30 Ideas to Improve Your Newsletter This Year

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You’ve got a newsletter, and you want to make it better this year. Great — let’s talk about some practical steps you can try to take your newsletter to the next level in 2023.

Idea #1 — Set annual goals for your newsletter

What does success look like in the year ahead? It all depends on how you define success — and that starts by setting clear goals for you and your newsletter.

I want you to think about five different types of goals:

• Growth — Set two goals tied to the size of your newsletter: A target goal (how big you need your newsletter to be by the end of 2023) and a reach goal (how big your newsletter can be if everything goes right). The first is what you’re working towards in public; the second is the big, pie-in-the-sky dream you can quietly work towards.
• Launch — Think about something new you want to create in 2023. It could be another newsletter, or a digital event (like a monthly live chat with subscribers). It could be a new revenue stream (like a classifieds section) or a growth tactic (like launching a referral program). Find something you want to try this year that you haven’t done before.
• Learning — What’s something new you want to learn how to do this year? (Something, hopefully, that’s going to make your newsletter better!) Set a goal there, and then try to find a way (attending a course, a conference, or a class) where you can start to learn about that thing.
• Revenue — If you’ve got a paid subscription, set a goal around the total number of paying subscribers you hope it hit by year’s end. If you’re focused on ads, set a goal around total revenue or total number of advertisers. If you’re focused on a new revenue stream this year, set a goal there.
• Impact — What kind of impact can your newsletter have on your audience? This might not be something you can put a number on — it’s more about identifying the mission that’s behind your newsletter. But having that goal will help you decide what you should create in 2023 to have the right type of impact.

And don’t just set these goals and forget about them! Put a note on your calendar right now for April 1, July 1, and October 1 — once a quarter, look back at how you’re progressing towards them as you move through 2023.

Idea #2 — Find something to subtract

As you’re setting your goals for 2023, I also want you to think about an underrated type of goal: A Subtraction goal.

Setting goals can’t just be about finding stuff to add. Writing a newsletter takes time — and you’re going to have to make hard choices about where you invest your time. If you want to try something new in 2023 (launching another newsletter, creating an events series, publishing a lead magnet, etc.), you’re going to have to stop doing something that you used to do.

So look back at your newsletter in 2022. What’s something you invested time in last year that you don’t want to do anymore?

Add that to your list of goals for the new year — something you want to subtract from your process, freeing you up to add new things in as the year progresses.

(And if you want a great book on the art of subtraction, I highly recommend “Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less,” by Leidy Klotz.)

Idea #3 — Ask something specific in your welcome email

Everyone should send at least one welcome email after someone signs up for their newsletter. Keep it simple — confirm their subscription, and tell them what they’re going to get + when they’re going to get it.

But do one more thing with that welcome email: Ask a question.

Ask your readers to hit reply and tell you something. Maybe you want to know:

• Who they are
• What they want to learn from you
• What they’re struggling with or need help with
• For a recommendation

So let’s say you’re a local news newsletter. Someone signs up, and you ask them, “I’m always on the lookout for new restaurants to try in the area. What’s one place you’ve eaten at recently that I definitely need to try?”

And this is crucial: The more specific the question, the more likely readers are to reply! (In my experience, you’ll get nothing back from readers if you say, “Hit reply if you have any feedback.”)

Getting those replies is one of the best ways to start engaging with readers — and early engagement almost always leads to improved inbox placement + an increase in opens/clicks on your regular newsletter.

Idea #4 — Publish a behind-the-scenes look at your newsletter

Something I’ve learned from my work with The Charlotte Ledger — and that I’ve since highly recommended to other newsletters — is the value of regularly publishing a behind-the-scenes look at what’s happening with your newsletter.

Tell your audience about your progress with the newsletter — how many subscribers you have, how many paying supporters you have. Tell them about your goals.

Why? Opening that curtain is a truly intimate act in the newsletter world. When you start publishing regular updates about your progress, your audience transforms from readers into fans. These become people who want you to succeed and want to see you make progress. Every time I’ve seen a newsletter share one of these updates, the responses pour in from readers: “Keep it up!” “So happy to see you making progress!” “Love the newsletter — wishing you all the best in the new year!”

You’ll discover that you’ve already got an entire team behind you. You just need to give them the chance to cheer for you.

