Quick idea to make $$ if you have some knowledge and a few hours spare time…

Here’s how: We’re going to make a digital product and sell it via gumroad.

First off, what to create.

Courses and ebooks are great but they take time to create and if you don’t think of yourself as an expert, imposter syndrome kicks in.

I bet you’re making 1 of these 11 Newsletter mistakes… 1/ Opt in page not optimized for mobile

50% or more of your site visitors are on their phone.

Make it easy for them to sign up to your newsletter with minimal scrolling.

And use a large opt in box and button - our fingers aren’t that accurate.

Want to get Newsletter Sponsors paying you $$$ ?

Here are 7 ways to reel them in...

\\\ THREAD \\\ You’ve started a newsletter.

You’ve got subscribers.

But how the hell to you get sponsors and starting putting some $$$ back in your pocket???

Newsletter mistakes you shouldn’t make (but lots do)

I’ve subscribed to a lot of newsletters over the last couple of weeks (150+). And keep seeing the same problems over and over again 👇 - Crappy landing pages. You’d be amazed how often I had to hunt for the opt in box.

Make it easy to sign up.

Speaking of landing pages. A lot of using Substack. And their pages are boring as hell. They’re all the same. Not sure there’s anything they can do about that?

Building a newsletter that makes money...

A step by step thread to starting, growing, monetizing and selling an email newsletter 👇 First off, why do you want to start a newsletter?

Try and get specific

- Are you looking to sell sponsorship?
- Sell your own product?
- Get consulting work?
- Sell a premium version
- etc.

More on monetizing later. But having some ideas will help you in the next step

Building a profitable newsletter and selling it for $75K

Without writing any of the content.

And all done in 6 months.

Sounds difficult? Actually a ridiculously simple idea executed well 👇 Back in April Lotanna Ezeike was inspired by an episode of the My First Million podcast.

Seeing a gap in the market, he started an erotic newsletter for black women.

So he set up a substack and found a writer to write one story per month for £250

A short Letterstack newsletter went out a couple of days ago.

If you weren’t one of 220 amazing subscribers, here’s what you missed... Working Session: Growing Substack with Referrals

Great deep dive into @packyM newsletter with a focus on how he's growing it with referrals.

tango.vc/posts/working-…

Letterstack newsletter went out yesterday... If you weren't one of the 196 amazing people who are subscribed, here's what you missed 👇 1/ "Almost 1k Subscribers in 1 Week: The How"

@Codie_Sanchez and partners are building a newsletter. And each week they're sending out another newsletter with all the things they've done to grow it.

Learn and steal tactics

growgetters.substack.com/p/almost-1k-su…

Letterstack’s 2nd issue went out last Thursday.

If you missed it, here’s the newsletter resources that I shared... 1/ The World of Newsletter Acquisitions was interesting piece by @stefanvonimhof about a coming trend - a bigger market for buying and selling newsletters. 🦉🤷‍♂️

alternativeassets.substack.com/p/8-the-world-…

“I’m a thief. I watch what other smart people do and I apply it”

...says Russ Henneberry founder of marketing newsletter theClikk

What’s he stealing? The business models of the Hustle, Morning Brew and theSkimm

And it appears to be working: 20K+ subscribers since December Russ was on The Hustle & Flowchart Podcast earlier this year and give an in depth interview about theClikk’s business model

The newsletter is daily, curated content and is having no problems selling out of ad inventory

I pulled out a few interesting takeaways 👇

First edition of Letterstack went out to 35 people yesterday. About 33 more than I expected 🙌

If you didn't get it, the newsletter resources are all on the website.

But to make life easier here they are... 1/ The Newsletter Tips Collection from @jspector

A resource page of articles / podcasts / videos from Josh and a few other newsletter experts. (getting incredibly meta here)

joshspector.com/newsletter-tip…

Zero to $10K MRR in 5 months... 🔥

How?

A product that solves a pain point in a niche where the founder has deep knowledge.

And the magic not so secret sauce... 👇 Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales
Sales

Here's a playbook...👇

Affiliate marketing without feeling icky 🤢

Listened to Miles Beckler talk about affiliate marketing last week.

Realized the affiliate marketing I’d tried in the past was the wrong way to think about it (and likely why I wasn’t especially successful)

👇 Being an affiliate is a great way for a business to monetize segments that usually get neglected - the ones that don’t want / can’t afford your main service. But want to learn to do it themselves.

👇

"It has to be like a vegetable smothered in peanut butter” 😱

One of many pieces of advice in Sam Parr's Indie Hacker's interview.

Launching newsletters, subscription businesses and copywriting

Here's a few bits and pieces...

THREAD 1/ People can build a much bigger company with 1 or 2 people than you think. You can make $50 million a year with 4 writers

Talk to your audience. Talk to your audience. Talk to audience.

Bet you’ve heard that advice before.

But how the f*ck do you get them to talk to you?

Getting engagement with your email subscribers is a good place to start.

A recent AskPat podcast had a few ideas...

(THREAD) 1/ Try to get engagement sooner in your marketing sequences.

Your subscribers are opening welcome emails the most - use that to trigger a conversation.

When you wait longer, interest drops off 🥱

Validating and building your ideas without code 🎧

Bram Kanstein drops some awesome advice (and inspiration) in his interview with Courtland on the Indie Hackers podcast 🔥

To get your appetite going here’s a few things they talked about.... 1/ 3 things that will (almost) guarantee success

💎 Deliver value - and don’t stress how it looks, value beats aesthetics every time

🚀 Launch to the right people

📢 Talk to them in the right way

37 minutes with the “Name Whisperer”

When naming a business, it turns out you shouldn't just throw a few terms into a domain name generator and pick the first available dot com 😄

You’re supposed to think about it in a structured way

THREAD Last week’s episode of the Top Of Mind podcast featured Louise Karch.

She’s known as the Name Whisperer. Seriously.

If you’re thinking of naming anything (business or product - not your first born) it’s worth listening to

Here are some takeaways...

Zero to $10,000 a month with an email newsletter

The obvious way to make an income from a newsletter is grow a huge audience and get sponsored or add a premium option.

But not this model, explained in an episode of The Side Hustle Show last week

THREAD... I'm a big fan of email newsletters and the businesses built around them.

So was excited to listen to Andrew Allemann talk about his podcast guest business.

It's a low overhead, low touch business that's tapped into the growing podcast trend.

A few takeaways from the episode...

How to bounce back 💥

Josh Howarth (founder Exploding Topics) tells an all too familiar story on Product Hunt Radio...

Builds product for wrong reasons, doesn’t work out, solves a real problem, it all works out.

Here’s a few takeaways from his story

THREAD 1/ Josh spent 2 months building a product with no marketing plan.

Surprisingly.... there was not much initial traction.

You gotta have a plan to distribute your product

Best podcast I listened to last week 🎧🔥

Nathan Barry on the Copyblogger podcast.

Loved the interview.

It wasn’t all founder story and focused more on what works today for creators trying to start and grow.

Got a ton of aha moments.

Here’s a few thoughts...

THREAD 1/ On starting again, don’t spend time creating the perfect website. Build a landing page and focus on building an email list.

Once you get to 500 subscribers think about site design.

You’ve probably heard Laura Roeder, founder of MeetEdgar, on a podcast.

And that’s by design - her key strategy for getting new customers is getting on podcast interviews 🎧🎙

After more than 100 interviews, it’s MeetEdgar’s best performing marketing channel.

(THREAD) Laura was interviewed last week on a new podcast “Brands That Podcast”

Here are a few takeaways...