Twitter direct messages are a goldmine.
I met this young 20-year-old. He’s been in the newsletter game for only a few months and is crushing it with 4000 email subscribers already. We talk regularly.
He shared with me the strategy that’ll make him 6-figures this year. I’m going to share it with all of you.
Start with this no-brainer to unleash new levels of newsletter growth
The punk kid taught me a new technique: guest posting.
This has existed in traditional blogging on WordPress websites for 20 years. But it’s rarely done with newsletters, especially personal newsletters from an individual.
You find other writers you vibe with then you simply share audiences to grow faster. Here’s what it looks like:
The subject line of your newsletter is the headline of their original article. At the top of the newsletter you add a short paragraph introducing the guest writer.
Hi All, my name is <name>. I will be writing in this newsletter this week. I also write a newsletter, <name of newsletter>, where I cover the topics of <list topics>. Hope you guys love today’s piece! Join my newsletter here <link to it>.
With this strategy you grow your email list and, so does the guest writer. Then you switch. The following week you publish a piece in their newsletter.
The cool thing is it reduces the burden on you to create newsletter content. And when you post in their newsletter you can recycle an old piece, bringing new life to that content and gaining more readers too.
Underrated lesson I learned: Reciprocal guest posting in newsletters builds bulletproof relationships with other writers.
The right ads aren’t ugly anymore
If you’re like me there are a lot of tools and products you use that you fall in love with over time.
This 20-year-old punk told me to place ads in one of my newsletters. However, not ads of boring crap like a Wells Fargo high-interest 0% savings account. Nope. Ads for stuff I actually use and swear by, like Loom.
These ads pay up to $2000 a pop.
How do you find them?
Simple. Look at newsletters that already have good ads of cool products that don’t look and feel like ads. Speak with the newsletter owner and ask them.
If the tightarse won’t tell you where the advertiser came from, then contact the company directly and ask them how they place ads in newsletters.
It’s a small bit of pain to find out, and a life-changing passive income opportunity when you do.
A true partnership
Creators that make money together do life together.
If you want to improve your relationships with guest writers of your newsletter you can go a further step. If the newsletter makes money from ads then you can share it with the guest writer.
But ads are only level one of making money from a newsletter. Many creators also use an affiliate link to promote the business in the ad. Every sale that comes from the affiliate link makes the newsletter owner money.
You can share the affiliate revenue from the newsletter with the guest writer too. They can return the favor when you publish in theirs.
Now, if you only have a small audience there’s still a way to use this strategy. You may not be able to have guest writers for your newsletter because the opportunity is too small to get anyone to say yes.
What you can do is try to be a guest writer for a well-known newsletter instead. You could pitch your work to the newsletter owner and then simply lower the ask.
- Maybe you just want to link your newsletter to start with to grow it faster.
- Maybe instead of asking for a huge slice of their ad revenue, you ask for a small amount like 5%.
- Maybe you make the revenue split on affiliate links so low it becomes irresistible to the newsletter owner.
One caveat applies: your writing has to actually be good for any of this to work. If you pitch a newsletter owner with bad content nothing is going to happen. You won’t even get a response.
But if you pitch a newsletter owner with killer content, even if you have a tiny audience, you’ll suddenly open yourself up to one of the best newsletter growth strategies on the internet.
Guest posting online isn’t new. It became old. But what becomes old eventually becomes new again.
If you have a Substack newsletter you charge for, then a simple revenue split for that edition’s earnings is another way to pay the guest poster.
Where this exciting new trend is heading
In the world of Web3, writing partnerships are going to go up a level.
One of the issues with Web2 platforms such as Youtube is it’s not easy to split content royalties, affiliate fees, and ad revenue in a fast and transparent manner. In Web3 this problem is solved using blockchain.
There are some early signs with Substack and Mirror.XYZ that this will become a standard feature.
Imagine the possibilities of co-created content with auto split.
Closing Thought
Make money from content you’ve already written by guest-posting in newsletters you love.
Invite guest posts to your newsletter, too. It’ll build all sorts of awesome partnerships with other creators that’ll help you make 6-figures online.
