EXECUTION Figuring Out Paid email newsletters

[Andy Black]

I think subscriptions to email "newsletters" is an amazing first subscription business, or step for a budding subscription business.

For instance:

• One of my neighbours cycled in the Olympics
• He's a businessman now, selling bike gear to shops.
• He wants to create a subscription box or app for cyclists.
• I asked him to consider a free and a paid email newsletter.
• He's got tips and stories coming out of his ears.
• And what a great way to build up a following and authority... before he's even thought about sourcing products and getting stuff shipped.
• He can use those initial lists (and revenue!) to then add a subscription box later.

Anyway. I thought I'd document me trying to figure this out.

 

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[msufan]

I think subscriptions to email "newsletters" is an amazing first subscription business, or step for a budding subscription business.

For instance:

• One of my neighbours cycled in the Olympics
• He's a businessman now, selling bike gear to shops.
• He wants to create a subscription box or app for cyclists.
• I asked him to consider a free and a paid email newsletter.
• He's got tips and stories coming out of his ears.
• And what a great way to build up a following and authority... without sourcing products and dealing with physically shipping stuff.
• He can use those initial lists (and revenue!) to then add a subscription box later.

Anyway. I thought I'd document me trying to figure this out.

Following! This is one of those things like what MJ described in Unscripted regarding the paid section of the forum... I personally would never pay for emails, but I am very interested to see if this works. The free email list leading to the subscription box makes far more sense to me personally, but I suspect my personal bias is flawed here.

 

[Azure]

Where do I sign up?

 

[Andy Black]

I personally would never pay for emails

Interesting you say this because someone else said the same.

I'm keen to understand your thinking.

• Have you ever paid for a course or a book?
• What if the only option was to get that information delivered via email to your inbox?

 

[Andy Black]

Where do I sign up?

Lol. Well, you just signed up to this progress thread.

Or were you asking where to signup to his cycling newsletter?

 

[Azure]

@Andy Black

Fully misunderstood, I thought you were starting a paid newsletter. I do recall you mentioning something of the sort many moons ago

 

[msufan]

Interesting you say this because someone else said the same.

I'm keen to understand your thinking.

• Have you ever paid for a course or a book?
• What if the only option was to get that information delivered via email to your inbox?

I buy lots of books (and frequently find them extremely valuable). I've only paid for a couple of courses (and they haven't generally been a great value). I've never paid for emails.

It's interesting to write it out, but somehow email doesn't feel as "valuable" as, say, an ebook. I'm on various free email lists, and it would be hard for me to envision what sort of content could possibly be in an email that I would feel good about paying for. It would have to be immediately profitable information, like here are today's arbitrage opportunities or today's trading tips or today's insider knowledge about something I could use immediately. I just can't see how that would apply to cycling.

The app -- yes. The subscription box -- yes. Both of those resonate with me.

I'm curious what others think about this. Maybe it's just me. Maybe younger folks would have a different view?? (I'm 42.)

 

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black

Fully misunderstood, I thought you were starting a paid newsletter. I do recall you mentioning something of the sort many moons ago

Actually, I am going to start a paid newsletter. Maybe more than one.

I think they've got so much potential that I'll start one for myself, and then can offer it as a service, or can properly advise friends how to do it.

I'll brain-dump more into this thread later.

Yes, I've been circling this for *many* moons.


THANK YOU @Azure, for your "shut up and take my money" moment. I've had quite a few since I mentioned I was creating a paid email newsletter.


BTW... I think the word newsletter isn't quite right. What I envisage for mine is more of a place where I'm:

1. Curating content that I drop all over the place (in TFLF, in Facebook groups, in my own forum, on Instagram, Twitter, in my private mastermind, etc). Creating a central hub so to speak. This may be the free emails.
2. Writing more private and personal thoughts about growing my business. Things I don't want indexed by Google.

So it's more a case of:

1. If you want to keep up with the best of the content I create, without having to stalk me online in the many watering holes where I make a nuisance of myself, then get on the free email list.
2. If you want to get the more private and personal stuff about what I'm up to, then get on the paid email list.

 

[Andy Black]

I recently joined a friend's paid email list.

We've been chatting about setting up a paid email list for a while, and I've been looking at all the different technologies out there instead of just starting. (There's reasons and I'll get to that later.)

My friend has Thrivecart and ActiveCampaign and whipped up a signup cart and configured things so that people are added to his paid email list when they checkout. He promptly forgot about it until he had a "you've got money" email from Paypal and went looking to find out where it had come from. It turns out that someone found his cart and signed up, even though he wasn't promoting it, and the cart was hard to find!

He tells me and another friend this story and we both promptly signup too.

Now he's had THREE shut up and take my money moments, where the money has ended up in his account.


Why did the first person signup? Why did two friends signup?