And best yet: If you’re running a paid subscription or membership newsletter, you’ll find that every time you send a behind-the-scenes update, you’re going to see a bump in paying supporters. Readers love being a part of something — and when they know that others are supporting your work, they often will, too. (Just remember to include a link to that subscription page to make it easy for them to do so!)

A few great, recent examples of these:

• The Charlotte Ledger
• Arizona Agenda
• Simon Owens’s Media Newsletter
• Cardinal News

Try it — and see what happens when you let readers in.

Idea #5 — Start utilizing the preheader space

If you’re not utilizing the preheader space, you’re missing an easy chance to get more readers to open your newsletter.

The preheader (some email platforms call this “preview text”) is what appears after the subject line in most email clients. Research shows that newsletters that use the preheader see open rates up to 15 percent higher than those that don’t — so if you’re not using it, you’re missing out on an easy opportunity to get more readers!

The preheader gives a subscriber one more reason to open your newsletter. You can use it to give readers more context about whatever’s in the subject line. Or you can use it to tease a secondary item inside the newsletter.

Just don’t be the person whose preview text reads, “View this email in your browser.” Every time you send an email without that text in that spot, you’re missing your chance to share something great with readers.

Idea #6 — Double-check your email authentication settings

Most email service providers will take care of this for you, but it’s worth a quick check to make sure your emails are authenticated properly. (If not, you might end up in the spam folder!)

Here’s the easy way to do it: Open Gmail on a desktop or laptop, and open one of your newsletters. Click on the three dots on the right, and then click on “Show Original.” Look at the lines for SPF and DKIM — what do you see?

There are two options here: PASS or FAIL.

If you see PASS, you’re in good shape!

If you see FAIL, immediately reach out to your email service provider — every ESP has their own step-by-step guide to help you correctly authenticate your emails.

Idea #7 — Steal an idea, but not from another newsletter

I remember getting coffee a decade ago with the team at TheSkimm. They were still just a team of two, doing everything out of a spare bedroom in Manhattan.

I particularly loved one section of their newsletter: Their daily birthday shout-outs for readers. It seemed like a great way to show appreciation for and build community with their readers.

So I asked them which newsletter they’d gotten the idea from. Their response surprised me: The idea actually didn’t come from a newsletter!

They were huge fans of the “Today” show, and loved how that show always did birthday shout-outs for viewers. They decided that they wanted to find a way to replicate that in their newsletter.

That was an “aha!” moment for me. I stopped looking just at newsletters for inspiration. I’d listen to a segment on a podcast or a TV show and think, “Is there a way to re-create what they do here, but in newsletters?”

An example: Every edition of Not a Newsletter closes with some fun facts about an animal. That was inspired by two things: The back page of most magazines (which usually features something fun/silly) and CBS’s “Sunday Morning” show, which features a moment in nature. What do you get when you combine silly + nature at the end of a long Google Doc? I’d hope it’s something like my closing “Anonymous Animal of the Month.”

Think about the content you consume outside of newsletters.

Maybe it’s how a podcast you love incorporates a guest host.

Maybe it’s how a blog you love does Q&As with amazing people.

Maybe it’s how a TV show you love starts with a quick recap of the news.

If there’s something you absolutely love that someone else does, maybe there’s a way for you to take that concept and adapt it for your newsletter.

Idea #8 — Ask readers to share the newsletter with a friend

Every reader on your email list has a friend or a colleague who might also like your newsletter. They’ll happily share your newsletter with them — as long as you make it easy to do so.

Maybe you’ve already got a note in your newsletter that says, “Please share this newsletter with a friend!” That’s great — but you’re putting all the burden on your readers. They’re going to have to think about how to properly explain your newsletter, write the email, and hit send. That might take a few minutes — and be honest with yourself: Do your readers love your newsletter so much that they might take 3-5 minutes out of their day to pitch your newsletter for you?

There’s a better way. I first noticed this tactic in 1440’s newsletter, and have seen others adapt it over the years. It’s super simple, and it actually works.

The secret: You’re going to write the email for them.

When you’re adding a link to a newsletter, you can add a normal URL, or you can add what’s known as a “mailto:” link. When you click on one of those, instead of taking you to a website, it opens up a new email for you to send.

And you can pre-fill that email — with a subject line, body copy, and a link back to your newsletter sign-up page.

You can use this tool from Parcel to write the email on behalf of your readers. Add in your subject line, and give your best 2-5 sentence pitch for why your newsletter is great. Write it in the first person — it’s a personal email, so it should sound like one. And at the end, add the link to your sign-up page. Then copy that link from Parcel’s tool, and link to it within your newsletter.

