You’re chasing the wrong newsletter goal.
(Probably.)
You write about the wrong stuff, describe your newsletter the wrong way on your signup page, promote it to the wrong people, and waste a ton of time, effort, and money as a result.
But don’t worry, I’ve got a simple solution for you.
First, some context…
Subscribers Are Overrated
This has become especially important to understand in our current newsletter boom.
People who used to subscribe to one or two newsletters, now subscribe to 20.
People who never subscribed to newsletters, now subscribe to five.
(Four of which they don’t even realize they subscribed to because they clicked some pop-up recommendation after subscribing to the one newsletter they want to receive.)
Speaking Of Newsletter Recommendation Tools…
They’re brilliant.
I’m a fan of the Sparkloop Partner Network and Convertkit’s Creator Network.
Thousands of subscribers discovered my newsletter through them (both free and paid acquisitions).
Many of those subscribers are awesome.
Some went on to buy my Skill Sessions and Clarity Calls.
But…
I’ve also had many reply to my newsletter welcome email thinking I was someone else.
At best, they think I’m the author of the newsletter they meant to subscribe to.
At worst, they have no clue why they’re getting my newsletter.
(Or never intended to subscribe to ANYONE’S newsletter.)
Newsletter recommendation tools are so (theoretically) effective they’ve attracted all the get-rich-quickers, build-it-and-flip-iters, and arbitragers to newsletters where they use their various “hacks” to muddy the waters of the whole space.
The creators of these tools do as much as they can to foil the bad actors, but it’s far from perfect and had made it much more complicated to determine the value of a subscriber.
Which leads me back to…
Subscribers Are Overrated (Again)
Now, where was I…
Oh yeah, I was about to give you an “A-ha!” moment:
It doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have if those subscribers don’t read your newsletter.
Which means…
Don’t optimize to get newsletter subscribers – optimize to get newsletter readers.
Read that line again.
Let it sink in.
It’s NOT what most newsletter creators do and I bet it’s not what you do either.
The bar to acquire a newsletter reader is significantly higher than the bar to get a subscriber because even newsletter junkies typically only consider a couple must-reads.
Take yourself for example.
I’m sure you’ve subscribed to a bunch of newsletters, but how many do you read every issue?
My guess is no more than three.
That means to acquire a newsletter reader, you need to become one of their three FAVORITE newsletters.
If you buy into my theory (which I assume you do otherwise you would have already bailed on this post to go find the man of your dreams in a 1980’s dating video profile), then it leads you to an obvious question:
How do you optimize for readers?
The Topic Trap
Let’s say you’ve never read this blog post so you’re out there chasing subscribers.
(Basically, the person you were five minutes ago.)
Chances are you optimized the topic and content of your newsletter to attract subscribers and chose too generic a topic as a result.
Your thought process probably went something like this…
“There’s so much happening in AI and everyone wants to learn about it, so I’ve got a GENIUS idea! I’ll write a newsletter where I share links to the latest AI news – it will be like Morning Brew for AI and thousands will subscribe to it. Plus, all those AI companies will want to advertise in it to reach those subscribers. I’m going to be rich!”
Or…
“I’ve got the perfect niche for my newsletter: Self Improvement. I’ll share all the stuff I do to become a better person, talk about my mindset and habits, and all those James Clear book buyers and Tim Ferriss podcast listeners will love it. Then, they’ll hire me to coach them. I’m going to be rich!”
No you won’t.
Those newsletters may attract subscribers, but it’s unlikely they’ll attract readers.
Because they sound like a million other (failing) newsletters already out there – they’re not differentiated enough.
You need to create content that’s perfect for someone, not OK for everyone.
To do that, scale down your niche to where your newsletter becomes a must-read for a specific person.
The Niche Definer will too.
Back to our hypotheticals…
“AI Newsletter Guy” would be more likely to get readers if the value prop was:
“My newsletter shows CEO assistants how to use AI to help themselves and their boss be more productive, including prompts I’ve used in my role as an assistant to a Fortune 500 CEO.”
