Issue #105

Subscriber count: 11,160+

A newsletter is the easiest way to grow a body of your own work online.

You’re an artist and this is your portfolio of work.

Posts are scattered, blogs are never read, and websites aren’t visited.

A newsletter is a little love note from you to that small, weird group of people interested in your topic.

I’ve taught how to start a newsletter in the past.

This week I want to share how to mature one well based on my many mistakes (and a few wins).

But first, a message from this newsletter’s sponsor:

I’ve hit publish on 106 weekly newsletters. I’ve learned a lot about this regular effort online. I want to share today a honest look at how it is going.

Failures:

Let’s get these out of the way:

• I didn’t (and still don’t) have a good offer for my newsletter. It was just weekly insights from me. I wish from day one I had a pop up offer as soon as someone joined (working on building that for this newsletter right now)

• I focused on building it on LinkedIn too much. My LinkedIn newsletter has 11,160+ subscribers. It is awesome, and a failure. Because it is on LinkedIn I don’t own the email addresses of those followers so it is much less effective than my email version

• I haven’t yet segmented & personalized my subscriber list. I just send the same message to everyone. This is a huge missed opportunity

• I didn’t use guest writers well in the past. I asked people to write on it a few times in the past to add variety. Many were good & helpful. Many were also off-topic (because I didn’t give them good instructions) and not particularly helpful to my audience.

Successes:

Let’s get these out of the way, too:

• I have 11,160 subscribers on LinkedIn and 1,365+ on email

• I have kept at it for 2.5 years, even when I wanted to give up

• I have an engaged audience: 53.3% open rate and 2.2% click rate

• My waitlist that I am promoting through my newsletter has a 68.5% open rate and 26.2% click rate

• I am having fun writing it each week

• I have a treasure trove of topics I’ve taught and data about what my audience likes best

• I have an asset that took years to build than I can better use going forward.

I was stuck on getting subscribers for my first 1+ year:

When I first started I was frustrated that nobody signed up for my newsletter.

It felt like nobody cared and I was yelling into the void.

Then, my husband (who knows nothing about this kind of thing and had perfect naive insight) said, “Well, how do they know about the newsletter to sign up in the first place?” 🤦🏼‍♀️

The link was only posted on my LinkedIn profile so of course nobody knew about it. I assumed people knew to click on my profile, and then to read all of my About Me section and then sign up.

You have to be obvious and ask people often to join.

How I Get Subscribers Now:

I get email subscribers primarily 5 ways.

1. Through a few strategically placed linked in my LinkedIn profile (About Me and CTA below my name)

2. I de-platform them from my LinkedIn newsletter in the PS section at the end

3. 4 months ago I started including the sign up link at the end of my posts a few times a week.

4. I teamed up with Tim Ulbrich and we refer our new subscribers to each other’s publication as soon as they sign up using SparkLoop

5. I talk about my newsletter as my entry into my world whenever I can. Especially on podcasts. I’d never send someone to my website. That is too vague an action. I send them to my newsletter so I can start getting in their world right away and stay in touch with them regularly. It is working beautifully

Newsletters are a long game.

But, they build your expertise and an engaged audience if you are willing to invest yourself in a long-term reward. I love my newsletter. I have the best PharmDs on planet earth on here who regularly respond to tell me more about themselves. Here are a few examples from new subscribers in the past week(ish):

I’ll let you know how my updates are going to improve my newsletter going forward.

👋🏻 Jamie

PS-Whenever you're ready, there are 3 more ways Jamie can help you:

• If you like this newsletter, then treat yo' self. Get all future issues delivered to your inbox so you never miss a thing. Subscribe here 📫

• I'm building a waitlist for my private community of digital PharmDs building their own thing online. This week I’m teaching the group of 173+ about a $43K failure I had a few months into my first business. I think you’ll like this one: Join here

• Hit reply to this email with a problem you’re facing in starting/growing your digital business. Chances are I’ll write a newsletter to solve your problem if it applies to others.