Readers can always edit or adjust the copy if they’d like, but if you pre-write this email, you’ve made it as easy as possible for readers to share it with friends. All they need to do is type in their friend’s email address and hit send.

Idea #9 — Start a conversation with newsletter writers you admire

Do yourself a favor this week: The next time someone you admire sends you a newsletter you love, hit reply and tell them how much you enjoyed it.

It doesn’t have a long note. Send a sentence or two: “This was great — loved the way you explained this! Thanks for sharing!”

And then get into the habit of doing that. Maybe you just say thank you. Maybe you ask them a question. Maybe you start a conversation with them.

Remember: Writing a newsletter can be a lonely venture. Sure, you get some metrics back: Open rate, click rate, maybe a paid conversion or two. But often, it’s tough to know if what you wrote had a real impact.

So if you, the writer of that newsletter, start getting positive feedback from readers — well, that’s gold. That’s the feedback you’ve been hoping for.

And if you, the reader of that newsletter, become one of those people who regularly shares feedback, or asks questions, or starts a conversation, you might find that suddenly, your relationship with that writer starts to shift.

Maybe it’ll lead to a Zoom call, or to them signing up for your newsletter, or to a link back to something you wrote, or to coffee when you’re in the same city, or to an invite to appear on their podcast.

Be that person who hits reply — and see where it takes you.

Idea #10: Try a one-click poll

An in-newsletter poll is a great way to collect feedback from readers. A few things you can try with polls:

• Ask readers how they felt about that day’s newsletter
• Ask them what types of stories they want to read about next
• Ask them to vote on how they feel about a certain topic
• Ask them about themselves (where they live, what kind of work they do)
• Ask them a trivia question (and then answer it in the next newsletter)

This sort of feedback could help you understand how you’re doing or what you could do better with your newsletter. Or it could be a way to drive some sort of engagement — with Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, it can be tough to tell if a reader is actually opening a newsletter. A click on a poll is a way to tell that a reader is actually there.

If you’re on a tool like Ghost, a thumbs up/down feedback tool is built-in. Beehiiv and Substack have their own polling tools, too. Or you can use a tool like Feedletter or Reactions to do this sort of polling.

It’s a simple thing, but it’s also a great way to start a conversation with your readers.

Idea #11: Are you on the email right platform?

There are a lot of email platforms out there, many with similar features, and it’s tough to know if you’re on the right one for you. But picking the right platform does matter! If you’re an independent writer trying to monetize through subscriptions, you might make a different choice than if you were focused on advertising.

The start of the year is a great time to revisit your own platform and see if there’s another option out there that might work better for you. So I put together a guide to six email platforms I think indie newsletter writers should take a closer look at:

• AWeber
• Beehiiv
• ConvertKit
• Ghost
• Mailchimp
• Substack

I dove into what makes each of these platforms so useful, what they cost, and why they might be right for you. I also walked through seven questions you should be asking up front to help pick the right option.

I’m hoping it helps a lot of people (hopefully you, too!) find the right platform to build a great newsletter this year.

Idea #12: Recommend another newsletter to your readers

One of the most exciting newsletter innovations of the past year was the rise in newsletter-to-newsletter recommendations.

Beehiiv and Substack both built recommendation tools into their platforms — if you’re on one of those, you can recommend any other newsletter also on their platform. Writers I’ve talked to who are using these tools have raved about how effective they’ve been.

SparkLoop rolled out Upscribe, which allows you to recommend other newsletters pretty much regardless of email platform. And if you’re recommending a newsletter that’s part of their Partner network, you could actually be getting paid for driving sign-ups for other newsletters. (Upscribe doesn’t work with every platform, but it works with most. You can sign up here and check it out.)

But don’t stop simply by recommending a newsletter. Reach out to the newsletters you’re recommending and let them know, 1) That you’re recommending them, and 2) Why you love their newsletter so much. You might find that they’ll happily choose to return the favor and recommend your newsletter back to their readers, too.

Idea #13: Take a closer look at your sent-from name

A reader sees three things before they open your newsletter: The subject line, the preheader text, and who the email was sent from.

The latter is often the single most important reason why a reader opens your newsletter — and yet, it’s something that most newsletters never test!

