Transcription
All right. All right. How's it going? All good. Thank you to Sorry. Thank you. I don't know why I said thank you. Welcome to an episode or start of send better emails. I don't know why I said thank you. Um, yeah, welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. And welcome. Maybe that's what I meant to say. Thank you for coming. Thank you for listening.
Anyway, you've had a nightmare. I've had a night. It's cuz we're Maybe it's because we're recording later in the day. Yeah, maybe. Although I kind of I actually like um having important phone conversations or recording podcasts later in the in the day because I find that I'm like well practiced like if they're my first word of the day I'm a bit raw. Yeah. Yeah. Discuss.
I've had those days where you're at home. I don't know your Mrs. is away or something and then you're at home alone. It's just you and the dog and you found I haven't actually said a word today. Yeah. And then I'm like, do I say a word now? Just like say my first word even though it's like 3:00 p.m. And then sometimes that first word comes out weird cuz like your your vocal cords are so well rested. Yeah. It's like calls you or comes to the door in the post and you're just you end up like growling at them instead of words using words.
Um, yeah, it's my birthday tomorrow. Yeah. No, you really wanted to bring that up, didn't you? Yeah. At the time you like talking about your birthday, but I do like talking about mine. At the time that people are listening, your birthday will have been and gone. Yeah. So, so, uh, if you're listening to this and thinking, "Oh, no. I didn't wish Jamie a happy birthday." Then I'm afraid it's too late. Uh, it's happened. You'd have missed it by one day. It'll be my birthday boxing day when you listen to this as a listener. So, what you're saying is that the the the door is open for further birthday wishes, for belated wishes. You won't you won't hold it against them. No.
Um, yeah. If anything, it would be nice because you you'll message me and you'll say, "Oh, Jamie, I just listened to the podcast that came out today. Didn't realize it was your birthday yesterday. Great podcast and really happy birthday." Really happy birthday. Really happy birthday. Not even just a a regular amount of happiness. No. Really happy birthday. Yeah. A Okay. Well, there you go then. Out yourself as a listener. If you happen to be listening today and you you haven't wished Jamie a happy birthday already. Although, given that the only people that listen to this podcast are our moms, I would expect you've already received your happy birthdays from our listenership. Yeah.
I got a hamper from my parents arrived today. Really? Yeah. So, you know, I I started uh like my new diet workout program like on Monday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is yesterday. Yeah. Yeah. And I got a hamper today for my parents for my birthday. And it's this big hamper full of cheese. Oh, that's why you messaged asking me whether I bought you cheese. Yeah. Because my parents also didn't put a a note in there. So, I just had this hamper of cheese and I had to message all of my closest friends and family. So, that was you and my mom. Um, and ask who sent it. I mean, I wouldn't do that to you, Jamie. What? Not include a note? No, I I certainly would include a note. No, I I wouldn't um I wouldn't order you cheese. Oh, to sabotage my new I wouldn't. Yeah, exactly. You'd be getting protein bars. If you'd received, you know, multivitamins and superfoods and that kind of thing, then you might have thought, okay, this could be this got James written all over it. M. Yeah, maybe multivitamins would be a strange gift. Yeah, I don't know. I'm just trying to think of healthy stuff like weight loss pills. Here you are. Happy birthday. Here's your weight loss pills. Yeah. Or you've got a sickly pal. So, here's some multi vitamins. I need some multivitamins at the moment. I'll get you some baraca.
Anyway, I'm thinking the cheese can be used for the boat party on Sunday. Yeah, cool. So, we have a little picnic there. Yeah, Jamie's having a huge boat party on Sunday and there's loads of spare spaces. It's like a 100 person boat and so if you weren't invited on that, that means he he really doesn't want you there cuz like everyone's invited. He's telling lies. He's telling lies. It's practically a dingy. Um, it's going to be intimate. Yeah. And I think 10 people that will be on there. 10 people on a lio effectively. Yeah. We're going to have to have five. We have to double up. Yeah. It's going to be like musical chairs but with [Music] laps.
Um, okay. This is um this is part three of our create creator trilogy. Yes. So just a quick recap on what we've covered so far. Uh so number one, episode number one was why content creators must start newsletters. Part two was what content creators must write about in their newsletters. Uh and we've kind of set a pattern now or I have when I've named this episode. So what will the name of this episode be? And it has to be there has to be a must with capital letters in it. Oh, okay. Uh then it will be what creators must do to move social media followers into their email list or characters? Too many characters. All right. Well, you put me on the spot. I was improvising. Sorry.
