← Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth
Turn Your Newsletter Into a Sponsor Magnet - with Justin Moore (#008)
00:51:41
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- [00:00]
Chanel
When you had a 3,000 person email list, you sold a $2,000 sponsorship deal. And I was like, what?
- [00:07]
Justin Moore
In a two week span, we got 30,000 people to sign up for our email list. And we were just like, oh, is that good? Awesome. Like, we were just so ignorant. We had no idea. Right. Of the 30,000 people that we sent that to, only 1,000 opted back in. And that was like a dagger to the heart. Everything was like, okay. You probably didn't know sound effects were coming, did you?
- [00:28]
Chanel
I did.
- [00:29]
Justin Moore
Maybe you did know. Maybe you did know.
- [00:30]
Chanel
I was ready.
- [00:31]
Justin Moore
I just fundamentally don't look at this stuff transactionally. He basically said, okay, Justin, now is the time. You have planted a million great seeds with people over the last four years. Now is the time. Over the last several months, I've also had a significant churn issue. I'm basically filling the bucket, but I have a big hole in the bottom of the bucket. The visual that I like to give is like, a lot of people think that negotiating with a brand or interacting with a brand, it's like you're on opposite sides of a table and it's contentious. Imagine you scoot your little swivel office chair around the side of the table. You're both sitting on the same side, and you're looking at a whiteboard together.
- [01:06]
Chanel
You just made so many introverts cringe right now. All right, I am excited. Today we have Justin Moore. Justin is a sponsorship coach for creators. He's been working with brands and has been a creator himself since 2009. His wife April, had a YouTube channel, and Justin was behind the scenes helping her with her brand deals. He then launched an agency helping brands find creators to partner with, but now solely focuses on helping creators land their dream partnerships. Justin has brought in over $5 million in sponsorships, and he's on a mission to help creators land 1 million sponsorships by 2032. He has a book coming out called Sponsor Magnet January 21st, and a new conference called Sponsor Games and in March that I'm super excited for. Welcome to the show, Justin.
- [01:53]
Justin Moore
Let's go. Excited to be here, y'all. Thanks for having me.
- [01:57]
Chanel
Yeah, I'm excited to have you too. Um, so before we dig into the growth of the newsletter sponsorships, all the good stuff, I wanted to ask you, like, in the beginning, you were working with April. She had a successful YouTube channel. You guys were doing good things. Uh, you had this agency that was humming along. Like, what made you start a newsletter and YouTube channel in the first place?
- [02:17]
Justin Moore
Well, I can Share a story, A horror story actually, because we started a newsletter early on April and I actually. So we actually tried to launch a paid membership years ago. This was in 2013. So way back in the day before like monetization was, was really popular, a company actually approached us. So the story goes is that we would do these videos on YouTube where it was like relationship advice. So we would talk about our own relationship, our views on that and all that. And these videos popped, man, they were getting, you know, hundreds of thousand of views every video. This is like in our heyday. And this company approached us and was like, hey, like, we should make a paid membership all around, like helping people improve their relationships and like being able to like get on calls and like help people through problems and stuff. And, and we, we love the idea. We thought it was awesome. We loved, you know, being able to, you know, we got so many DMS and emails from people who have said that the advice that we gave them helped their relationship, all that. And so as part of this process of launching the paid membership, the company advised us to start a newsletter. They were like, okay, let's, let's, you know, put up a lead magnet. And I think we, we created like an exclusive video which was like, at the time it was like a house tour or like an apartment tour because we'd never done that, we'd never shown that. And people were like, oh, we want to know where you live. Because we were like vloggers, right? And yeah, yeah, creator wizard, crib style. Like, you know, you, you got to stay here, but you got to get the heck out or whatever. But so this was crazy. And, and at the time we didn't realize it was crazy, but in a two week span, we got 30,000 people to sign up for our email list in two weeks. And we were just like, oh, is that good? Awesome. Like, we were just so ignorant, we had no idea. Right. And so I'll spare you the gory details, but the paid membership ultimately didn't work. Our community turned on us for trying to launch something paid. It was awful, actually. It was, it was. That's a whole nother story. But what happened was that we stopped sending emails to that newsletter because we stopped the community, it didn't. Or the membership, it didn't work. And so about six years later, seven years later, we decided, we're like, wow, we're sitting on this email list of like 30,000 people. I feel like we should maybe start sending stuff to this again, like, probably right? And so we sent a re. Engagement campaign to say, hey, you haven't heard from us in seven years. Do you still want to hear from us? And of the 30,000 people that we sent that to, only 1,000 opted back in. And that was like a dagger to the heart. And it just made me think, well, wow, what. What could have happened had we nurtured all these people over the last six or seven years? What could that have turned into? And so when I decided to ultimately launch Creator Wizard, I. I knew that I was never going to make that same mistake again. And so I was. I made a really concerted effort to nurture it from the beginning.
- [04:58]
Chanel
That's crazy. I mean, I know you started this newsletter in, like, the middle of 2020, and now it has 35,000. So in two weeks you got almost the same amount.
- [05:07]
Justin Moore
Exactly. Yeah.
- [05:10]
Chanel
Wow, That's a. Definitely a good lesson.
- [05:12]
Justin Moore
Yeah. It also made me realize people like my wife way more than me. That's like. That's another lesson.
- [05:19]
Chanel
That's crazy. Um, so with this newsletter, when you started it, it was kind of humming along. You were doing some what I called unscalable things in the deep dive. I wrote like one on one dms, like every time someone followed you on social. That was pretty interesting. Um, did that work really well or was that just like.
- [05:36]
Justin Moore
Dude, the one. The one on Ones worked super well, like the DMing people, because I. I would. Did it not only on. It was Twitter back then, but on X. That worked really well. But also Instagram and TikTok. I did it everywhere. Anytime anyone followed me anywhere, I would DM them and. And, well, first I had a criteria, so I would look at their profile to see does it say, like, YouTuber in their bio or creator or. I look at their content and it seems like they're like an aspiring creator. And I would say maybe about 50% of the people that followed me fit that criteria. Um, and so every day I would. I would spend, you know, 30 minutes an hour, basically, like, just going through and DMing people. And the success rate was super high of people opting into the newsletter. And so in the early days, that was a really effective tactic.