There are a lot of ways to use that sent-from space. For my newsletter, for instance, I could do any of these:

• Dan Oshinsky
• Inbox Collective
• Dan at Inbox Collective
• Dan | Inbox Collective
• Dan, Inbox Collective
• Dan // Inbox Collective
• Dan Oshinsky at Inbox Collective
• Dan Oshinsky | Inbox Collective
• Dan Oshinsky, Inbox Collective
• Dan Oshinsky // Inbox Collective

And I could flip the org name and my name — “Inbox Collective | Dan Oshinsky” would also work.

Until you run some A/B tests on this, you won’t know which sent-from name is the one that will get a reader to open your newsletter. So test out a few of these options over the next few weeks, and see if you can get even more readers to open your newsletter.

Idea #14: Find an accountability partner

Writing a newsletter can be a solitary practice. You need someone you can trade notes with and share victories with.

You need an accountability partner.

An accountability partner is someone you can check in with, maybe monthly or quarterly, to talk about how things are going. They’re someone who’ll be honest with you when things aren’t working. They’re the person you can reach out to and bounce an interesting idea off of.

Find a newsletter writer you admire — maybe someone who’s got a similar audience or content strategy to yours — and ask if they’d be up for being your accountability partner. This should be something that benefits both of you: They’ll support you, and you’ll support them.

Go into your calendar and set up a recurring check-in with them. And use that time to talk about everything: Your wins, your failures, your struggles.

Your accountability partner is someone who can support you through the ups and downs of growing your newsletter, someone who can remind you when you’re not doing the things you said you’d do, and someone who can celebrate with you when you make a breakthrough.

Even if you’re operating a newsletter alone, you still deserve a team behind you who can support your work.

Idea #15: Add a personal note to your welcome series

When you first launch your newsletter, the first wave of subscribers are people who know you: Family, friends, people who follow you on social media. But as your list grows, you’ll notice that you don’t know the names of your subscribers anymore — and they probably don’t know all that much about you.

And that’s why it’s so crucial that you have an email in your welcome series introducing yourself.

It doesn’t have to be long — even a 250 or 300-word note might be enough. Tell them about who you are and why you do the work that you do. Tell them why you decided to start this newsletter. Tell them why you’re excited for them to be on your list.

And then make a small ask. Maybe that’s to hit reply and share something with you. Maybe it’s to nudge them towards paying for a subscription. Maybe you’re asking them to share the newsletter with a friend. Make the ask small — just a sentence or two. The goal of this email is to get readers to get to know you. If they choose to take a secondary action, too, that’s a bonus.

Add this as a second email in your welcome series, sent a day or two after the initial welcome email.

You’ll find that a second welcome email like this should boost your overall email engagement numbers (early engagement = better deliverability), and you’ll get lots of feedback from readers as a result of this (“So nice to meet you! I’m really excited to read more!”).

Idea #16: Use surveys to identify the right marketing pitch

Why should someone sign up for your newsletter? Often, the readers of your newsletter understand that better than you do.

Here’s a trick I learned from Val Geisler a few years back: Run a quick survey of your newsletter audience. Ask them a simple question: What do you rely on this newsletter for? Come up with as many answers, in multiple-choice format, as make sense for your email.

Watch the replies roll in, and see what answer sticks out. Then turn around and use that language or that value proposition in your next call to action.

Your current readers love your newsletter for a specific reason — and your future subscribers will probably love it for the exact same reason.

Idea #17: Crowdsource a question

One of the most-read BuzzFeed Books posts ever came entirely from replies to a newsletter.

We asked readers a simple question in our newsletter: “What’s a book you read recently that you couldn’t put down?” We asked them to hit reply and share their answer.

And over the next few days, hundreds of replies rolled into the inbox. We replied to each and every one, and then started to curate those answers into a giant list.

Why try this? For one, getting readers to reply to your newsletter is one of the best ways to tell the inboxes, “Hey, my newsletter is valuable and should never go to spam!” Newsletters that generate lots of replies tend to be the ones that also show up in the good parts of the inbox.

And two, starting a conversation with your readers is a fantastic way to build a relationship with them. Those are the readers who will be excited every time your name shows up in the inbox.

So ask a simple question:

• What’s one thing you absolutely want to do in the new year?
• What’s a book that changed the way you think?
• What’s a tool you’ve been using that’s made your work a little bit better?
• Where’s your favorite place to get iced coffee nearby?

Then turn around and highlight a few of those answers in your next newsletter. Readers will learn a lot from each other, and it’ll send the signal to readers that it’s OK to write back — others are doing so, too.