Um, okay. Thank you. So, we're going to talk about how you move a social media audience to an email audience. Um, because for me this is one of the cuz we start and run newsletters here for clients and for ourselves at the inbox club and this is I think probably for me the hardest thing. It's the most difficult thing to execute when it comes to starting a newsletter and that is growing an audience. Yeah. And it is easier if you have a big audience elsewhere already that you're trying to move across. Right. Yeah. And that's what we're going to cover today. Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
So, yeah, you anyone listening to this who already has a social audience is has got this huge advantage because as you say Jamie, the biggest challenge for burgeoning newsletters is finding audiences that exist elsewhere that they can leverage, they can tap into and they can they can you know they can sell their newsletter to. I use sell in a metaphorical sense there. Um, so, yeah, it's it's um a massive advantage that um very often isn't capitalized on nearly enough. And I suppose this episode is for those who have that that huge advantage but aren't necessarily using it uh in the way that they ought to be. Okay, nice.
I I think you know we won't touch on it too much here. there are ways in which you can build a newsletter audience if you don't have that social following and that you know we there is proof or there is proof of us doing that um very recently with a project um but it's about finding and borrowing other people's social media audiences right and and converting those um but I think what we want to really highlight here is that if you have that social media following like starting a newsletter and converting them into email subscribers really is a no-brainer if you've got a substantial following. Uh, and we talked about this in the episode one of the trilogy. Um, that you know, if it's on a social media platform, you don't own that audience. The the platform does and you you know it's risky because of that. Um, you know, I think it's we people with a following have this huge opportunity to convert those people into something that they own. Um, and it's it would it's just so much easier. Um, do you agree with that, James? Um, and like what for you what are some of the nuances perhaps around um like converting these people, converting followers into subscribers?
Yeah. So, I do agree with it. the the the the biggest um obstacle standing in the way of the content creator is that they bu they create a newsletter. And um we've seen this, by the way, on multiple occasions. Um I'm not going to uh drop any names uh because that would be harsh, but there are creators, plenty of them, that have tried to build a newsletter and they're almost resting on their laurels. And maybe that's a harsh interpretation, but it, you know, from my perspective, it is as though they they've created this newsletter and there's a hubris maybe that, oh well, I've built an audience on uh insert platform, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever it might be. I've done it once, I can do it again. And you know, there is a tendency to overestimate how many of their social audience they're going to be able to convert. Um I personally believe that um like a 10% ratio is pretty phenomenal and if you can do that then you're doing really really well. I believe that there are very few excuses um for creators not to to get around 10% conversion. So if you've got a million on on your social media platform, we're talking 100,000 migrating over uh to your newsletter. But it's going to take time and it's certainly going to take more than just one post about the fact that you've launched a newsletter. And I think the common pattern is um new uh creator gets really excited about newsletter. Creator launches newsletter. Creator posts about newsletter on um their main social platform. Um creator maybe sees a small migration over the lowhanging fruit, the people that really love everything they do. uh and then because it's not as much as the creator thought um the creator then loses enthusiasm for the newsletter altogether and suddenly the promise of one newsletter a week turns into one newsletter a month which turns into eventually it fizzling out before the year is out. So that's a that's quite a common pattern.
So, um, the first thing I would say is don't expect that just because you have a a big and loyal following on social media that they're all going to immediately come over to your newsletter and you're going to have, you know, 50% of your audience as newsletter subscribers right off the bat. It just doesn't work that way. You're going to have to work for these subscribers. You're going to have to be very intentional about the way that you move them over from your social media platforms. And if you're not and if you don't have those expectations managed, you're probably going to lose enthusiasm for the project. Yeah.
And 10% is a great target because we spoke in a previous episode about we think um and the conventional wisdom is that newsletter subscribers are worth at least uh one in 10. I'm not saying this correctly, but you know, so to have the 10 so one newsletter subscriber is worth 10 social media followers. So, if we're aiming for 10% as a conversion rate, that fits that math. It's almost as if you did that on purpose, James. Yeah. Almost.