- [06:19]
Chanel
Do you still talk to any of those people that you DM'd?
- [06:21]
Justin Moore
Yeah, I mean, that. The other thing about that is that it opens up conversations when it's clear. Because the other thing too is I was personalizing the messages. I had, like, a template, of course, but, like, I would. I would insert the person's name, this. So this would be really funny. Is that a lot of times People wouldn't have their first name in their bio. And so I would click through to their YouTube channel and I would just like scrub through like 15 seconds of it and they'd be like, hey, it's, you know, Jonathan or whatever. Hey, it's Christy or whatever. And I would like get their name from watching a little bit of their content. And I would say that in the message and people would be like, oh, wow, how'd you know my name? I like don't have it on my profile anywhere. And so people, I think, would be genuinely surprised that I like took the effort to just like find out what their name was.
- [07:01]
Chanel
That's fascinating.
- [07:02]
Justin Moore
Yeah, I mean it's like extra effort, of course, but it like, you know, led to kind of some cool conversations.
- [07:08]
Chanel
Yeah, it's like that little extra piece that makes you stand out.
- [07:11]
Dylan
Obviously people can't don't have the time to necessarily do all of the unscalable things. So what would you like? Looking back, what do you think had the most impact of the, of the methods you tried?
- [07:21]
Justin Moore
I really do think that one on one outreach was super effective. Not. And actually some people screenshotted it and talked about it actually on X, which was interesting. Which led to a little bit of like conversation around that tactic. Um, I can't even remember who I like. I think I got that idea from someone doing it to me candidly, like maybe early on. And I was like, oh, this is a good idea, I should do this. Um, so if, if I had to look back on, I, I did this thread a long time ago where it was like, here's how it got into 3,000, you know, subscribers on my newsletter, which felt like a lot at the time. And that this was one of the tactics that most, most people commented on was like, oh, wow, this is a good idea, I'm going to try this. And so like, I honestly can't even remember the other nine, but that one is the one that I remember because it led to a lot of great conversations.
- [08:05]
Chanel
That's amazing. So I remember when doing the research, like early in the early days, you were talking not just about sponsorships, you were talking about finance, all kinds of like, how to do better content, how to grow an email list, all kinds of creator focus, business topics. And then over time you eventually like honed in on the sponsorship thing. So I'm curious, what's the story behind that? Like, how did you start with the focusing on sponsorships?
- [08:31]
Justin Moore
So the tagline for my YouTube channel actually when I first started was the business of Being a creator, that was like. Because I love talking about that stuff. All the different aspects, you know, affiliate marketing and, you know, digital products and all that, and sponsorships, of course, because, like, I had done that a lot, but every. All the different. Basically everything was just, hold on, I got a sound. It was this. I. Everything was like, okay. You probably didn't know sound effects were coming, did you?
- [08:58]
Chanel
I did.
- [08:58]
Justin Moore
Or maybe you did know. Maybe you did know. I was ready. Uh, but everything was just kind of blase. There was no. I would try to analyze, oh, which ones are performing better. But everything just kind of was, you know, not doing very well. And so, however, I absolutely did notice that I had the most engagement, the most comments on videos about sponsorships. And in fact, one of my followers DM me a bit into the journey, basically who and basically said, like, why are you talking about anything other than sponsorships? Like this, this seems like your. Your wheelhouse. Like, why. Why are you. You should just stop talking about everything else. And I was like, that's a great idea. And so I just kind of made a hard pivot and I was like, okay, sponsorships, this is, this is the thing. This is all I'm going to do. And. And so I started making, you know, some only posting videos about sponsorships, and those started to do better, like, not like stratospherically better, but like, better for sure, like, than the baseline. And so I just decided it was a kind of a gut thing. It wasn't like it was data backed, per se. It wasn't like, oh, this is clearly better. It was more just like, not only do I like talking about it more, but almost like now that I know this is the only thing that I'm going to focus on. It was so much clearer. Like, wow, I can think about a hundred videos just about this topic versus, like, you know, the. The best hits of like, all these other various things. And so I decided to hire a content strategist. And I. My charge to him. His name is Alex. Great guy. You know, I was his first client. He had never worked with anyone, but it was just like a Twitter acquaintance. And I said, hey, I want to be known as the sponsorship guy on Twitter, on the Internet. Help me do that. And so we basically devised a playbook where I was like, okay, I'm going to be posting 10 times a day on Twitter, three times a day on Instagram, I'm going to be doing YouTube videos, I'm going to be doing the newsletter. You know, all this stuff. And so I worked with him for about two years. And I think we nailed it, right? Like literally. Literally, like anytime anyone on Twitter would say, hey, I'm having an issue with sponsorships, you would open the thread and like eight people would tag me. Oh, talk to Justin. Talk to Justin. He's the guy. And so yeah, dude. Yeah, it was, it was like a, um, but. But again, it required kind of a full court press of content for a long time.
- [11:20]
Dylan
I think it worked.
- [11:22]
Chanel
I definitely say it worked.
- [11:26]
Dylan
Alex. Alex deserves a raise.
- [11:31]
Chanel
Nice.
- [11:32]
Justin Moore
This is Alex Lowell and he. And he. And Alex from Steel Club Hat, you know, has grown his own business pretty significantly on X and his own newsletter and stuff like that too. So, yeah, you know, we both kind of grew. Grew together.
- [11:45]
Dylan
I think. I just, I want to tie this, do a full circle here because Justin, you and I and Chanel were all part of Jay's lab community. And two, almost three years ago, I was in that lab. Like, I don't know what to do with my newsletter. I'm kind of talking about all this stuff and I had a hot seat with Jay and you said you watched the video afterwards and you just chimed in on a comment. Dylan, it seems like you should just talk about newsletters. Like you're writing about newsletters. That's kind of like where your passion seems to be like, why don't you just like focus on like being like the newsletter about newsletters? And I was like, that's a good idea. I've kind of been thinking about that. But this is like, definitely the validation that I need, so I'm going to do that. And so that's like a full, a full circle moment because that's what happened to you. You did it. That's what happened to me. And so thank you for, for doing that. And, and yeah, it's just. That's the power of it.