Idea #18: Make time for 1-to-1s with readers

These are the two most important days in the history of my business:

The first was January 14, 2019 — the day I launched Not a Newsletter.

The second was July 2, 2019.

That’s the day I invited readers to set up free, 1-to-1 calls with me.

In the weeks that followed that email, more than 75 newsrooms and non-profits reached out to me for 1-to-1s. I used Google Sheets to track key themes: What were readers struggling with? Where did they need help? What might keep them from working with a consultant like me?

And with every call, I learned a little more, and a little more. By the end of the summer, I’d identified several new consulting opportunities that I hadn’t realized were on the table, and made some changes to Not a Newsletter to reflect what the community was asking for.

Invite your readers to chat. The closer you are to them, the better you’ll be able to serve them through your newsletter.

Idea #19: Don’t let spammy emails in

Keeping your email list clean starts at the point of sign-up. You’ve got two choices:

1. You can use double opt-in (sometimes known as confirmed opt-in) to require every new sign-up to confirm, via an email sent immediately after sign-up, that they want to hear from you.
2. You can go the single opt-in route — but you need to have a strategy for verifying that the emails being added to your list are legitimate.

If you go with the second choice, consider your next steps. Some ESPs, like Beehiiv or Mailchimp, automatically run every email address that gets added to your newsletter through a tool to verify that the email is legit.

You could also use a service like Kickbox to check the validity of emails before you add them to your list. Kickbox has an integration with Zapier, so you could pass the email addresses from a form to Kickbox to your email platform automatically. (Here’s a link to test out Kickbox. You’ll get 100 verifications free with that URL.)

Or if you’ve got a website where you’re driving sign-ups, consider an option like reCAPTCHA. If you’re on the Inbox Collective website, you’ll notice an icon in the bottom right corner of the page — that’s reCAPTCHA working to block spammy sign-ups from being added to my list. Many sign-up tools, like WPForms, allow a user to add reCAPTCHA to their forms.

Any of these options are strong initial steps to keeping your list clean.

And if you don’t use any of these tactics? There’s a good chance your emails will be ending up in the spam folder soon.

Idea #20: Ask readers for a testimonial

The next time you run a survey of your audience, add one question to the mix:

If you like my newsletter, would you mind describing why in a single sentence?

Testimonials from readers can be hugely useful. You can deploy them on your sign-up page or on ads for your newsletter. You can use them to update the marketing strategy for your newsletter. You can use them to identify the content you should be focusing on in your newsletter.

I asked this question in my own newsletter in December. 160 readers wrote in with testimonials, like:

“Not a Newsletter is comprehensive but approachable, a reliable resource for publishers looking to do more than ‘email marketing.’”

“Being fairly new to the email marketing space, Not a Newsletter has been a godsend.”

“Not a Newsletter gave me the tools to pitch and start a new newsletter for my organization, and I felt confident in my pitch and process.”

Each of those quotes opens up opportunities — I could build a separate landing page or a marketing strategy around any of these! They’ll be a gold mine for me in 2023, and you can get access to a resource just like this, too. All you have to do is ask.

Idea #21: Utilize your newsletter footer

There are probably a few things you want your readers to do every time you send a newsletter. You want them to read what you’ve sent, yes — but what else?

Maybe you want to promote a subscription or membership.

Maybe you want them to know about ways to advertise in your newsletter.

Maybe you want to drive them to follow you on social media.

Maybe you want them to know about ways to update the newsletters they get from you.

That’s where your newsletter footer comes in.

The footer is — especially among writers in the indie newsletter world — hugely underutilized. Your readers have opened and read your newsletter. They’ve made it to the bottom of your email. It’s up to you to make sure they take one next step before they leave.

Build those next steps into your footer, and make it easy for a reader to figure out what to do now that they’ve finished your newsletter.

Idea #22: Run a two-step winback series

As you grow your audience, some readers stick with you and become loyal readers — but some do not.

No surprises there. But there’s a problem: Email service providers typically charge one of two ways: Based on the size of your list, or based on the number of emails you send per month.

So if you’re keeping disengaged readers on your list, or you’re sending them emails on a regular basis, you’re throwing away money.

The good news: There’s a way to save some money here — while also winning back some of those inactive readers.

First, set up an email address that’s different from the one you usually use. Sometimes, when the inbox sees an email address for the first time, it’ll show that email in the primary tab of the inbox.

