dylan
Thanks for sharing all your experience and your thoughts. And I think the other thing we should probably mention is your talk, even if it's not necessarily. Let's say you're not able to share it publicly. It would be interesting from my perspective, just even hear you, like, maybe give that talk on the podcast or something like that. Your own.
- [38:59]
Chanel
Oh, definitely. I would do that.
- [39:01]
Dylan
That'd be cool to do. Just as maybe a last. A last point, a note to make.
- [39:05]
Chanel
Yeah. So keep an eye out or an ear out for that. Or both soon. Or both. Yeah, yeah. And if you're listening to the podcast, There is a YouTube version of this. Me and Dylan are staring at each other right now, so you can watch us, I don't know, on the big screen. I saw one of my friends the other day sent me a picture. She's like, I'm. I'm doing work and watching you on the tv. And I was like, this is so crazy.
- [39:28]
Dylan
That is. That is crazy. I don't think my friends, my real life friends, even know I am.
- [39:33]
Chanel
Oh, I should say business friend. Business friend.
- [39:35]
Dylan
Oh, okay, okay, okay. That makes sense. That makes sense.
- [39:38]
Chanel
Real life friends are like, what are you doing? Talking about emails. That's fun.
- [39:43]
Dylan
Yeah, exactly. They don't understand.
- [39:48]
Chanel
They don't get it. They don't get it.
- [39:49]
Dylan
No.
- [39:50]
Chanel
Well, if you have ideas for future episodes, please reach out and let us know. We are happy to talk through any other topics. I guess we should actually talk about upcoming roasts that we want to do.
- [40:02]
Dylan
We should.
- [40:03]
Chanel
If you go to growth in reverse.com roast. Either roast or roast. I'll make both. Um, you can submit your newsletter for us to kind of talk through, give feedback. Uh, it'll probably be mostly about landing page content, topics and ideas. But, yeah, I'm excited about this. I've seen other people do roasts on podcasts, and I think it's just fun and very informative. Even if it's not your newsletter. Getting talked about and roasted.
- [40:29]
Dylan
It's. It's kind of like a mini newsletter audit, right? Like a. A mini version of that, which Chanel does. Newsletter audits that you can pay her to do for your newsletter, where she goes really in deep, thorough, as, you know, she does with her research. So this. Consider. This is like a free roast. You get the vibe, Chanel, and my vibe is not harsh, so don't be scared. Like, we're not gonna. We're not gonna tear you apart and be mean or anything like that. We're just gonna probably be more helpful than anything.
- [40:57]
Chanel
I'm excited. Again, if you want to get your newsletter roasted, go to growthreinverse.com roast and fill out that form. And you might see your name in lights here soon.
- [41:10]
Dylan
And if you want an even better chance of getting roasted, just give a Apple rating and review. And maybe we'll pick your newsletter that way too.
- [41:17]
Chanel
There you go. Yeah, we don't have many of those. You're such a good podcaster, Dylan. I always forget about that.
- [41:24]
Dylan
They apparently help.
- [41:26]
Chanel
Who knew? Yeah, I've actually. Because I tried to get someone on as a guest recently, and they were like, well, what's the download numbers look like? Because you don't have a lot of reviews, so please go review this if you want more fun guests to come on.
- [41:40]
Dylan
Exactly. Bigger, better guests, more reviews needed.
- [41:43]
Chanel
We're getting weird.
- [41:43]
Dylan
Let's wrap it.
- [41:44]
Chanel
Let's wrap it. All right, see you later.
- [41:48]
Dylan
See you.