- [12:32]
Justin Moore
Is this where you're going to offer me, like, equity in your business because I am responsible for your, your well being or your livelihood? Is that.
- [12:38]
Dylan
Yes. I'm hoping on some of my debt.
- [12:40]
Justin Moore
That I don't want any of the liability, I don't want any of the liabilities, just the equity.
- [12:45]
Dylan
Okay.
- [12:46]
Justin Moore
No, I'm, I'm, I'm stoked to hear that, man. Honestly, that, that, that's. I didn't. I mean, I kind of knew that, but I didn't know quite the. That that was like the inflection point for you. So that feels awesome, man. I'm stoked for you.
- [12:57]
Chanel
You're the DM guy now.
- [12:59]
Justin Moore
I'm, I'M the DM guy. Yeah. Look at that.
- [13:02]
Chanel
Amazing. Um, Justin, I feel like you, speaking of relationships, you're just like extremely good at relationships with other creators, other people. I joked in the deep dive I wrote, you and I can both walk into a room. You'll walk out with every single person's number and like potential partnerships with them. I'll meet like one person, maybe get their like DM or something. And you're just so good at this. And I think it's just led to a lot of the growth and it's all like behind the scenes stuff. Like people don't know all of the relationships that you've had and all of that back end work that you've done. All they see is like the stuff on the outside. So just kudos for that. But also like, what kind of relationships do you find the most valuable? And. Or do you just like go after anyone and everyone and just say like, somebody might get some value from what I'm teaching. So let me just talk to every person I meet.
- [13:54]
Justin Moore
First of all, I appreciate that. That's very, that's very kind of you. I'll be totally honest. I definitely consider myself like a gregarious person, like outgoing. I really, I feed off the energy of other people. Like, that's just core of my personality. And I understand not everyone's that way. Like, there's more people. My wife's an introvert. Like an introverted. An extroverted introvert is what she calls herself. Right. And. And so I very much enjoy talking to people and learning about them and learning about their business and learning about their problems. And just like, I don't know, that's just like by part, even in everyday life, making small talk with people. So I think that that is a default positive trait that helps me endear myself, I think maybe to other people. I think also part of it is that I'm not. I just fundamentally don't look at this stuff transactionally. Like, I. One of the coolest parts, I think, about growing the newsletter has been having the privilege of having a platform where I can shine a spotlight on other people and them and the cool stuff that they're doing. And so even from the beginning, if someone was launching a product or launching a course or launching a community or launching something, I would just like DM them or respond, hey, you want me to like shout you out or like talk about you in the newsletter or like do this stuff too? And it was never like this like secret scheme where like one day I'm gonna Like, come back quid pro quo. Like, remember that time I mentioned you three years ago? Now it's time to pay up. You know, Like, I've. I never thought about it like that. It was always just, like, the inherent satisfaction I got of, like, helping someone. And I think. I don't know, I think that that engendered a lot of goodwill for. For people, you know, in the community to a point where anytime they had a conversation with a friend who was having an issue, it just. It was like a natural thing. Like, oh, you gotta, like, talk to this guy Justin. He's, like, focusing on this stuff. He's a good guy. He helped me out one time. And so, yeah, of course, like, it was. There was the byproduct of that was like, I think, just, like, really positive word of mouth. And in fact, you could even bear that out in the. In the data of, like, my customers, actually, my people who have joined my course or joined my coaching program, like, something like 25 to 30% of those of people who are joining our referrals from either affiliates, formal affiliates, or just, like, people, like, word of mouth, saying, I heard about you from xyz because I make a point. I make a point to ask people, how did you hear about me? How did you hear about this program, this type of thing? And. And it's very often, like, from other people. And so I like to think that success, financial success is a byproduct of service and just treating people well. Um, and so I don't. And, okay, this is, you know, speaking of full circle, like, now that, you know, the book is out, I was faced with this very uncomfortable moment where I, you know, I was working with a book strategist. His name is Casey Proctor, is a great guy. And he basically said, okay, Justin, now is the time. You have, you know, planted a million great seeds with people over the last, you know, four years. Now is the time to go and ask all these people, hey, will you give me a shout out? Will you, like, talk, you know, share about the book? Much like I did to y'all, right? I came and I said, hey, y'all, like, would love to, like, come on the POD or newsletter, shout out, whatever. And it was super uncomfortable, actually, for me to, like, do this. But of the. Basically a hundred people that I reached out to, everyone but three people said yes. And it was shocking. Like, I was. I was. And the three people who said no wasn't like, no, I hate you. It was like, oh, I've pivoted the business. I'm not, you know, talking to creators anymore. Whatever. There was one person who was very icy that was very uncomfortable. It was very weird and awkward. But. But yeah, the vast majority of people, it was just like, oh, no question. Like, you know, please, you know. And so, yeah, it was, it was. Casey put it in a new light. He was like, you are actually, if you do not ask people, you are depriving them of being able to do you a solid. And like, you've helped me so much. I find. Wow. That I feel so awesome that I get to like repay you for this advice you gave me that one time that helped me make more on a brand deal or whatever. So it was a really, it was a really fulfilling thing to like, reach out and ask people candidly.
- [17:54]
Chanel
That's awesome. It's got to feel good to know that like, all of that hard work that you've put in is like, people actually do respect you for it and appreciate it enough to. I mean, it's a no brainer. Like having you on this is a no brainer. One wrote a deep dive on you. I think it's awesome. Your story's great and I think more people should learn about it, so.
- [18:11]
Justin Moore
Well, first of all, thank you. But can I also share that I pestered Chanel? How many times did I pester you to write it? I was like, does this mean that you're finally going to write a deep dive about me? Because I remember one time I saw you writing someone about someone that had less than 50,000 followers and I was like, oh, great, this is my ticket. Finally.
- [18:29]
Chanel
So the next morning I got a text from. He's like, when's my turn?
- [18:32]
Justin Moore
Yeah. So you have to speak this stuff into existence is what I. Is the point. Right?
- [18:37]
Dylan
Yeah.
- [18:37]
Chanel
Well, you also have to stop pruning your list so aggressively because you've been at 35,000 for, okay, a year and a half now.
