Hi there!
This newsletter is actually a money-making experiment, and you're the subject.
The Podcast Moneymaker is for those of you who want alternatives to advertisements and sponsorships. And I agree. Elsie and I have tried ALL THE THINGS when we were doing She Podcasts, but we never monetized a newsletter. So I thought I'd give it a shot. I used to promote my podcasts with email. I've been growing my email list for almost 2 decades. When I wrote the email, I posted a little about the show as well as what I'd been thinking about that week. It all sort of happened at the same time - show notes, paragraph before which turned into an email, and social media posts. But that newsletter didn't make money ON ITS OWN. So, here we are with The Podcast Moneymaker. I don't want to guess. So I'm going to find out, in public, every week, with actual numbers.
Why the newsletter and not, say, Instagram
A guy who runs the biggest newsletter growth agency in the world broke it down for me this month, and the numbers are rude: somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of your followers ever see a social post. Somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of your list sees an email. That's not a little better. That's the difference between shouting in a stadium and talking to half the room.
He also says newsletters make money in exactly four ways: ads, subscriptions (memberships can live here), digital products, and services. I'm going to try at least three of those with you - we've already done memberships and it wasn't really my bag. But I want to offer you digital products as well as my time and attention. You'll see the pitch, you'll see what it made, and if it flops, you'll see that too.
The scoreboard
Every week this block is at the top, whether the news is good or not.
List size: 10,040 (unless you don't want the Podcast Moneymaker, in which case, please click here to remove yourself but still stay on the She Podcasts list)
Open rate last issue: n/a (this is the first one)
Replies: 0
Dollars this newsletter has made: $0
Watch this space.
The rules
Weekly, every Tuesday. If I skip one you're allowed to be mad.
One thing you can use per issue. A playbook, or a story about something I did that either worked or didn't.
I show my work. What I sent, what I charged, who said no.
No CPM math. If you've been around, you know how I feel about CPM.
Next week
The show that had 2,000 downloads a month and sponsors anyway. It was mine, and I'll tell you exactly how that happened.
One favor
Hit reply and type the word WATCHING. That's it. It tells me who's actually here, and it tells Gmail this isn't a promotion, which is annoyingly important. If you want to add the one thing you'd sell if you knew how, I read every reply.
⬇ Below is an example of how you can run ads in your newsletter - this one is through the Kit program, which is how I'm sending these emails. According to the program, if you subscribe to the below newsletter, I get a small kickback (a dollar and some change). This is NOT me trying to get you to click it, but rather to show you first-hand how some programs like Kit and Beehive.
As an FYI, I will never just let some clown advertise on this newsletter or any of my content. I do think the below newsletter is cool! But again, this is also an example/experiment.
Talk next Tuesday! Jess