Um, and I think that's maybe uh the the issue is that social media is it's heady, right? Cuz you can get big numbers on there uh and you post and you get lots of likes. But what we're looking for here is something more meaningful, more intentional. And you know, this mind shift of like, okay, well, maybe me getting x amount of likes um is fine, but what if I got a 50% open rate on my on my newsletter and what that actually means for for intentional engagement from high quality kind of engaged super fans. Um, and so there's a mindset shift there. But, so we want what we want to do is we we're doing this distilling process, right? And we're thinking about a funnel. We're thinking about going from social media to something more meaningful and we're filtering and we're distilling the social media audience into something that's uh more pure. Yeah. It's like it's like making vodka. Exactly. And I don't know how the triple distilled metaphor works there. We tend to get lost in metaphor sometimes, but we do um you know, is is what's what's vodka made from? Is it potatoes? Uh, it can be made from potatoes. I don't know if it's all made from potatoes. I thought it was like grain or something. Okay. Well, maybe let's say potatoes just cuz it's more fun. Yeah, it is. Um, you know, you've got you got 500,000 potatoes on on on social media. Oh, you're you're running with this. Okay. Yeah. Um, and 50,000 um shots of vodka. Anyway, I'm getting lost in this metaphor, but what we want is we want this harder hitting. We want this more pure form of a following. And what we're doing then is we're we're creating something that our brand partners um can sell into. Um, our already existing brand partnerships can sell into. It's another place for them to be. Um, you know, and it's also um you can charge more for those eyes as well. Yes.
And we go into more depth uh on that in episode one as well. So, if you haven't listened to that then um I would recommend it because we we go into the monetization aspect of the newsletter and why it can almost be immediately profitable if you do it right. Um, I think I think what you said there is really worth picking up on which is this idea of headiness, the headiness of social media. And of course, I think a really compelling counterargument to investing loads of time in a newsletter is well, with a newsletter, you always know the maximum number of eyes that that are going to see it, right? You know that it the maximum number of people that are going to read your newsletter is the number of subscribers that you have. And by the way, you're never going to hit that number. Um, so yes, okay, some we can talk about repurposing newsletters as articles, but you know, generally speaking, that's the rule. um with a social media post there is always that potential to go viral. There's the verality um uh aspect here which you don't get in a newsletter which means you know one social media post can completely change someone's life and there are plenty of examples of that happening. Um, and to that what I would say is we need to reframe our we need to reframe the thing that gives us the the um adrenaline kick that you get from like a viral post. You know, the the newsletter equivalent of that is getting replies, is getting engagement. We need to think of newsletter subscribers in the same way that we think about hosting an event and selling tickets for that event, right? in that every single time someone opens a newsletter, they are um entering into what is effectively a conversation with you, which is as near as you can get to being in a room with someone without actually being in the room with them. And uh therefore, if you know 30,000 people are reading your newsletter every single week, think of that not as like, oh well, you know, my my Instagram post got more impressions. Think of it instead as I'm selling out a football stadium every time I send a newsletter with people that are reading. That's that's that's the way to frame it. And when you start looking at it through that lens, it's super exciting every time um someone clicks open. And and you know, it gives you that same rush. And I know as someone who um has a newsletter that is read by tens of thousands of people and also manages social media accounts that have um you know tens of thousands of followers um it's way way better to send a newsletter that gets a really great reaction than it is to to do a post that that goes viral. Yeah.
Nice. I think the the it should be we should clearly stress here that it's obviously we're not talking about one versus the other, right? We're talking about both. Exactly. Um, you know, and again, you're just you're Yes, you can you can get a maximum the maximum amount of eyes you get on your post on social media is higher than what you can get on your eyes or your newsletter, but um that's why you need both. Yes. You know, um Okay, nice.
Um, what other angles do you want to look at this? We don't I think we want to avoid kind of getting into specifics because it's it's quite nuanced in how different people might approach it in different ways and also uh on different platforms as well. Um, are there more general practices? You spoke a little bit about consistency, right? I think that is something that um really is might even be like the main takeaway here is that one post about your newsletter isn't going to do it. You know there needs to be a strategy here where we it's a pillar for us. It's a content pillar for us and then we need to talk about it consistently. Um, you know, what are some of the other ways in which make transferring not transferring but attracting more people to your newsletter easier?