- [18:44]
Justin Moore
Okay. So, so can we. Can. Can this be the moment in the podcast where we talk about the problems, the challenges that I'm having with the newsletter?
- [18:51]
Dylan
Ooh, let's do it.
- [18:51]
Chanel
Sure, sure.
- [18:52]
Justin Moore
Because yes, I prune the list. But over the last several months, I've also had a significant churn issue where I increase the cadence of the newsletter from basically one to two to three to now four times a week. And now it's. It's a double edged sword because sales have definitely increased for the course because people are just. Both the course and the coaching program, because people are just seeing the offers more. I mean, it's a Real thing, like people are just, they're seeing, they're seeing the messaging and all that. But that also means that with every email people are subscribing more and unsubscribing more. And it's not just a linear unsubscription, it's more aggressive than, than linear because people, there's just this general sense that like this dude is sending a lot of emails. And so I have a problem, I think generally, so, so I'm, I'm basically filling the bucket, but I have a big hole in the bottom of the bucket. And so I've been flat in terms of the growth for the last couple months. And so can we workshop this? Like, what, what do you, what would your guys suggestions be to like fix this issue?
- [20:02]
Chanel
Go for it.
- [20:04]
Dylan
Oh, well, a few questions. So are you giving people the option to limit the amount they hear from you?
- [20:09]
Chanel
No, that was my first question.
- [20:10]
Dylan
Yeah, so that's like the first thing I would be like, okay, if you don't want to lose subscribers because they like, you know, two out of your four emails, they don't have the option to only get two emails a week versus four, because that can be overwhelming to people who already are signed up to a lot of things. So what I, what I like to see as an option from somebody who's sending more frequent emails is like, hey, I actually only want the Monday motivation or the Friday finds or whatever version, you know, you have of those newsletters. Or you can even give them, like if you're doing a launch, you can give them the option to opt out of a launch sequence, which I do that.
- [20:42]
Justin Moore
I definitely do that.
- [20:43]
Dylan
Okay, that's amazing. Okay, so that's good, that's good. But yeah, in terms of like the amount they hear from you, that could be something you could look at reducing.
- [20:51]
Justin Moore
How do I, how do I, sorry.
- [20:52]
Dylan
Not reduce the amount they hear from you, but making sure you have the option to.
- [20:56]
Justin Moore
How do I, how do I still want to be able to launch stuff to those people who opt out of the normal cadence of newsletter because, you know, every couple months, basically I do a quarterly promotion or some, you know, new challenge or something. So do, do I also exclude those people from that or like how does that, how do you think?
- [21:14]
Chanel
I wouldn't.
- [21:15]
Dylan
Yeah, I wouldn't either. So what I think is you've got, my guess is you probably have specific types of emails you're sending on these days of the week, right? So you give people the option to receive those or some of them, or none of Them or whatever it might be or just one of them. And then when you do a launcher promotion, those people still get those launch and promotion emails. They're just unsubscribing from the other three or four recurring weekly editions. And then when a launch comes up, you're giving them the option to opt out of the launch. So again, they're not unsubscribing. Their preferences stay the same. They're only getting that one or two emails a week from you that they want and everyone's happy and you're losing fewer subscribers. And then when the offer comes in for your launch that they actually really want, they're still on your list and they still will potentially buy from you.
- [21:55]
Justin Moore
I think I'm gonna do this. I've been resisted resisting this for a long time, but I'm talking to the experts right now, so I probably should do this.
- [22:02]
Chanel
Well, four emails is kind of a lot, especially if you signed up and you were only hoping to get sponsorship opportunities. So I don't know.
- [22:11]
Justin Moore
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that it? Just any other advice?
- [22:17]
Chanel
Well, are you doing like paid ads or anything to grow the list? I know you did before, but.
- [22:22]
Justin Moore
Yeah, so I did this pretty heavily. So I was, I was spending about $5,000 a month, actually a mix of paid meta like Facebook and Instagram ads, as well as Sparkloop paid acquisition for a while there, and that was going gangbusters. That did really pretty well. And I was able to, you know, I analyzed kind of the cohort engagement between organic subs and ones that I was acquiring from paid ads. And like the engagement was only about 5, 5 to 7% less with paid ads, which was pretty sweet. And so I definitely want to like explore going back into that. I basically re. I stopped paid acquisition for the newsletter because I reallocated all of those funds over to a paid evergreen webinar strategy that I was running for about a year to 18 months and so spent about 100k on. On cold traffic basically to webinar registrants. Um, and so that was basically reallocated the budget to that. So definitely kind of reassessing, you know, the, the strategy. One, one thing that I'd be curious of yours, perspective, Yalls perspective, is that I've developed this audit tool that is sick like it. So it's. It's basically if you could, if you go to, you can check it out, anyone listening or watching wanting to try it out, you can go to sponsormagnet.com audit and, and enter in your YouTube, Instagram or TikTok handle and. Or all the above. And it will generate a personalized audit for how you can attract more sponsors with your social media. And basically, it's a custom tool that I developed with one of my friends who's a developer, and it's so sick. Basically, we take a screenshot of your social platforms and, like, your videos and things like that, and we analyze how you can improve, whether it's your banner in your YouTube cover art or your bio or the thumbnails on your YouTube channel or the way in which you talk about yourself in your Instagram bio, whatever. And it'll tell you, hey, like, good job on this, but hey, you're making a mistake here. And I have a feeling like this tool could be pretty powerful for lead gen and even running maybe paid ads to it. Ooh, you got a four out of five.
- [24:40]
Chanel
All right, four out of ten.
- [24:41]
Justin Moore
Out of ten out of ten. That's great. What are some of the, like, feedback that it gave you?
- [24:47]
Chanel
Yeah, channel, banner, image. It says add, like, new. New videos every. Whatever day tells you about, like, cadence about section is bad, which is fair. And then I entered my email to get the rest.
- [25:01]
Justin Moore
Okay.
- [25:02]
Chanel
And now I got to check out the email.
- [25:03]
Dylan
So this was. This is a. Yeah, like a lead gen tool. Was that the whole motivation behind it?