Then I want you to set up the segment of inactive readers. I often start by targeting readers who haven’t opened a single email in the last 90 days. (Your segment may vary based on how often you send emails.)

Then I want you to send two emails: In the first, highlight a few stories readers might have missed recently.

In the second, invite readers to opt back into your newsletters

If readers don’t engage with either email, remove them from your list.

I’ve found that a campaign like this might win back 5-10% of those inactives, meaning you’ll both grow your pool of active readers and save some money by setting up this winback series.

And even if you’re on a platform that doesn’t charge (like Substack), you should still do this! An engaged list is a healthy list — even if it means your list is a little smaller than it was before.

Want to go even deeper with a winback series? Start with this guide.

How to Set Up a Reactivation Campaign to Win Back Inactive Email Subscribers

Idea #23: Thank the people who’ve helped you

Here’s a tip that everyone should steal from Ann Handley’s newsletter.

At the end of Ann’s newsletters, she offers a few thank yous and shoutouts. Sometimes, it’s to a reader who linked back to one of her posts; sometimes, it’s to a podcast who hosted her on a recent episode.

It’s a simple, public way to acknowledge those who’ve supported her work, and it builds such goodwill among her community.

You can do this publicly, or do it privately. But find a way to say thank you to those who support your work. It goes a long, long way.

Idea #24: Add a CTA at the top or bottom of your newsletter

If you’re selling anything — a subscription, a membership, a product, or just asking for a donation — here’s something to try:

Add a small call to action to the top or bottom of your newsletter. And try not to use the same one every single day.

It can be as small as a sentence at the top or bottom nudging readers towards this paid offering. It can be a longer, more personal note. It can be something tied to a campaign you’re running. It can be a list of benefits you’ll get when you pay.

Utilize both of those spaces, and try to mix things up from newsletter to newsletter. If readers see the same appeal every day, they’ll start to tune it out. So keep promoting, but rotate through different types of pitches. Over time, if you’re consistent in asking, you’ll start to see the conversions you’re hoping for.

Idea #25: Create a Google Doc full of wins

Create a Google Doc (or whatever you like to take notes in), and turn it into a scrapbook full of little victories and kind notes from readers.

There are going to be lousy days — a lot of them, to be honest — when you feel like quitting or when you feel like your newsletter isn’t having the impact you want it to have. So being able to open up that Google Doc and see the wins and the notes from readers makes a difference.

It’s a reminder that your work has value, even if it doesn’t feel like it today. It’ll remind you to keep going. Someone out there is looking forward to hearing from you, and learning from you. You just have to hit “send.”

Idea #26: Strip out the excess stuff

Here’s how I write my newsletter: Quickly, and then slowly.

The first part of writing happens fast. I’m writing as much as I can, as quickly as I can. I’m laying out the structure of the email, and not worrying about word choice or length. The goal is to get the first draft out.

And from there, I start to go through, line by line, and make my edits. I’ll notice that I’ve used ten words where two will do, and I’ll make an edit. I’ll notice that I’ve repeated myself, and I’ll delete a line, or maybe even a paragraph.

The shorter I can make the email, the clearer my writing tends to be.

These tips from Simon Linde might help, too. He’s got advice to help you condense and clarify your writing. I’d say more, but in the spirit of this theme, I’ll simply say: You’ll learn a lot.

Idea #27: Identify your “Job to be Done”

Imagine, for a moment, that you and I are at a cocktail party. It turns out we both work in the email marketing space. You ask me what I’m working on. And I tell you: “I’ve got a podcast!”

“What’s it about?” you ask.

“Every week, I spend about 20 minutes talking about some stories I’ve read that week.”

What’s the chance you’re going to subscribe? Zero? Less than zero?

Let’s try this again. I tell you I’ve got a podcast. But the pitch is better this time: “Every week, I make a podcast just for people in the email marketing space, where I talk about the stories I’ve been reading that week.”

That’s a little better this time. I’ve identified the audience I’m talking to, but there are a lot of podcasts about email, and I haven’t really given you a reason why you should subscribe. I’m not super confident that I’ve convinced you to subscribe.

Let’s try it one more time. I tell you I’ve got a podcast. “I’ve got a weekly podcast for email marketers. Every week, in 10 minutes or less, I pick a successful newsletter and walk through three growth tactics that have helped them build an audience.”

I’d bet anything that right there, at that dinner party, you’d pull out your phone and subscribe.

