📈 Ignore These 6 Newsletter Fundamentals If You Want to Fail

Last week, we launched ads for a new client.

And I’m calling it now - you’ve never heard of them, but you will within 12 months.

While I’m keeping them anonymous, there’s a lot to glean from how they’re building.

They’re a great example of following the fundamental advice you’ll encounter in the newsletter space:

1. Find your unfair advantage: The founder has subject matter expertise in a niche that is difficult to fake or replicate. It’s based on lived experience in an industry.

2. Validate the market wants this: The founder spent months iterating on the content, growing the audience organically to the first 1,300+ subscribers. Consistent positive feedback and open rates of 65%+. He created what he wished existed but didn’t.

3. Monetize early: They’ve already signed multiple partnerships that include but are not limited to the newsletter. This was in the works before they even had 1,000 subscribers. They’re building a business around the newsletter, but the newsletter is not the business.

4. Go after a valuable audience: Having this audience will generate other companies a lot of money. They’ll be compensated accordingly.

5. Find an underserved market: They’re going after a smaller pie, but have the ability to own the market in this niche. They’ll be rewarded for being first.

6. Collect first-party data from Day 1: They’re collecting job title, income, industry, employer, and more. If you’re not bringing in the right audience, you’re wasting time and money.

From an ads perspective, they have a crystal clear target audience.

And a compelling value proposition (they save subscribers time, make them sound smarter at work, and give them insights they actually can’t find anywhere else).

This gave us great raw materials to work with when we launched ads.

We quickly found winning copy and already had a few formats we knew would perform well.

And so far, we’re bringing in engaged, high income earners for less than $1.50.

These costs will go up as we scale ad spend, especially with a smaller total addressable market - but that won’t be a problem for them.

Excited we get to be there from the beginning for this one.

If you want help filling your email audience with (a lot) of the right people, let's talk.

Cheers,

Isaac + Kieran 📈 

Helpful Links 🔗 

• 🛠️ Our favorite newsletter tools: beehiiv (ESP), Youform (forms), Descript (video editing), Sparkloop (growth & monetization), ElevenLabs (AI voiceovers), Sponsy (managing sponsorship operations)*

• 📈 In case you missed it:

  • 📈 $300k in Ad Sales: The Exact Process We Used 

  • 📈 Profitable Growth: The Exact Playbook We're Using to Get Paid to Grow Our Newsletter Audience 

_{*All of these are products we use and love. Some are affiliate links.}