- [25:08]
Justin Moore
Yeah, 100%. Like, Legion was. Was. But I feel like having, like, running paid ads to it, even for, like, kind of an introductory creator, an aspiring creator who is like, oh, like, I want to work with brands. This type of thing might be pretty. Pretty powerful. So I don't know. It's just a gut, gut feeling, though.
- [25:25]
Chanel
Have you done those ads yet or.
- [25:26]
Justin Moore
No, not yet. No, I kind of.
- [25:28]
Chanel
I kind of do.
- [25:29]
Justin Moore
Well, you think so?
- [25:30]
Dylan
I think you've been shouted out on the podcast before also about talking about lead magnets and how you tried lead magnets a lot in the beginning of the newsletter days, and you're kind of like. You kind of set them aside and focused on referral and locked content and that sort of thing. But now it looks like you're dabbling with lead magnets. This is definitely a different type of lead magnet, for sure.
- [25:49]
Justin Moore
Yeah.
- [25:49]
Dylan
So I guess your mind. Mind hasn't necessarily changed on it. You're just approaching from a different angle.
- [25:53]
Justin Moore
So I was on Nathan Barry's podcast recently, and we did. The whole episode was basically about how should my business change now that I have a book. And it was a really awesome conversation. And one of the insights that we basically had from the conversation was That I basically we talked about, what are the goals that I want now that I have the book? Like, what are the goals that I want in the business? And one of the biggest things I told him was like, I want to make coaching, the coaching program grow from, let's say 30% of revenue, which is what it currently is, to 80 or 90% in a year or two. That's a big goal that I have is like, you know, having the signature offer basically be our coaching program. And one advice, piece of advice that he gave specifically came back to this audit tool was like, I would go hard on the audit tool as like one of the major calls to action anywhere. Um, and depending on people's scores, you provide them, hey, you got a, you know, this score. You should read the book. This is great for you. Hey, you got to. Or if you get above, you know, 90% or whatever, you're perfect for the coaching program. So using the audit tool as a way to kind of, you know, Harry Potter sorting hat idea of like push people to like different offers based on the score. And so part of me feels like I should double down on making the tool really, really good. It's great now. It's good now. I want to make it great and then develop kind of a sophisticated segmentation logic on the back end to like show people different offers based on their score.
- [27:25]
Chanel
I think that's super smart. It reminds me of Brian Harris with growth tools and he had, he's put together five, six, maybe more of these like software lead magnets essentially. And he's been able to grow his list through those. People share them all the time because they're free. So this is what that reminds me of. I think it's a really good option. I think Nathan's right on point with that, like sort people into different buckets based on how they're scoring. Yeah, I mean it's the ultimate personalization. And you have their YouTube channel link, their Instagram channel. Like you can do direct outreach if they're quality enough.
- [28:01]
Justin Moore
So yeah, one other thing that I've, I've toyed with is that, you know, there's these lead gen companies out there, for example, like there's one called Influencers Club, for example. And they will have some like pretty sophisticated tooling to filter certain types of creators or influencers. They usually work with creator economy companies to do cold lead gen. So like email, cold email marketing. And I talked to them. You know, I'm still kind of considering whether trying this, but like I said, hey, can you get me A list of like creators who, you look at their profile and they've done at least one paid partnership in the last six months. You know, they look at you, you see that they have like a hashtag ad or hashtag sponsored or something in their Instagram post. That's probably like a good person to like, for me to reach out to and be like, either hey, join the newsletter or oh, hey, buy my book or hey, sign up for this free, you know, webinar or whatever. That probably feels like a good thing, but I don't know. Cold email outreach has, is walk me through this because I. Everything to date has been inbound for my business over the last three or four years other than the paid cold ads that I tried. But like everything else has been like, hey. Like I'm not saying like hey, buy my, buy my course or like hey, buy my code. It's like everyone is kind of like coming to me and saying like, hey, I want to sign up for this. And so somehow cold email feels different. It feels a little ickier. I don't know. Am I wrong in that I don't.
- [29:32]
Chanel
Love doing cold email either for that reason, But I'm sure there's a way to make it warmer so it's not super cold. Yeah, um, maybe you even start looking at. All right, so you've worked with this one person, see who they're connected to. Maybe, I don't know. That's still not super warm.
- [29:47]
Dylan
But why do you feel the need to do cold outreach?
- [29:50]
Justin Moore
Okay, because if I, if I look at the customers that I've, you know, have joined my course, joined my coaching, this type of stuff, it is the people who are actively having issues with sponsorships. They're like, I'm in a negotiation right now. I need help pricing negotiations, proposals. Like we crush, we shoot those fish in a barrel all day long. Like we're great servicing that, those clients, but we. When I go to conferences or when I talk with most creators, most business owners, the vast majority of people are like, eh, sponsorships. I don't wanna do sponsorships. Like I wanna sell my own stuff or I wanna do, you know, this type of thing. And I have a three minute conversation with someone like that and I say, hey, you know what? I actually think you should be looking at it a little bit differently. And then they go, oh wow, this is interesting. Maybe I should be considering sponsorships. And holy cow. That I get goosebumps even thinking about. I absolutely, I feel like, like that is the vast majority of creators and entrepreneurs. They think that sponsorships are, like, this icky process. I don't want to give up creative control. Like, I just want to do this over here. I want to make AdSense on my YouTube videos and not talk to anyone, or I want to sell my own courses or products or whatever. And so I actually think that the vast, vast majority. There's like a much, much larger tam, Right. A total addressable market of people who I can serve and impact who just aren't doing sponsorships right now. And candidly, that's why. That's why I wrote the book. And so I just feel like there's a lot of people I could help who just. It's not even on their radar.
- [31:21]
Chanel
That's interesting. I feel like there's more. There are other things you could probably do. Maybe even, like, if someone buys a book, give them a free coupon to give it away to someone else, like a new friend. Because maybe they're thinking, all right, I'm learning about sponsorships, but my other friend over here thinks they hate sponsorships, so maybe I should offer them a free copy of the book. I don't know.
