How I Grew My Newsletter to 1100+ Subscribers in Just One Month
Secrets I learned after hitting the “Publish” button.
Secrets I learned after hitting the “Publish” button.
I’ve been frustrated with platforms and algorithms of late.
I’m tired of seeing my best articles fail while some random story that I cooked up in half an hour earns thousands of dollars.
I always knew the power of a newsletter, but it’s only after I started working with a newsletter advertising marketplace, that I truly realized the amazing potential of having your own niche community.
I started my first newsletter in 2020, and in about one and a half years, I’ve grown it to 1600 subscribers. This is an amazing achievement, no doubt, but my newsletter spans various topics from self-improvement to self-love, feminism, and personal stories. The community that I have is not super niche.
I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to have a highly targeted audience. And that’s why, in October 2021, I started a new newsletter as an experiment. In less than a month, it grew to 1100+ subscribers.
This article is about all the steps that I took to grow my newsletter to 1000+ subscribers in just a month and how you can replicate the same. If you’ve been feeling stuck regarding whether or not to start a newsletter, read on for some super personal and unique growth hacks you can apply.
1. I knew clearly who my target audience was
I knew the readers for this new newsletter are writers who are just starting their journey.
This isn’t a target that I stumbled on randomly. No, this is what the stats have told me. I’ve been writing on LinkedIn for about a year now. Only recently, I started getting traction on my stories.
The kind of stories that get the most views are the ones that are about starting out as a writer. This led me to the conclusion that my audience is very interested in articles about how to get started in your writing journey.
And that’s why this is what I thought I’d cater to this niche in my new newsletter.
The key takeaway for you
If you’re starting a newsletter, analyze your stats and understand what your audience wants to hear the most from you. Your highest-viewed stories would tell you what your niche is. Understand it, accept it, and utilize it to grow your audience to crazy heights.
2. I was excited about the promotions
When you’re making a new offer to your audience, your readers can sense your energy. If they feel that you’re super excited about the product and you truly believe in it, they’d be more inclined to be a part of your journey.
There’s a famous quote that says, “People don’t buy your product because of how amazing the product is. They buy it because you’re the one who’s built it.”
So, to get your audience excited in your newsletter, you have to be excited about it. And you have to let your excitement show through in how valuable you think it is. Only then, your audience will have enough faith to subscribe to your newsletter.
Otherwise, you can have hundreds of testimonials, but no one’s going to subscribe unless they see that you genuinely believe in it.
The key takeaway for you
Truly believe in your product.
If you do, your enthusiasm will show in the way you promote it to your audience. This is infectious and will result in stupendous organic growth.
3. My lead magnet filled a knowledge gap
I designed a free 5-day course on how to become a highly paid writer. This was my lead magnet that addressed a major pain point of my audience, as told by the analysis of hundreds of LinkedIn comments for several months.
I also know that there are many courses on the internet that address these particular pain points, but I wanted to provide a lot of value. And so I devised this 5-day email course which garnered a lot of appreciation from my audience.
The fact that I provided so much value for free made the people trust me enough to sign up for my newsletter without any second thoughts.
The key takeaway for you
Know your reader like you know yourself. You have to know exactly what problems they face, and your lead magnet has to solve those problems for them.
Only then people would be inclined to support you, be a part of your email family, and you’re going to grow your newsletter to amazing heights.
4. Provide quality content
If you promise your readers some great lead magnet and your next email is something they’re not interested in, nobody is going to stay subscribed. You’ll have a very high unsubscribe rate and a low open rate, which is never good news for any newsletter.
So needless to say, you have to give them what you promise when you promote your lead magnet.
And once the lead magnet is provided, you also have to stay in touch with your audience by sending them regular emails that are relevant to what they’re looking for. They have to provide with answers to the most burning questions of your readers.
And only then you can see that your newsletter is not just a one-time success, but can be a long-term community of readers who are invested in you and want to be a part of your journey as you grow and expand your horizons.
The key takeaway for you
Your job as a writer doesn’t stop at building the newsletter. You have to keep sending relevant emails that provide value and keep your community engaged, so they feel good about supporting you on your journey.
Closing thoughts: My plans with the 1400+ newsletter
Right now, I know I’m sitting on a gold mine because such a huge audience in so short a time is a metric only a few writers can boast of.
And I know if I manage to dive in with the right strategies, I can make lots of money from it. I’ve written about how to make money from your newsletter without asking your subscribers to pay for it. But for this particular newsletter, here’s how I plan to monetize it.
Making high-ticket offers
Since my subscribers already got so much value for no price, I plan to sell paid courses to them which will give even more value.
For example, I recently launched a 5-Day Live Training Program on how to become a highly paid freelance writer. I launched this exclusively to my email subscribers, and in just three days of starting the promotions, my training program was 50% sold out.
I couldn’t have achieved such results if I didn’t have this highly engaged user community.
Finding relevant sponsors
Because I know it’s a very targeted, very niche community. I can get high-quality sponsors who will be happy to pay huge amounts of money for a shout-out.
I haven’t yet started talking to a sponsor about this, but after the Live Training Program is done, and once I have a little more free time, I’m definitely going to start reaching out to sponsors that can truly change the newsletter game for me.
Are you a writer who doesn’t yet have a newsletter? What’s stopping you from starting one? Let me know in the comments below, and maybe we can get your targeted community started today!
