The Newsletter Conference hosted its inaugural event on May 3, 2024. Hosted by Who Sponsors Stuff, this event brought together over 400 newsletter operators and service providers to focus on the current and future state of the newsletter industry, which was explored in detail by 8 panels of newsletter industry experts.

Newsletter Business is a proud promotional partner and participant in the event, and has invested many hours to curate this exclusive spotlight on the conference, curating 5 or more key insights from each session to share with our subscribers based on what we think is most valuable to your newsletter-driven business.

Content Strategy Of The 1%: Creator Science founder Jay Clouse spoke about the content challenges faced by creators today as they wrestle with the attractive aspects of digital media businesses (high margins, free distribution) as well as the challenges (need to grow an audience in an increasingly competitive market). His advice centered on focus with respect to how platforms serve your goals, the effort expended creating content for those platforms, and how to smartly win the battle of attention vs. trust. Following are several key insights:

1. The trap that many creators embrace in order to grow is that they must create more content that is engaging for a wider audience; this requires more time and energy to create more broad content that has less certainty of resonating. This resembles running on a treadmill faster to maintain the status quo, effectively staying in the same place; this is otherwise known as the Red Queen Effect.

2. Where you invest your limited time and attention matters greatly, and so you should consider your investments in two kinds of platforms: Discovery vs. Relationship. Discovery platforms are those where you are borrowing someone else’s audience to get attention and awareness, like social media; they represent an indirect relationship between you and the consumer. Relationship platforms represent distribution that you own and hence engender trust, whether that is email/newsletter, SMS, a community or subscription offering.

3. Content formats differ between platform types. Discovery platforms tend to favor short form content, whereas relationship platforms skew toward long form. Creators tend to overemphasize the importance of discovery platforms and hence invest too much effort in short form content; when attention is easily gained as it is with short form content, it is less valuable.

4. If you can only start with one type of platform, then start with an owned relationship platform like email. If you can invest in two, then choose one discovery platform and one relationship platforms. However, the best time to start building trust is immediately when someone becomes aware that you exist, so direct that attention from the discovery platform (ie. social media) into your relationship platform (ie. email).

25 Rules For Running A Newsletter In 2024: Dan Oshinsky of Inbox Collective shared 25 rules for running a newsletter in 2024;

1. Email is an owned channel, but ownership belongs to the audience.

2. Have a clear audience for your newsletter.

3. Understand the job of your newsletter.

4. Use AI for productivity, not creativity.

5. Be willing to go where others aren’t.

6. Some topics are at “peak newsletter”…we don’t need more newsletters on these topics UNLESS you can conceive of a B2B use case for these topics, as these topics usually appear in a B2C context:

   • How to use AI

   • Crypto investing

   • News in 5 minutes

   • 5 things I read this week

7. Identify 1 new way to make money every year.

8. Make your choice: Hyper-scale or Hyper-niche ie. go big and broad or deep and narrow.

9. Only ask for a reply if offering something in return.

10. Win back inactive subscribers or let them go.

11. Operate in all 4 growth quadrants:

    • Owned: Email, SMS, website, landing page, etc.

    • Earned: Attention based on relationships or content

    • Algorithmic (or Rented): Social or search platforms

    • Paid: PPC ads, Sparkloop, beehiiv boosts, etc.

12. Start collecting more subscriber data than just an email address.

13. Look outside newsletter industry for inspiration.

14. Launch fast, then make things better.

15. Be willing to sunset what’s not working.

16. If you see an idea work elsewhere, test it yourself.

17. Find an accountability partner.

18. If you act like a spammer, you are a spammer.

19. No one knows your audience better than you do.

20. Accessibility is not optional.

21. Your “perfect” sits at the intersection of 3 things:

    • What you believe

    • What your audience says they want

    • What your audience actually does

22. Direction is more important than speed.

23. Don’t rely on silver bullet metrics.

24. Focus on content and relationships.

25. There is no path but yours.

1. The battle for the limited attention of your readers is key; your competition is Taylor Swift and any other distraction, not just another newsletter. The consensus was to keep content short and scannable. 1200 words or less was mentioned a few times, with guidance that you could have a single 300 word article and then a few short ones. Readers value brevity but don’t care how many articles overall, so experiment and pivot until you find what works.

2. Your newsletter’s value proposition is a function of the distinctive perspective it shares with your audience. For example, that might include a specific gender’s take on an industry or distilling the meaning of broad news or trends to the niche you serve.

3. Your newsletter’s perspective will be informed by the talent that produces your content, as well as how well you know your audience. You should regularly survey your audience seeking to learn the 1 thing they really want (not 5); use forcing functions to restrict answers, but also allow a few open ended questions. Zoom focus group calls with readers to see how they really consume your newsletter will help (and be humbling too). Make your reader feel like your newsletter content will make them look good to the key stakeholders in their lives (bosses, etc.)

4. The inclusion of habit forming content elements is incredibly important. This is often the content that gets people to open your newsletter on a regular basis. These can be memes, productivity tips, playlists, animal videos, or profiles of successful people the reader aspires to be…anything that repeatedly captures the attention and interest of your reader that doesn’t necessarily have to be related to your newsletter’s theme. Certain formats and verticals give more latitude to be quirky or different; B2B for example moves slower and allows you to take time to analyze news in a value-added way vs. break it.

5. Newsletter voice and format can be somewhat dynamic elements. Style guides are helpful but it is important to let writing staff be themselves. Voice can change as a newsletter evolves, and the audience can grow up with the newsletter operator which strengthens their bond. Visually rich formats for newsletters can work well; Brad modeled his newsletter Newsletter Examples after Marketing Examples. It’s also possible to vary format by day if sending daily or several times per week. Gamification is highly desirable for engagement if you can work out a relevant and entertaining mechanic.