- [31:42]
Justin Moore
You. You want to. Sorry, I'm like. I'm like, totally have taken control of your podcast. Um, but I feel like this is interesting, right? Can I. Can I share my screen? We can. If those of you guys who are just listening, if you're just listening to the podcast, come over to YouTube. Okay. Cause I'm. I'm about to. I'm about to show something cool. Okay. So this is my books site. And I have this thing up at the top of this banner called the 10k copies challenge. And I've basically. This is partly a list growth hope as well, but basically I have these milestones that everyone in the community will unlock once I sell that number of copies of the book. So, for example, like, we're at about 650 copies pre sold right now. And once. Once everyone in the. You know, once I unlock a thousand copies sold every. I'm going to send this secret video to everyone that's called how I responded to a brand that rejected my pitch. And then there's, like, different things. I'm going to be doing some live, you know, workshops at 3,000, 5,000, 8,000, et cetera. And so so far, it's been working actually pretty well. Some people have actually told me in the email response, when they respond to the email, when they buy the book, they're like, I just had to see that number tick up. And I was like, sweet, this is great. And so, so, yeah, so it's just like, I don't know, you guys could probably tell like my, my approach to newsletters and growth and all that has. It's been this very kind of like test and learn type thing. And so like, I don't know. I don't know this is going to work. I'm really trying to get to 10k books sold by April 21st, basically. So, yeah, I don't know. It's. I don't know. I have fun doing these like, little tests.
- [33:20]
Chanel
I've done a lot of tests, for sure. I've seen you change different growth channels. Your products suite has changed like significantly, I'd say. And it's, it's honestly, it's inspiring because I feel like a lot of creators, they do one thing, it's working okay. And they're like, I'm just gonna stay with this because it's still working. But you are like, no, we're gonna change this up. We're gonna completely change how we're doing things. And it always. Well, it seems to do well most of the time.
- [33:50]
Justin Moore
Well, to, to clarify, I have tried a lot of different tactics to grow the list and things like that, but I'm still only offering the same one or two products. I'm not. I definitely have taken the kind of strip mall versus skyscraper scraper approach that Nathan Barry has talked about to heart. Very much trying to build the skyscraper because it is absolutely hard to like, you know, build mindshare over 10 or 15 products that you've launched. And so most of the tests I've done have just been more like list growth tactics versus, like, let me, let me launch a bunch of different products.
- [34:27]
Chanel
Right. Well, but I could. I mean, even with Brandy Old wizard, you were doing it as a cohort. Now it's evergreen.
- [34:33]
Justin Moore
Yeah.
- [34:33]
Chanel
Because you need a little bit more time on your hands, I'm sure to have a conference. Now you have those two things as well. So I feel like you're, you are expanding it. Yes, the, the vertical and the topic is all the same, but it's just, it's pretty inspiring to see that. I mean, you even changed the topic. You could have still been talking about the business of creators if you weren't. If you were too scared to change it over to just sponsorships. And some people are too scared to niche down like that. So I think it's, it's pretty cool to see. So, yeah, I just wanted to call that out.
- [35:02]
Justin Moore
I appreciate it. I appreciate that.
- [35:05]
Dylan
I, I think this is a great time and correct me if I'm wrong, Chanel, but I think this is a great opportunity to pick Justin's brain about newsletter sponsorships for people listening. Like, definitely things that we should all be doing that were not that, you see, kind of that kind of thing. If you're. If you're ready to take on a few of those types of questions, Justin.
- [35:20]
Justin Moore
Heck yeah. Let's go. Rapid fire. Hit me.
- [35:24]
Chanel
And before people tune out and they're like, I don't want to do sponsorships, or I already have this locked in. I heard Justin told Nathan Barry on an old podcast or in some video that when you had a 3,000 person email list, you sold a $2,000 sponsorship deal. And I was like, what? At the time when I had 3,000 people on my email list, I think I was selling spots for like 150 bucks. So there's a big difference in the way that most creators, like me, do things and the way that Justin teaches. So don't zone out here. Listen to his advice. Cause it's good stuff.
- [35:57]
Justin Moore
That was a. That was a juicy hook there. I really like that one, Chanel. Okay, so can we talk about why that. Can we talk about why that is actually. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. So a huge part of being able to sell newsletter sponsorships well is being able to tell the story about why your audience is different than the other 10 other newsletters that they're evaluating. I think a lot of people get really fixated on the, oh, the CPMs and the CPOs and like, you know, how many coming up with some formula of, you know, what, the open rate, the click rate, and like, all these, you know, calculators that they can find on the Internet. When in reality, a big part of, you know, making more money with newsletter sponsorships is just being able to tell the sponsor that, like, hey, the people who are on my newsletter are different than, you know, if you. If you compare my newsletter at 3,000 subscribers to this other person who has an identical, you know, number. To me, my audience is different. And so the story that I told in those early days and I still tell is that the types of creators that are on my newsletter are business minded. They are trying to make money and grow their business. They are not screwing around on TikTok. They're not just making YouTube videos for fun as a hobby. They are investing money in growing this as a business. And that is a very different type of Persona of type of customer that you want to reach. I use the same logic to get my course sponsored I get the same logic to get my, my podcast, my social media sponsored. I use the same logic to get my event sponsor games sponsored. It's the same logic. It's like you have to tell the story of the attendee of the subscriber, of the follower. You have to tell the story. And I think that this is the way in which you can detach your rates from your number of subscribers.
- [37:44]
Chanel
Super smart. I, yeah, I could see exactly why that works. Even just that little reframe will make a big difference. You're right.
