This is The DigiLetter, your weekly cheat sheet on growing and scaling your newsletter, fast.

In this weeks copy:

• A deep dive into getting your first 5k subscribers

• How creating one newsletter lines up your content for the week

• Some fun facts on the newsletter industry

Lets go….

Quickly: if someone forwarded this to you, sign up here

Getting your first 5k Subscribers in less than 90 days -

Firstly, start being particular about your audience.

That is, pick a niche, then go deeper. Think sub niches or even sub sub niches.

For example - I write a newsletter on FX markets ‘Lost in the Exchange’

• Niche - Finance

• Sub niche - Trading

• Sub Sub niche - FX & macro analysis

This allows me to focus in on the right area of finance, attracting true fans.

Trying to capture subs in just ‘finance’, but ending up with readers who are interested in pensions won’t do my FX newsletter any favours.

So when it comes to thinking of yours, remember and niche down and not try to generalise for everyone.

Additionally, ensure you write on a topic you are passionate about. Something you have experience in and something you can write easily about.

Secondly, you need to clarify the details, as mentioned in last week’s copy, do not spend too much time on the nitty gritty like names and designs.

Start writing and refine as you go. Don’t stall until ‘the perfect time’ comes along.

As for software….

I personally love Beehiiv, you get every function you need to grow fast and at low cost.

Lets drive traffic to our newsletters

This is where newsletters become a hidden gem in themselves. You need social accounts of course, such as X and LinkedIn to share your newsletter content.

The key here is to repurpose your weekly newsletter into social content.

So, take your newsletter, chop it up using chatGPT or do it manually, into different short form articles and X posts. (If you use AI you will need to edit it anyway)

This will give you content for the week.

Example:

• 1 x Newsletter

• 5-6 LinkedIn posts (length depends on the detail of newsletter)

• 7-10 posts on X (short form)

• Additional tips or posts for Quora or Reddit.

As for content type, you can also make up some of these posts to promote your newsletter.

So for the 5-6 LinkedIn posts, use parts of your newsletter to share on social with a CTA (call to action) to subscribe to the upcoming copy, creating a fear of missing out.

Check this out below…..

For your other scheduled posts, create content pillars to keep you sharing different stories. For example:

6 LinkedIn posts per week:

• 2 x newsletter pre CTA’s, pay it forward and talk about what your newsletter says

• 2 x personal journey, with a CTA for deeper reading in your newsletter

• 2x educational, again with a CTA

With regular writing like this, you should be able to start driving interest and traffic, but be patient and keep writing.

You can see how everything is set up to drive traffic to the newsletter and off social media. Given short form content on socials to drive subs.

Post CTA’s at every possible opportunity

You want to be posting CTA’s everywhere, never miss an opportunity to drive traffic to your newsletter. Examples:

• Pinned social post should be a link to your newsletter

• CTA’s after every piece of content on LinkedIn & X

• CTA’s in all your social profile bio’s

• Pre CTA’s for the upcoming week

And as cliche as it sounds, stay consistent with social content.

Stick to a daily schedule of posting. Dedicate at least 1 hour a day to commenting and posting across socials.

Tip - I batch my content for up to a week in advance in just a few hours so i’m not burdened by creating content everyday.

Actively share your newsletter

1.DM your connections and followers on LinkedIn and X (consider using an automation tool like Taplio for this)

2.Take some time to create a lead magnet: a freebie for an email address.

Examples:

• A free blueprint on ‘how to’ do whatever your service is

• Run a challenge where people will join in, but they must subscribe first

• Free 15min call with you

The challenge would require some more behind the scenes work to run it. It would require setting up a slack channel likely, and an automation on socials to send details to those who comment on your social posts.

3. Utilise your current contacts to get initial subs in. Thinks families and friends, anyone in your contact list.

Get the momentum moving right away and give yourself a reason to write.

With these steps we can typically get up to 1000 subs in straight away, that continues to grow as your lead magnets are pushed week on week.

Double down once you have momentum

Once you have reached your first 1000 subs via these methods, this is when you can look at cross recommendations using Beehiiv or Sparkloop.

This will put your newsletter in front of millions of new eyes.

Some paid options

In addition, consider running referral programmes - some of the biggest newsletter successes like Morning Brew used these to drive traffic.

BeeHiiv also offer these programmes which are super easy to run.

Referrals are a topic we can dive deeply into so I will save it for another copy.

In addition you can run paid ads via social media if you have the budget.

All of this is easily attainable in just 90 days.

But it will require some work and thought. As time goes on you become more accustomed to the process and begin to streamline.

Don’t get disheartened at first, when you don’t see enough traffic coming in, just keep writing, figuring it out and reading TheDigiLetter.

Social media is of course the key component to sharing your newsletter, otherwise no one will find you without large ad spends.

……..

That’s a rap for this week’s copy.

I hope this has been helpful insights into how to get the ground running and help put tactics in place to grow.

Results will vary, however these are the exact steps we have taken with clients to run their newsletters and gain them over 5k subs in less than 90 days.

If you are reading this and haven’t subscribed, here you go….