Yeah. So I think the the blanket advice here is that if if you've built an audience on Instagram or LinkedIn or Twitter or YouTube, whatever it might be, you are an expert in that platform in a way that that the inbox club is not, right? So we're not in a position to give you advice about what bangs on those platforms. You already know. You've probably already worked with brands. You've probably already had to generate clicks to something. Whether it's your own product, whether it's uh someone else's product like a brand partner that you're working with, you've already had to compel your audience into action. They've ultimately taken the decision to subscribe to you at some point. And it's likely that maybe earlier in your journey, but still now, you had to ask them to subscribe. You know, you had to create content that people watched and then and then drive them into clicking that subscribe button. and that is no mean feat. Um, and so the techniques that you use to do that, um, and I I would guess that they are, um, consistency, something that that Jamie's, um, reiterated. They are, uh, genuine recommendations. You know, your brand partnerships, the ones that banged the hardest were the ones that, uh, products that you genuinely used. you were able to incorporate these plugs into your day-to-day content in a way that felt natural and not too salesy. Um, and in a way that that circumnavigated any kind of algorithmic suppression that might happen through paid partnerships. Um, and I would also assume that you were um genuinely quite passionate about uh driving this action as well, that it genuinely meant something to you. And so with all of those things in mind, I think we apply that and we just instead of your your merch or instead of the brand uh that you're working with this week, instead we're talking about the newsletter. And really a lot of those tips and tricks that you will have that you already know when it comes to compelling your social audience into action need to be applied to your newsletter. And I think again to to go back to it, part of the problem here is that um a lot of creators don't treat their newsletter like a product. You know, they don't see it as a um a a it they don't see it through the same lens that they see merch or that they see uh a brand partnership. They don't see it as something transactional and and something that can ultimately make them money. And I think when we start looking at it through this monetiz monetizable bmoth, you know, this newsletter business, this newsletter empire as opposed to just this other place where I make content, we it's suddenly much easier to be consistent and to keep it banging that drum and to incorporate it into your socials and to put effort and thought into uh making your newsletter plugs genuinely good and compelling. Yeah, I love it.
And I think what what's so exciting for me is that you we are seeing uh more and more content creators um and you know talent and celebrities creating these newsletter platforms um from from which to you know communicate with their with their key audience and you know some of the names that are now producing newsletters. It's it's mind-blowing. you know, we're talking about A-list celebrities that that have newsletters. Um, and you know, I think that's it's a trendy thing right now. And I think what's so attractive about a newsletter audience is that it's so much easier to or or a newsletter business, it's easier to sell than a a social media following, right? So, you it's kind of easier you can monetize on your own terms, but it's also something that can that can, you know, be a business in its own right and and can be movable movable from there. Um, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
And that's the thing like there are um there are celebrities that start newsletters, creators that start newsletters and their newsletter is very intertwined with their personal brand. And that makes a lot of sense and there's no problem with that at all. But it's it's that much harder to sell if the if the opportunity ever came by because it's so intertwined with their personal brand that that potential buyers might be scared by that fact. my thing. I don't know if I can continue this. But then you have, you know, Gwennneth Poutro, for example, who started the Goop newsletter in 2008, um, where she I'm going to mention it in every podcast now, um, where she has, um, you know, she has distanced herself from that brand. And, okay, pe a lot of people still know that Gwennneth Paltro is behind Goop, but I'm sure there are plenty of subscribers who didn't realize that Gwennneth Poutro was behind it. And that becomes a much more sellable entity. So that is something to consider as well. I think if you are going to start your own newsletter as a creator, um, you're doing it probably less because one day you want to sell it and more because you know that from a newsletter you can launch loads of other monetiz monetizable um streams like brand partnerships, like premium products, like selling merch, like courses, events, etc. Um, so, uh, yeah, and that wasn't to contradict you, Jamie, because you're absolutely right. I just want to make it clear that, um, it it's it's I I think if you're a creator and you're thinking, I can get to 10,000 subscribers and then just flog it for 50 grand, that that might not necessarily work. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.
Uh, and if you want to find out why James loved Goop so much by Gwyneth Poutro, you'll need to listen to the bonus episode, uh, which I think come will come out after this. Oh, yeah. Cringy cliche, uh, bonus app. Yes. Um, and it has to do with candles is I think we'll we'll leave it at that.