- [37:51]
Justin Moore
It, it also helps you clarify, like, okay, maybe, maybe I don't know the answer to that. I actually don't know what makes my subscribers different. And you know what you need to do? You need to ask them. You need to do some surveys, learn more. Not just about the demographics, right? Of like, you know, maybe you do have some high level stats of your subscribers with your newsletter platform or whatever. But like, no, I actually, you know what I care about? I care about the psychographics. I care about what types of jobs they have. Are they married? Do they have kids? You know, what types of brands and products and services are they using and loving right now? You can ask them what's keeping them up at night, what problems are they having? You know, you, you may do a survey of your newsletter audience and discover that. Wow, I actually, you know, maybe let's say you have a bunch of SMBs. Those are the types of people that are on your newsletter and you do a survey and you realize, wow, I didn't realize that 40% of respondents of this survey are having issues with bookkeeping or they're having issues with HR or they're having issues. What was something right, that's not about the topic of your newsletter and you. So you never would have thought to like talk about that or collaborate with a partner or a software tool like that. But now that I know that 40% of the people in my audience, these SMBs are having bookkeeping issues, I better go out there and pitch a bookkeeping tool, a bookkeeping software and figure out a creative way to integrate that into, into my content, into my newsletter. And the beautiful part about that is that you're no longer worried like, oh, are my, are my subscribers going to be into this? Oh, you just, you just found out they're. 40% of them are having an issue with this. So it's probably going to increase conversions as well for, for this opportunity. And so it's, it's a hit. So also think about how game changing of a Pitch that is now it's no longer, hey, I love your brand. Would you love to sponsor my newsletter? It's, hey, I have a huge chunk of my audience who say that they're actively having an issue with this. That the issue that your product. Product solves. I would love to expose my full audience to. To your. To your tool.
- [39:43]
Chanel
I love this. I heard you say something like this before, and so I actually took some of this advice and I went and I surveyed my audience and I said, what tools are you guys actively using? And by far and away, number one was Notion. So I need to get on my game and reach out to Notion and get that sponsored. But that was the first step I took because I was like, justin is smart. He's thinking about different things like this. So I did it a little bit different, but.
- [40:06]
Justin Moore
Okay. Okay, so. So let's talk about Notion. Can we talk about Notion for a second here? Did you see over the last couple days that they did a full court press with this new feature called Notion Faces?
- [40:17]
Chanel
I did. I saw it yesterday.
- [40:19]
Justin Moore
Okay, so this probably. And I saw people actually, like a bunch of people making posts about this that did not work at Notion. So I think that these were, like, you know, they enlisted an army of either affiliates or people to, like, spread the word, make posts on LinkedIn about this. And so, you know, one of the things that you could have done was infer that, hey, you know, Notion's, you know, they're working on stuff all the time. They're, you know, they've got this, you know, potentially, you know, I don't know. I'm going to infer that, you know, a couple months ago, six months ago, AI, that was the big thing that they were sponsoring people to talk about on podcasts, on newsletters. Hey, Notion has AI now xyz. And so were you to reach out and pitch Notion for a deal, maybe you would have focused still on that AI thing, but they would have come back and said to you, hey, yes, people know about AI now, but guess what? Actually, we've got this, this new thing coming in, Q1 called notion faces. Would you be able to help spread the word about that? So you allow them, when you, when you, you allow them the opening basically to say, hey, love the initiative here, Chanel, thanks for this data that people are really interested in Notion. We. We actually have this other thing we'd love you to focus on. Let's. Let's talk about a partnership.
- [41:24]
Chanel
And so with that, if I were to do that, what are some other, like, I Don't know, unique things that you could quote unquote sell. Like if I just am a newsletter creator, I have a newsletter, maybe I have a small social media, like are there any creative like inclusions you could pitch them on? Like instead of just being like here's three spots in my newsletter.
- [41:43]
Justin Moore
So anyone listening, this is your number one opportunity and your number one directive for me this year is you have to have at least one other channel. Whether it's a social media platform, whether it's a private community, whether it's whatever it is, whether it's an event, an in person event, whatever. You have to have something else to pitch these brands other than more, other than quantity. This is the biggest mistake I think that newsletter operators make when they're trying to pitch sponsorship packages. Maybe you do have packages. Maybe you're saying hey package 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 but the only variance is quantity. You're saying hey, package one is five newsletter blast and package two is 10 luges of blast. And maybe, maybe the only reason that a brand has an incentive to pick a higher package is a price concession. So they say hey, you get 10% off, 15% off if you, you know, pick the higher package, the longer package, whatever. That's not that compelling for most brands can, they don't, they're not going to really care much about that. And so the biggest, biggest change that you need to make here is tying the packages to the brands goals. We're going to go down a rabbit hole for a second here, but I think it's important for everyone to hear. Most newsletter operators think that the only thing that brands and companies care about is conversions is clicks. It's opens, it's the attributable and measurable things. That is only one type of a goal that a brand often has when they want to sponsor you. I call it my ARC framework. Arc, so A stands for awareness. I have done deals with creator economy companies. When I asked them what does success look like to you for this partnership? They said, you know what, when anyone, when a creator hears the word membership, we want them to think of our brand, of the name of our brand. That was the goal. It wasn't new trial signups for our, for our tool. That was not what they said. They said they want us to associate the word membership with our brand. And so that is a, an awareness focused campaign. Okay. It's very important to understand R in the ARC framework is repurposing. So the reason and when I say hey, what does success look like to you? They say hey, we want to actually take the content that you generate, maybe this newsletter integration, and we want to repurpose this on our blog. Because we don't have a blog. Our blog sucks. And. Or we, we need social media content. We suck at that. We want to repurpose this. Maybe you have a Instagram or something. As a newsletter operator. The final C is conversion. Yeah, that's that one that most people think about. Right. And so the reason is so critical that you understand as a newsletter operator what the brand's objectives are is that your package strategy and your pricing has to change when you put these proposals together. So package one is going to be tied to goal one. They probably told you a lot of different things. Oh, yeah. Awareness and sales. And, you know, we need a content strategy like all this stuff. And so package one is going to be the five newsletter blasts. Perfect. That's going to be the, you know, the, let's say conversion focus goal. Perfect. That's tied to that. But package two, there's no newsletter blast in that. Package two is. I'm going to make five blog posts for you that you go on your blog. I don't even put these in my newsletter. Package three is the awareness focused one. This is where I'm going to co lead, co host a webinar with your brand. This is the awareness play where I'm going to, you know, I've got a podcast maybe, and maybe I'm also going to put, you know, the growth and reverse podcast powered by brand on the COVID art of the podcast. That's an awareness play. Right. And so package four, guess what? That's the one that includes everything. And that's the only way that they can accomplish all their objectives is if they pick the highest package.
- [45:14]
Chanel
So you include all three different types of them in the pack or in the pitch.