1. It's cheap.
   He has a monthly option and an annual option. The monthly option is $9.99. The annual option is $83.88. All three of us took the $83.88 option.
   
   
2. It's simple.
   I'm going to get an email. I don't have to log into a new membership site, a new forum, or yet another Facebook group.
   
   
3. It's low commitment.
   The monthly option is especially low commitment. I consider "The first purchase is a test." People could quite simply signup to "check it out".
   
   
4. Curiosity.
   He's delivered a ridiculous amount of value from his free content. What will he put in these super cheap paid emails?
   
   
5. Support.
   I think this could be big thing for him. By giving him some money I'm showing him there will be others, and I'm showing my support. Consider this another form of Kickstarter or Patreon.
   
   
6. Gratitude.
   It's a thank you for all the great value he's added to date. Sometimes it's a case of just giving people a way to give you money and getting out of their way.

Are you letting people give you money if they wanted to?

 

[Andy Black]

I'm on various free email lists, and it would be hard for me to envision what sort of content could possibly be in an email that I would feel good about paying for. It would have to be immediately profitable information, like here are today's arbitrage opportunities or today's trading tips or today's insider knowledge about something I could use immediately.

Funny you say that, here's a great podcast I listened to a year ago:

• 227 – How To Set Up A Profitable Recurring Paid Newsletter Subscription Business

I just can't see how that would apply to cycling.

Off the top of my head (and I'm not a cyclist at all), I think cyclists might want to subscribe because they'd like to get:

1. His opinion on major news and events in the sport.
2. Stories he has from his training, racing, and Olympic days.
3. Tips he has. He tells me how he can see a group of cyclists out on a Sunday going the other way and how he wants to take them aside and tell them so many simple things that could really help them, or keep them safer.
4. Especially nutrition and training schedule tips.
5. Training tips for the season we're in (if you're planning to compete in summer races for instance).
6. How to determine what you want out of cycling and create a training programme to get you there.
7. The mindset stuff that keeps you sticking to the schedule when it's wet and cold out there.
8. The small performance enhancing tricks some of the top riders use (like wearing a brand new pair of white socks before each training session and each race). And “Hey, maybe you'd be interested in getting a box of brand new white socks delivered to your door every month?”
9. What's wrong with the training apps out there, and the workarounds using the major apps. And “Hey, maybe you'd be interested in the app we're working on that will deal with all these major deficiencies?”
10. Great places to go on cycling holidays, and how to plan the day trips. He tells me how he's always the one planning the trip: from listening to the weather the night before and figuring out which way to go so the tailwind is there on the way back to base. He tells me this is hard work and means everyone else is enjoying their evening or breakfast while he's poring over maps. He says this is often done via a map and getting the weather news. Maybe he can help plan trips for groups from his home here in Ireland, based on their goals, the local weather, and the local maps? And “Hey, maybe you'd be interested in an app that updates the cycling routes worldwide based on the local weather and traffic/road conditions?”

Maybe people might like my cyclist friend so much, or they support his mission so much, that they'll signup just to help him get started in all of the above. Kind of like a Kickstarter or Patreon where you'll get regular email updates as well as tips, tricks, and stories.

 

[Andy Black]

Another friend just wrote this: "starting to write my first article for my newsletter. oh man. i didn't think it would be this hard!"

I think calling it a "Paid eMail Newsletter" puts too formal a flavour on it - for both the subscriber and for the producer.

Maybe we should just call it our "paid email list"?

 

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[Lex DeVille]

To me a paid email list makes more and more sense. Maybe I'm biased because I have one, but when you think about how technology transforms the speed of change, email becomes very relevant.

Courses and books take time ..

Even when they launch they can be outdated in a month. Maybe that's not true of evergreen content, but in a field like paid ads, things can change overnight. To make matters worse, some courses never get updated, so you might pay for something useless.

Why would you do that when you can get up-to-date info from the same source you would've bought a course from?

In my case the list doubles as a way to connect and share things I wouldn't normally share elsewhere (as Andy described above). It's more personal. But also as a way to teach things I don't have time to write a book about or create a course on.

In this way I can teach a little bit of all the things people want. Instead of $3k for 3 months of 1:1 coaching on one subject, or $2500 for a 12 module course, it's under $100 for a year's worth of all the subjects, up-to-date, and delivered in a more personal setting.

My guess is the results get even better if you niche down by subject. I'm not doing that, but it's worth considering for anyone who tries this out.

 

[Lex DeVille]

The other part of this I like is the transform with vs transform from aspect.

When I learn from Andy I'm limited to knowledge or insights he's already mastered and shared.

When I learn with Andy I can apply new insights and get results in real-time.

In learning from Andy I'm almost limited to growing to the level he's already at based on his knowledge of narrow subject matter (maybe that's enough).