Um, okay. Uh, I think should we do a hot take and then we can wrap up? Yeah, let's do a hot take. Okay. Um, I don't know if I have one ready. Do you have a hot take ready? No. No. Okay, fine. Let's just play for some time here. Actually, Jamie, I will say one thing to buy you a bit of time, but also cuz I think it's important. Um, when it comes to um the uh three pillars that we talked about in uh last episode around uh what a creator ought to include. I think um one of those can be really leveraged for transferring social media audiences across and that's exclusivity. Um, this doesn't count as my hot take, but I just want to stress that exclusivity is is uh probably the the the tastiest carrot that you can dangle to your social media audience in order to get them across. And the real success stories that we've seen in the creator space where they've been moving um uh social media followers across to their email list really well. Um, it's been when they have not only teased what's going to be coming up in the newsletter that you can't get from their social media plat uh their social media content, but after the newsletter has been published, they've also used um content from the newsletter in their social media content and said, you know, people who read the newsletter already know this and stuff like that. And there's a that makes it really compelling cuz you know I think anyone who follows a creator wants to be in the inner circle and so that exclusivity element I think is particularly important when it comes to moving subscribers across. Okay. Nice.
You've you've bought a sufficient amount of time there for me to come up with a hot take. So thank you. Right. Um, so, yeah, hot take then. So I think so mine is uh I'll try and make this quite short. Mine is if you are a content creator with a social media audience and you are promoting a newsletter, you should be promoting it more than once a week on your social media channels. Okay. Nice. Nice. Drawing a line. I'm happy to build that hill and and figuratively die on it. Yeah. Okay. As long as it's a painless, quick, and quick death. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I think that's I think that's fair. I think the only exception would be if you're a YouTuber who only releases weekly videos, for example. But you know, I'm being petty about shorts. Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. Um, come on, expand your mind. I forgot about shorts. Sorry. This is why we're not social media experts. Yeah.
Um, okay. My um my hot take is going to be that um there are too many um Okay. Okay. No, my hot take's going to be that any creator that um starts a newsletter only to give up on it because it it hasn't immediately rushed to 100,000 subscribers after one post um I would say that's a form of arrogance um and it's lazy and um the phrase and I've mentioned it in a previous podcast um the phrase if I build it they will come does not apply to newsletters and anyone who thinks it is going to be severely disappointed. Nice. Okay. That's actually a common um misquote, isn't it? Um Oh, really? Have I just Have I just done that? No. Well, no. I think it I think Yeah, I think it just gets um What happened to our hot takes, by the way? They were they were a bit spicier than usual. Yeah. Well, calling people arrogant. Yeah. Well, after last episode, do you remember we said we our the hot takes need to get a bit hotter? Oh, we were going to start rating them. start rating them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What was mine? Uh, yours was a three out of 10. Oh, you didn't insult anyone. So, post about your newsletter more than once a week, you lazy Now, what's my rating? Immediately a six. You've just doubled it. Now I know where I need to be. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I'm going to call I'm going to say yours is like a six. I'll give yours a six as Yeah, I'd say I definitely don't deserve anything more than that. Yeah. Okay, fine. Yeah.
Um, okay. Go watch uh Field of Dreams um and get that that quote right. Yeah. Um, happy birthday for tomorrow/Y. Thank you. What? Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. As in it got confused for a second there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what do you think I You get one guest. What do you think I bought you for your birthday? You bought me something? Yeah, of course. A course of what? Of course. Pills. I said, "Yeah, I said of course." All right. Um, what have you bought me for my birthday? I'm going to say, um, has your girlfriend had input on this? Um, she's, you know, her name's on the card. Okay. So, you got me a card. Well, no. In that card. In that card is a voucher. Okay. What for? You want to go any further than that or You got me a voucher to buy some clothes. Okay. All right. Well, find out on next week's episode whether Jamie was correct. Got a cliffhanger. Make sure you don't miss that. I know, right? Okay. Well, thanks James. Thanks everyone. Okay. Cheers. This is where you say thank you, not at the start of the podcast. Yeah, the podcast. Maybe we should start by saying maybe we should end this podcast by saying welcome. Yeah, welcome everybody. Okay, welcome. You you are welcome for the past 29 minutes as well. Okay, let's call it. Thanks everyone. Welcome. Bye. And thank you. [Music]