- [45:18]
Justin Moore
100%. Yeah. Because a lot of. They're going to. Almost all brands will say there's a lot of different things they want to accomplish with the partnership. And for any, any, any newsletter operator listening to this and seeing like, okay, Justin, yeah, this is all good and well. Um, but all the newsletters that, all the, you know, brands that I'm talking to, all they care about is how much are you going to charge me Cost per open, cost per click. Like they're all this stuff, like they just. It sounds great in theory, but no brands go for this type of thing. Have you gotten on the phone call with them? A lot of people are terrified of that. Have you had a conversation with them? If is all you have a place on your website where they can click, oh, yeah, click here. Book these dates, newsletter insertions right here to sponsor it. Is that all you got? Um, because I guarantee you that if they can put a face to the name, if you can ask questions about what it is that they're trying to accomplish, I guarantee you that there is, this is going to lead to a larger conversation. They're going to be able to put a face to the name. Wow. Justin's not just a, you know, another newsletter operator here. Even if you're charging two or three times as much as this other person over here, they may just choose to go with you because it seems like it's going to go better. So, you know, this, this person that you're, that you're negotiating with, it may be their butt on the line. Their boss told them, hey, you better hit this KPI this quarter. You better do this thing. And they may just spend a little bit more money just because it feels like an insurance that they're actually going to be able to do what their boss or their client has requested.
- [46:47]
Chanel
You just made so many introverts cringe right now.
- [46:50]
Justin Moore
Okay, you're right. And let me, let me, let me, let me wrap you in a weighted blanket right now, introverts, okay? Because I know you love those weighted blankets. Guys, on a phone call, I know you're probably in your mind, you're thinking it's going to be like four people in suits on a zoom call and they're all grilling you. So here's a way to avoid that scenario. Before these calls, do research, make a list of 10 questions that you actually ask them. You say, hey, I want to learn more about your market. I want to learn more about your product roadmap. What's going on in your product roadmap? What are you excited about? Have you ever worked with newsletter operators before? If you haven't, or if you have, what went well, what didn't go so well? What are your. Some of your concerns about potentially collaborating here? Are there new entrants in the market, competitors that are, you know, other supply chain issues? Just ask questions, right? Be interested in what's going on in their world. The other thing is that if you don't know the answer to something that they ask, say so say, you know what? I don't know the answer to that. No one's ever asked me that. I will get back to you. It's totally okay to say that. In fact, I think that that engenders more confidence in people if. If you're. If you're truthful about that type of thing. And so these phone calls don't need to be a gauntlet, an interview. It can be a conversation. The visual that I like to give is like, a lot of people think that negotiating with a brand or interacting with a brand, it's like you're on opposite sides of a table and it's contentious. It's like, oh, like, you need this from me and I need this from you. Imagine you scoot your little swivel office chair around the side of the table. You're both sitting on the same side, and you're looking at a whiteboard together. You're saying, hey, this is the objective. We're both trying to go from here to here. How can we do this thing together?
- [48:32]
Chanel
Make it sound so easy. I like it.
- [48:34]
Dylan
I think I.
- [48:36]
Justin Moore
If you buy the book. Sponsor Magnet. If you buy the book, I feel.
- [48:41]
Dylan
Like you're kind of. You've called out, like, just basically putting in, separating yourself from other people by putting in just some extra effort. I know it's. That's simplifying what you're saying a lot, and I don't mean to dumb it down that much, but it's like if you just actually put in a little bit more time and effort into preparation, into your pitches, into what you can offer these people and research, it's just going to go that much more further ahead for you.
- [49:02]
Justin Moore
Well, you know what? The bar is low. Yeah, the bar is very, very low.
- [49:04]
Dylan
There's the bars in the base.
- [49:05]
Justin Moore
The bar. The bar is in the basement, actually, because most newsletter operators, most creators, they don't want to do this. They want to have the stripe checkout. They want to have the calendar where you can click here and book. They want to have the pricing page. It seems easy. It seems seamless. But if I told you that you could go from making $100 per insertion to a thousand per insertion by simply being able to have a conversation with the brand, would you do it? I think a lot of people might, and that seems insane. I mean, I've seen this type of transformation when people start employing some of these strategies.
- [49:35]
Chanel
If someone handed me $900 to get on a phone call, I think I would drop my introvertness and go do it. So, yes.
- [49:41]
Dylan
That's the warm blanket. That's the warm blanket.
- [49:44]
Chanel
Amazing. Justin, this has been awesome. Really appreciate you coming on here and chatting with us about sponsorships and newsletters. And I'm excited to come to the sponsor games event. Oh, my Gosh, it's a little scary that you're going to be asking people to do live pitches, but I'm excited. I'm ready.
- [50:02]
Justin Moore
I'm so, I'm so thankful. And I just want to say, like, you were one of the first people who bought tickets and that has meant the absolute world, world to me. Launching an event is super scary. Like, I, you know, I, I have committed a huge amount of my own personal money to, like, make this, this event happen simply because I want it to exist in the universe. I mean, sponsorships are like the number one revenue stream for, like, a lot of newsletter rappers, a lot of creators, and there's no event that focuses on this. And, and so even as terrifying as it is to like, plop down 20k on a venue and, you know, five figures on catering and all this stuff too, I think it's going to, going to be the start of like, something really special. I think, especially doing these things, practicing in real time, in person with other creators, getting real time coaching. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So I appreciate, I'm so stoked that you, you're coming.
- [50:48]
Chanel
I'm excited. Um, if anybody else wants to join us there, you can go to sponsor games. Com, go get the book sponsor magnet. Com, or just simply sign up for the free newsletter at Creator wizard. Com. So many websites.
- [51:02]
Justin Moore
Hold on a second. If you. By the way, I have, I'm going to give you. If anyone, if you, any of you listen to this and actually sign up. Tell me it was Chanel and Dylan that referred you, because I totally. I have an affiliate program for tickets, 30% commission. So I will, I will give you that meaty commission if actually anyone, like, signs up from this. All right, let's go.
- [51:20]
Chanel
Amazing. Different way to get your podcast episode sponsored.
- [51:26]
Dylan
That's right.
- [51:27]
Chanel
Amazing. Thank you, Justin. This is great.
- [51:29]
Justin Moore
Thanks again, guys.
- [51:30]
Dylan
Awesome. It.