✊ 3 dangerous myths about newsletters that keep creators stuck
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If I had to pinpoint why we as creators and business owners find email so challenging, I'd boil it down to 3 specific myths. Once internalized, these myths have a way of either intimidating us out of ever creating a newsletter in the first place, or... Convince us to create newsletters in a way we can't possibly be consistent with... which inevitably fail, reinforcing the idea that email is hard and making it less likely we try again in the future. The myths go something like this:
Sound familiar? I believed all of these for years (four to be exact). As a result, every time I tried to start a newsletter, I structured it around thousand-word essays that did, in fact, take hours to write. A bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in hindsight... But after embedding myself in the world of newsletters for years, devouring dozens of them on a weekly basis... Not to mention finally finding a newsletter format I could not only be consistent with but genuinely excited to write, I realized something: There's more than one way to write an effective newsletter. 🤯🤯🤯 In fact, many of the most effective newsletters break all the "rules" I had convinced myself I needed to follow. We’ll look at an example in a minute, but first, we need to talk about email strategy. Specifically, email strategy for you—someone who already has a flagship content channel in your podcast. See, unlike someone whose primary content marketing channel is their newsletter, your emails don’t need to be outstanding. Far from it, in fact. Instead, the goal of your email strategy is simple: Send regular emails that people are glad they opened. If you were to measure your audience’s reaction to your emails from disappointment to delight on a scale from 0-100, your goal is to consistently hit 51%. I think of this as delivering Minimum Viable Value. And it means that the bar for your emails is much lower than you probably think. With a podcast in place, the job of your newsletter isn’t (necessarily) to teach exhaustively about your topic to demonstrate your expertise. Instead, your newsletter’s job is to provide a useful complement to the podcast that:
Josh Spector’s The Daily Graph is a sterling example of Minimum Viable Value newsletter. In his podcast, I Want To Know Josh provides in-depth coaching advice to creators that establishes his expertise while building affinity and trust. In the newsletter, however, Josh keeps it simple: 50 words. 25 of them from his sponsor. Because, oh yeah… 40k people subscribe to this simple but effective newsletter. Once more for the folks in the back: Useful emails do not need to be long. Useful emails do not need to take hours to write. You don’t need to be a “writer” to write valuable emails. Minimum. Viable. Value. Who would’ve thought that the secret to a more effective email strategy is to aim lower. It’s counterintuitive. But it’s true. And it's the key to developing a newsletter strategy that you can be consistent with (ie. doesn't require you to be a world-class writer to spend hours a week creating). Defining your newsletter's design constraints is a core part of The Newsletter Design Lab, one of the three components of The Email Engine training I'm launching this week. In the training, I'll show you how to design your newsletter around a strategic "Job" it does for your business, develop a compelling hook that instantly attracts subscribers, and—most importantly—scope it so that it's easy to maintain. Because the most effective email strategy is the one you can be consistent with In addition to designing your newsletter, I'll walk you through the straightforward 3-part email system that has added 13,000+ highly-aligned subscribers and $750k to my business over the past few years. Based on nearly 10 years of email marketing experimentation—including 6 failed newsletters, countless non-converting lead magnets, and every email marketing mistake in the book—The Email Engine is my proprietary system for using email to work alongside your podcast to grow your business with as little ongoing maintenance as possible. Once The Email Engine launches, it will be a $500 product, minimum. During this week’s launch, however, you can get it for only $100—a whopping $400 discount. The deadline to grab this deal is this Friday, June 28th at midnight Eastern. Check out the details here: PS. Yesterday, I announced a bonus workshop for everyone who signs up to The Email Engine this week. The workshop will serve two purposes:
Whether you’re a perfectionist who needs a deadline and some accountability to finally map out and ship that lead magnet or newsletter idea… Or a proven shipper who wants personalized guidance & feedback on optimizing the various components of your existing Email Engine… This workshop will help. The workshop will take place on Thursday, July 25th. That will give you time to go through the core trainings and start sketching out some ideas and me time to get married and go on my honeymoon to the Outer Hebrides. Then, we’ll get on Zoom, open up the workbooks, and fine-tune the various components of your Email Engine. Personally, I find there’s no substitute for this kind of hands-on, roll-up-your-sleeves workshop. Especially when you’re surrounded by a small group of kind, savvy, creative folks where everyone can learn as a group. You should leave the workshop with the key components of your Email Engine firmly defined. The replay will then be added to The Email Engine portal afterwards. I've allocated 2.5 hours for the workshop, but my workshops can go longer as I make sure everyone leaves satisfied. The workshop will take place at 2:30 pm Eastern, on Thursday, July 25th. But only for those who grab The Email Engine this week. If you’re considering it, I’d recommend signing up now:
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