In learning with Andy I'm unlimited. Instead we can grow together or I can even grow beyond. Instead of a single aim of focus, I tap into his personal perspective on ideas and life.

If you learn from Elon Musk, you might build a flame thrower or a rocket ship. People might even buy it.

If you learn with Elon Musk, you might do something nobody else has ever done and go down in the history books side by side.

 

[SoftStone]

Hey Andy,

I think the perceived value of emails is generally lower than with books/courses. We are just so used to throwing them in the trash.

With that said, I think if you deliver the same value as in other formats, I wouldn‘t see where that would make a big difference. But again, I‘m just being speculative.

Would be very curious to know how you‘d balance your free content and paid email content. Oh, and what the open rates for them are like compared to a free email list...

 

[The-J]

I think the perceived value of emails is generally lower than with books/courses. We are just so used to throwing them in the trash.

The difference is small but major, in that people are expecting and awaiting your email. The format isn't low value if the content is high value.

You could also subvert that by emailing them a PDF or having them request access to something outside of email

 

[Andy Black]

Would be very curious to know how you‘d balance your free content and paid email content. Oh, and what the open rates for them are like compared to a free email list...

I actually don't post free content to any email lists. I post out in the wild (in forums and Facebook/Discord groups).

When people signup to free trial or buy my AdWords course, I send them a manual email. Often there's a few emails back and forth where I learn more about what they're trying to do, and where I try to add value regardless of whether they're going to buy the course.

After that I don't follow up. I maybe should, but I've never got round to automating anything. Maybe I'll let those folks know I've created a paid email list?

Why haven't I automated? It's not painful enough, and I like learning why people signed up and what they're hoping to achieve. Some would argue to send a survey to everyone who signs up to find out why they signed up etc. Well, I do that manually.


Sooo, for me, the paid emails will likely be:

• A summary of the best free content I create on my daily travels online. My "aha" moments, or replies to someone that I want to store for posterity for myself even.
• More in depth chatter about what I'm doing, and WHY - because I know it's not indexed by Google and that only people currently subscribed will get access to it.

I'm curious how it will pan out. I'm going to do it for myself first, and partly because people ask for it. And I'm interested in how it could be applied to other verticals where I'm not the subject matter expert.

 

[Andy Black]

The difference is small but major, in that people are expecting and awaiting your email. The format isn't low value if the content is high value.

You could also subvert that by emailing them a PDF or having them request access to something outside of email

Exactly.

Why can't you email them a link to some great article you've found, or some great piece of content you've written on your blog.

Or send them the link to a hidden video you've created (a piece of training or something else).

I've only done a bit of email marketing, and years ago. I do recall thinking open-rates were a vanity metric and that it's whether people click through to a link you put in the email. In a way the email itself could just be selling the click to something else.

 

[Andy Black]

Quick note on technologies:

I have Thrivecart and Activecampaign but didn't want to setup the paid newsletter that way because Thrivecart cost me $500.

I want to be able to advise others on how to create paid email newsletters, so was looking for something that was simple and cheap to start with, but didn't tie us into someone else's emailing platform.


I started with this article:

• Managing Recurring Payments | MailChimp's Official Blog

... and had a look at:

• Substack - Paid newsletters made simple
• Revue - An editorial newsletter tool for writers and publishers.
• Chargebee with Mailchimp
• Moonclerk with Mailchimp
• Memberful with Mailchimp
• and a few more.

The first two are really interesting. It's like they're creating a version of Medium where you create content on their platform that you mail to your subscribers for free, and you can create a paid version of your content. I'll go back to looking at those platforms because I think they're really clever, and they may end up getting traction and become a marketplace for email newsletters.


The technologies I've settled on for the moment are:

• Campaignzee with Mailchimp

It was ridiculously easy to setup a free Mailchimp account and a free CampaignZee account and link the two and link with Stripe.
This is the main reason I've gone with this setup.

The con is that you pay 10% of subscription fees to CampaignZee, which is cheap to start with, but would then be steep later on.

I figure that "later on" may never happen so just go with it. And if later on did happen then I'd have a business case to pay and get some other solution implemented.


(By the way... thanks to the guys posting in the Inside progress thread about a paid email newsletter. They mention Substack and Revue in that thread.)

 

[Andy Black]

(Still finishing this post...)
Almost got my paid email list setup. Finally!

I had to get my developer to login to my gmail account so I could read and send emails from andy@freelanceandbeyond from within gmail.

Then Mailchimp verification emails weren't getting through for me to be allowed to use andy@freelanceandbeyond.com as my "From" email address. Again, had to get my dev to sort that out.


Anyway, here's how to set this up simply with Mailchimp and CampaignZee.

1) Link your CampaignZee account with your Mailchimp account
I can't remember how I did it, but it was dead simple.


