Have you heard of the Inverted Pyramid?

Once you know it, you'll see it everywhere.

It's a framework you can use to make ads in your newsletter better.

Better Ads >> More Clicks >> More 💰

Here's how it works...🧵
Marketers have a term: AIDA

It stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

Great ads:
1️⃣ Grab readers attention
2️⃣ Transform their attention/interest into desire
3️⃣ Prompt them to act

The inverted pyramid helps you structure your ad to do this well.
You do this with:

👀 Eye-catching headlines
📈 Easily readable body copy
🚀 Great use of links and calls to action

Let's use this old example from The Hustle to talk through each...

(I guess you're welcome eToro)...
👀 Eye-catching headlines

Headlines need to make your point quickly, and focus on what's in it for the reader.

Remember, they don't want your product... They want the result your product can give them.

P.S. Literally everyone likes making money.
📈 Easily readable body copy

Notice a few things about the styling of these paragraphs:
1️⃣ Very short (just 1-3 lines of text)
2️⃣ Strategic bolding
3️⃣ Strategic bulleting

These make it easy to scan, get value, and keep the eye moving down.
Remember... Lots of people read on mobile.

Don't hit them with a wall of text.

For more on making emails skimmable, check out @HatchKolby's epic thread...

🚀 Great use of links and calls to action

@BobbyDurben wrote thousands of ads for The Hustle, and told me 2 things:

1️⃣ Don't be scared to link 3-5 times
2️⃣ Make the call to action interesting
Now that you know it, do you see how it's working here?
How 'bout here?

Newsette is one of my favorite newsletters, and a super successful biz. What's great about this:

1️⃣ Specific numbers show what's in it for reader
2️⃣ Lots of links & unique "Look Amazing" C2A

But you can also see how the wall of text is a little hard to read.
If you want more cool examples to help grow your newsletter business, follow me (@damn_ethan).

We spent 6+ months interviewing operators at Morning Brew, Buzzfeed, Motley Fool, and others.

Emptying my notebook here.

DM if you want me on your podcast. Happy to share more!
TL;DR

1) Your ads should draw the eye from top to bottom
2) Specific numbers in headlines catch attention
3) Use bullets, bolding, and short sentences in copy
4) Link 3-5 times
5) Get creative with your C2A text
6) Always focus on what's in it for your reader.

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More from @damn_ethan

29 Apr
Wow... You people are way too nice!

I tried to share a thread today, and didn't realize it got cut off 2 tweets in.

To everyone nice enough to like it anyways, here's the FULL scoop on the newsletter engine

(a model we developed to explain the newsletter business) 🧵...
This is the Newsletter Engine. It shows how money/attention flow through a newsletter business.

What's really cool - when you understand how it works, you can use it to deconstruct any newsletter biz, diagnose problems, and find new opportunities.

Let's break it down.
There are 3 levels to the Newsletter Engine, starting from the foundation and building upward.

The levels are:
1️⃣ Product - What you make
2️⃣ Monetization - How it makes money
3️⃣ Growth - How you get new readers
Read 24 tweets
27 Apr
Everyone says to build a successful newsletter you need an authentic voice.

But how do you ACTUALLY DO that?

After talking with some of my favorite newsletter writers, here are a few concrete tips...🧵
First - why voice is important...

Your voice acts like a beacon that attracts the right readers to your newsletter.

As Dan Oshinsky says, you want people thinking, "Where has this been all my life?"

That happens when your voice resonates with them.

docs.google.com/presentation/d…
In her book on content marketing, @stephsmithio says:

When people talk about their favorite publications, they often talk about HOW they cover a topic, rather than WHAT they cover.

In other words -- your voice is what makes you someone's favorite.

Some examples...
Read 17 tweets
26 Apr
Thinking of investing in the newsletter space?

Here's your executive summary -- everything you need to know in 3 mins or less, including:

-How the media industry is changing
-How the business model works
-Major funding & acquisition deals
-etc

Based on 6+ months research 🧵...
The media industry is changing.

Since '08, newspapers have experienced a 68% drop in ad revenue. Down to roughly HALF what it was in 1956.

brookings.edu/research/local…
Papers are folding left and right.

In 2020, Berkshire Hathaway sold its 30-paper news unit to Lee Enterprises for $140m.

Today, 200 US counties have neither daily nor weekly news papers.
Read 15 tweets
21 Apr
"How do I do paid growth for newsletters?"

This is one of the most popular questions we heard while researching the Newsletter Guide.

So we interviewed our growth team @theHustle, plus experts from all over.

Let me break down what we found...
Over and over we heard the same thing from growth experts:

"When it comes to paid growth, the MOST important thing is understanding your Target Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)."

No matter where you're advertising, knowing your Target CPA is crucial to success.
To figure out your Target CPA, you need 2 things:

1️⃣ The lifetime value of your readers (CLTV)
2️⃣ Your desired profit margin or pay-back period

Buckle up... we're gonna explore math in tweet form (apologies in advance).
Read 23 tweets
13 Apr
"How 7-Figure Newsletters Make Money"

For the last few weeks, I've been doing this talk, based on 6+ months of dedicated research.

Time to see if it translates well to Twitter. For your viewing pleasure...🧵
First a little background:

Newsletters are having a moment. People want to know how they work.

At The Hustle, we set out to write the definitive industry guide, and found that people have a lot of questions...
Of all these questions, one was most important:

"Which kind of newsletter should I build... Paid or free?"

Crucial because:
1️⃣ The answer impacts your entire growth plan
2️⃣ We found most people are actually thinking wrong about this...
Read 32 tweets
5 Apr
Everyone's talking about "community" these days, and it's great... until it's not.

If it's just another buzzword, it loses all meaning.

@marketerhire sat down with a few of us recently to set the story straight.

Some of my favorite hot takes 👇...

marketerhire.com/blog/why-marke…
1/ Community is about retention first, not growth.

It helps make sure the money you spent growing isn't wasted with high churn.

@mae_rice put it perfectly...

"It can serve a marketing team’s KPIs around CAC and LTV, but only if their KPIs don’t define the space."
2/ Community is one of the last truly defensible moats.

Popular product features get cloned like crazy (lookin' at you LinkedIn stories).

But it's almost impossible to replicate the way two individual people interact. Most companies still don't really understand this.
Read 5 tweets

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