What makes that third pitch so much better? I’ve identified a clear audience AND I’ve identified the value for that audience: Actionable tips they can apply to their newsletter. They’re going to be able to listen, learn, and act.

The same rules apply to any newsletter you launch. If you know who that audience is, and you know what the newsletter does for a reader, you’re going to have the chance to build something great.

Here’s a worksheet to walk through this with your newsletter. Bloomberg’s Megan Hess first shared it with me, and I’ve adapted and added to it over the years. Inside, I’ve got more than 30 suggestions for these “Jobs to be Done,” which are ways that your newsletter can serve your audience. There are probably at least two or three you can apply to your newsletter right now.

Idea #28: Validate your idea as quickly as possible

If you’ve got an idea for something new to try this year, your goal should be to prove, as possible, that it can work.

You’re going to have a lot of ideas. Some are good, many are not. But your audience will be the ones who really tell you whether they think you should keep going with it.

When I first launched Not a Newsletter, I did it as a Google Doc because it allowed me to publish as quickly as possible — no website, no design work. I had a public Google Doc and a link to a TinyLetter where readers could sign up to get the next issue. I set a goal of 10 newsletter subscribers — if I could get 10 to sign up, that was enough for me to keep going. (More than 400 signed up in the first 72 hours.)

That feedback — Readers are actually signing up for this thing! They’re sending me emails telling me how excited they are that this exists! — told me, from Day 1, that I was onto something.

Your goal is to get some sort of signal from your audience that they’re interested in your idea. Maybe you ask your audience about the idea using a poll or a survey in your newsletter. Maybe you’re spending some money to advertise (in other newsletters or on social media) to get the first 500 subscribers for a new newsletter, and seeing how readers react to the new product.

Get the idea out there, as quickly as you can, and see what happens. If it works, keep going. If not, no worries — move onto the next idea on your list.

Idea #29: Test out a new tool

There are a lot of great email tools out there. Play with a few and see if they’ll help you build a better newsletter.

Your email platform probably has some you can try. A few ideas there:

• AWeber — Try adding an AMP for Email element to your newsletter to run an in-newsletter poll.
• Beehiiv — Sign up for their ad network and see what kind of revenue they can drive for you.
• ConvertKit — Use their click-to-tag feature to better segment your audience.
• Ghost — Turn on their feedback feature to collect feedback from readers at the bottom of every newsletter.
• Mailchimp — Use their survey tool to segment and tag readers based on their responses.
• Substack — Try their new Chat feature to see if readers are interested in engaging with you there.

(I’ve got more about each platform here, if you want to dive deeper.)

And if you’re looking for a few non-platform tools, here’s where I’d start:

• Check out a growth tool like Upscribe, to help you grow your list and drive revenue with every sign-up you collect.
• Check out a design tool like BEEPro, to help you design beautiful emails for things like a special sale or offer.
• Check out a landing page tool like Carrd, to help you build a new place to collect email sign-ups for your list.
• Check out an analytics tool like Fathom, to help you understand how readers are engaging with your website.
• Check out an ad tool like Sponsy, to help you simplify the process of selling ads for your newsletter.

Try a few of these, and see which ones you want to permanently add to your toolbox.

Idea #30: There is no path but yours

If you read some of the case studies about successful newsletters, you’d think that it’s easy to grow a newsletter from zero to a thousand readers, or tens of thousands of readers, or beyond.

But the truth is, growing an audience is remarkably hard, and there’s no magic playbook that works for everyone. The best newsletter operators put in a lot of work on every part of their strategy:

• Identifying an audience
• Identifying what that audience needs
• Designing the newsletter
• Growing the audience
• Monetizing the audience
• Running tests and experiments

There’s no secret sauce here. There’s just the work — and that’s what these 30 tips have been about. They are, I will admit, boring, simple, and useful. They work, as long as you put in the work.

So if there is one tip I truly want to share with you, it’s this: There is no path forward but yours. Put in the work every month, and make space to review what you’re learning and what you want to do better next month.

The work is the way forward.

Let’s get to it.

Thanks to our sponsor

The stories you’re reading on inboxcollective.com are made possible thanks to the generous support of our winter sponsor, beehiiv. They’re an all-in-one newsletter suite with built-in growth tools, customizable templates, and best-in-class analytics that actually move the needle. If you want to start a newsletter or are looking to grow your existing email list, try beehiiv today.