Welcome to issue #025 of Insideletter!
Each week, I share 2–3 editions in which I outline the exact steps to build a newsletter business to £1K a month.
Hey,
I can guarantee that you’ve read 100s of hacks to grow your newsletter and very of them actually worked for you.
It might be for 2 reasons.
A. You didn’t apply it properly
B. The hack wasn’t good enough
Well, if the case is option A, then before you proceed ahead, you’ve to make a promise, you’ve to apply whatever I’ll ask you to.
Otherwise, nothing will help you.
Let’s jump to the first hack.
1. Create a lead magnet collection
What we generally do is create 1 lead magnet and think we’ll get 1000s of subscribers.
But that’s not true.
That doesn’t happen in this way.
Social media’s reach is tanking, and it’s unlikely that your content will go viral.
So, you’ve to create a collection of lead magnets.
How do you do it?
First of all, find out the problems of your ICP, then create 1 lead magnet against each problem and then host it on a platform like Lemon Squeezy
Create enough value that they will feel it’s a crime not to give their email in exchange for that value. And it’s very much likely that they will stick to your list.
2. Find niche friends
Let’s get back to your college days. I am sure that whenever you have done anything in a group, you’ve always tried to keep the other people accountable, and you were fully focused, too.
You’ve to play that game again.
Find 5-10 people who’re in the same niche and dm them, try to make a small group and push each other.
Essentially, you’ll see a different growth trajectory, because 5 different minds will have 5 different ways of growing, and you all can use each other’s ideas and make it the best.
It always works. Try it now!
Also, make sure to cross-promote each other, no matter which tool you’re using, Beehiiv, Kit and Substack all of them have the feature to promote someone else’s newsletter.
3. SEO
If I say the truth, I’m not an SEO person, but when I understood and noticed that search engines are also giving me some subscribers
I studied the m and it mostly gives you the traffic because of your title, uniqueness and quality.
Let’s say you search on Google for ‘How to live a sustainable life’, you won’t find many results, but if you search for the best burgers in India, you’ll get 1000s of links and shops.
So, the lesson is, you’ve to create content that no one is creating.
SEO gives you the advantage when your content is unique, it’s seo friendly or optimised and finally, when you make it a quality thing.
4. Community
I can’t emphasise how communities play the most crucial role in growing your newsletter
But if you join a community and start putting links, you’re out immediately.
So, what’s the ideal way?
The answer is cliché, but the only answer is value.
First of all, you’ve to join the communities which are relevant to your newsletter. If you’re in AI, then join communities where they talk about AI and then keep educating people or providing value. And whenever you get a chance to promote yourself, do it.
Let’s assume you’ve written a piece on the latest writing AI tools.
And the community members are talking about ‘how writing is hard as a newbie’, you can share your knowledge with them and at the end, if they ask for more or if you think the newsletter has something more to add, then you can attach the link.
In this way, you don’t become irrelevant, but you can still grow your newsletter.
5. Build a referral network
The best thing I ever did was to add the refer to someone else button.
Why do everything on your own when strangers out there can do the hard stuff for you?
But why do even people recommend or refer someone to your newsletter?
That’s the biggest question.
People don’t do anything for free.
They do it for 2 reasons.
Reciprocity - If you give them too much without even asking anything, they do it on their own
Incentives - If you give them something in return for their referral, it can be anything, like an eBook, 1:1 calls or 1 month of free community access.
But here we’ll mix both, we’ll give them enough value + incentives.
Beehiiv has an inbuilt referral system, and Sparkloop can be an option, too.
Your task for this week: Pick any of these 5 hacks and apply it to your newsletter.
Thanks for reading today’s edition. I appreciate you.
ICYMI
I’m launching the first-ever newsletter retreat in India.
It will be in December, in Delhi, the capital of India.
Dates might be: 20,21.
After this time, it’ll be Christmas, so people will be in the travel mood too.
Join the waitlist now.
&
I’ve launched the Insideletter community.
Current subscribers of Insideletter: 98 😓
30-day view: 178 🙈
30-day open rate: 16.06% 🤧
Thanks for reading. See you soon.
Quick links:
Check the email marketing podcast.
You can always say hi to me on LinkedIn and X. I would love to see you there.
Join my community.
If you enjoyed this read, the best compliment I could receive would be if you shared it with one person or restacked it.
Oh, and you can, of course, join my chat and ask your questions directly.
Talk soon,
Anirban “building the best newsletter community” Das.
Best part I am at step one and was looking for ways to host leadmagnets otherthan a wordpress blog, do I need to try lemon squeeze even if I have a personal blog to put the links on anirban?
Also I am on step two, so yeah I am going to save this new edition 😊 (I need to check if it's possible though, I am new here)