How to Grow Your Newsletter

đŸȘœ Expert tips on organic growth

Read Time: 11 mins (or listen to this issue)

This past Friday, myself and 400 others traveled from all over the world. We converged in Manhattan’s iconic NY Times building to talk about
 newsletters.

How sexy. How cutting edge. Oooh, just say it out loud: NEWSLETTERS. đŸ”„đŸ”„đŸ”„

Weird, right? Even weirder
 I went to an entire conference dedicated to talking about newsletters. Duly named: “The Newsletter Conference.” Naturally.

(left to right) Dan Oshinsky of Inbox Collective, Stephanie Talmadge of Boardroom, Louis Nicholls of SparkLoop, and Chenell Basilio of Growth in Reverse

But in all seriousness, individuals are building legit media empires on the backs of their newsletter.

These success stories were the evidence and signal I used to prioritize my newsletter as the foundation of my business. But just because you start a newsletter doesn’t mean you’re 7-figure bound. Hardly.

Anyone can launch a newsletter. And these days, it seems like anyone is an accurate description — given the massive surge of newsletters launched every week. But growing a successful newsletter? Much harder.

Growing a newsletter into a product you monetize requires you to create something uniquely valuable. Content your readers await and engage with, week after week. As they do, word of mouth spreads. You turn a corner. You’re able to begin monetizing. But first, you need to crack that growth code.

Luckily, I took notes from Friday’s newsletter conference on how to do just that... Pro tips from renowned newsletter growth experts.

My notes covered, both organic and paid strategies. In today’s issue, I’m covering organic. In a future issue, we’ll look at paid.

Let’s get into them.

Organic growth levers

Organic growth is growth you don’t pay for. It’s the growth lever most scrappy entrepreneurs start with — before profits.

In your early days, you’re iterating your way to content-market fit. Once customers begin paying, it’s a good signal you’re ready to turn on paid acquisition. By delaying, you de-risk funding a newsletter that’s missing the mark; as well as running out of cash too soon.

There were lots of organic growth strategies shared during the conference. Below, I summarized ones I know work or am keen to try. I separated them by 4 sub-categories:

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