2) Link you CampaignZee account with your Stripe account
Again, I can't remember how I did it, but it was dead simple.


3) Create a List in Mailchimp
The list name is important as it will be the heading in the CampaignZee shopping cart.

4) In CampaignZee, select the Mailchimp list you want
If you update anything within Mailchimp you just click the "Sync" button within CampaignZee.
The "Create Plan" button is where you can create and price your different options.

The "Settings" button is where you can add some text that will go above the shopping cart itself. I've added enough content to make this my initial salespage, doing away with the need for a landing page for the minute.

5) Here's the top and bottom of my shopping cart, which doubles as my sales page
Note that the Mailchimp list name is the headline for the page. It's a bit restrictive, but you can make it work.

blah blah blah

 

[Fox]

How did you make those sweet screenshot graphics???

 

[Andy Black]

How did you make those sweet screenshot graphics???

I have Snagit. It’s great! I bought it with Camtasia as part of a bundle from Techsmith.


PS: That post above is finished, I just can’t seem to edit it and remove the first line...

 

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[Andy Black]

In case you haven’t noticed...

I’m documenting my journey in such a way that others can follow the breadcrumbs. Sure, I’ll go down some cul-de-sacs, and sure, it may end up not working out.

But if it does work out (and especially if other people follow the breadcrumbs, create their own paid email newsletter, and start making revenue), then what do you think I might do next?

Package the thread up nicely and create some paid eBook or course on it? (Serving the DIY market.)

Document it as an internal procedure so we can offer this as a service for clients? (Serving the DFY clients.)

Apply it again and again for our own internal projects?


If there’s a business case we might develop our own paid email newsletter solution so we don’t fork out 10% of revenue to CampaignZee.

Maybe it starts as an internal tool?

Maybe we start offering it to the folks following this progress thread, or who’ve bought the course or hired us to do it for them?

Maybe this becomes part of a package where we help “startups” get initial revenue and an initial audience?

Who knows? We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them, and in the meantime I’ll cross one bridge at a time and document how I crossed it.

 

[GSF]

I like this business model, I like the simplicity of it. I read the article you linked earlier (superfastbusiness), and then further read up how the guy featured in that article is doing now, hes grown to mid 7 figures yearly now with 75% profit margin!
http://www.mattpaulson.com/2018/04/...-using-email-web-push-and-facebook-messenger/

 

[Andy Black]

I like the simplicity of it.

Me too. I can't think of a simpler recurring/subscription business to start.

Thanks for the link. I'll watch that one evening.

 

[ZeroTo100]

Not just saying this because it’s you Andy, but I think it’s a great way to go. I’ve actually ran a subscription service a few years ago and than I contemplated going the newsletter route.

I’ve studied thrillist, startup digest, peter Leeds, daily candy to name a few. Research these companies. Some are free, some are paid models.

It’s an attractive business model for sure.

 

[Andy Black]

Not just saying this because it’s you Andy, but I think it’s a great way to go. I’ve actually ran a subscription service a few years ago and than I contemplated going the newsletter route.

I’ve studied thrillist, startup digest, peter Leeds, daily candy to name a few. Research these companies. Some are free, some are paid models.

It’s an attractive business model for sure.

Thanks.

I’ll check those newsletters out once I’ve been running a month or so.

 

[Andy Black]

[UPDATE]

Thanks goodness for my team giving me feedback on my salespage, thank-you page, and initial welcome email.

After going back to the drawing board on numerous occasions, and a whole lot of editing and sleeping on it, I'm delighted to be adding value from the first email, rather than talking about adding value in the next few emails. I keep saying "Show, don't tell", so this is me taking my own medicine.

Mailchimp is pretty cool. I've never really had a go at email marketing, other than dipping my toe about 6-8 years ago.

Almost ready to "release" my salespage URL into the world. No big fancy launches for me. I don't even like the word "launch".

Knowing people are waiting for me to tell them where to pay is quite the motivator.

 

[Argue]

@Andy Black im loving every second of this. Thanks for the bread crumbs.

 

[Andy Black]

@Andy Black im loving every second of this. Thanks for the bread crumbs.

Thanks for your continued support @Argue.



Darnit...

I've been subscribing and unsubscribing in the last hour and can't get Mailchimp to send me an automated email to tell me someone's subscribed. The change in subscriber count this week isn't showing up in the Mailchimp reports either.

I asked folks in a Facebook group for Mailchimp if there's anything I need to check, and apparently I only get an automated email when someone subscribes if they do so via the double opt in method.

But CampaignZee is sending the email with the "Confirm email" link in it, so I don't want TWO double opt ins.

Bit annoying, so I've contacted CampaignZee support.

 

[Argue]

Hey Andy,

The sign-up process was easy. But I keep getting this

Also, my card was not charged. I got an email from campaign zee to confirm, but no welcome email from you.