Will that attract fewer subscribers? Yes.
Will it attract more readers? Absolutely.
Maybe “Self Improvement Newsletter Gal” would be better off with:
“My newsletter features interviews with professional therapists who share exercises you can use to overcome career-related anxiety related to public speaking, internal corporate politics, negotiating a raise, and managing employees.”
You know will subscribe to that newsletter?
People who will read it.
Fool’s Gold
I assume you’re now thinking one of three things:
1. “This makes total sense! I’m going to change the topic and format of my newsletter right now…and then I’m going to get rich!”
2. “This Josh guy is insane. Just because only 12 people read my newsletter, four of them are family members, and I’ve earned zero dollars from it, doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong – I’m going to keep doing what that anonymous guy on Twitter with the dollar sign symbol as his profile pic told me to do and then I’ll get rich!”
3. “Is it dinner time yet?”
No matter which of those is pulling your attention away from this post, stick around for a couple more quick things to consider.
The first is that pursuing subscribers instead of readers often leads to fool’s gold.
You don’t want any subscribers who are unlikely to list you among the three newsletters they read every time it’s published.
(It’s OK if you disagree with that concept – I have your best interest at heart.)
Most newsletter growth “best practices” don’t align with that statement.
(Because they’re optimizing for subscribers, not readers.)
Newsletter recommendation tools are overrated if you don’t carefully curate who sends you subscribers.
Asking friends to “support” you by subscribing to your newsletter even though it’s not relevant to what they do is pointless.
Stop bribing people to subscribe by offering giveaways.
Then, there’s the king of Fool’s Gold-ville…
Lead magnets.
I’ll spare you my famous lead magnet rant here (you’re welcome), but here’s the short version:
Lead magnets are bad for newsletters because they attract people who want the magnet, but not the newsletter.
If your magnet is as valuable as you claim it is, you should want to make it as easy as possible for people to see it – you shouldn’t hide it behind an email paywall.
If you make it freely available and promote your newsletter within it, you’ll wind up with more people seeing it, more people subscribing to your newsletter, and ultimately more readers.
Hungry for more of my lead magnet rant?
But…But…But…
Look who just entered the chat – it’s the “What About-ers?”
Nice to see you here.
You can always count on the What About-ers to show up right on time when you post on the internet.
Let me address your concerns, so you can get back to posting “First!” on YouTube videos.
“You say I need readers and not subscribers, but what about my sponsors who want subscribers? You’re taking money out of my pocket!”
First of all, let’s be honest:
You don’t have much money in your pocket.
It’s all tied up in that crappy ape JPG you bought “invested” in a couple years ago.
Anyway…
Your sponsors don’t want subscribers – they want sales.
Or clicks.
Or results.
You’re selling them a return on their investment and the only way to generate that is through readers.
You can con them into paying for “awareness” among a bunch of subscribers who don’t actually read your newsletter, but you don’t want to be that person or work with sponsors who don’t know any better, do you?
“You say I should niche down, but what if I want to build a broad audience? Targeting CEO assistants isn’t a big enough audience to do what I want.”
Your goal isn’t to build an audience, it’s to build a business.
To do that you don’t need to choose a small audience, but you do need a specific one.
“Anyone interested in AI” isn’t a specific audience – it’s like targeting “anyone who’s a Mom” when instead you can target more specific (but still huge) audiences like:
“Moms whose kids are a pain in the ass.”
“Moms whose husbands are a pain in the ass.”
“Moms who read blog posts about newsletters from writers who are a pain the ass.”
“You say I should focus on readers, but how do I know who will be a reader before they become a subscriber? Don’t I need to focus on subscribers first? Speaking of which…what did come first – the chicken or the egg?”
Semantics guy!
I didn’t see you come in – you must have snuck through the back door.
Readers vs. subscribers is a turn of phrase designed to illustrate a larger point and help you optimize what you do accordingly.
It’s called…a metaphor.
(Or maybe an analogy? I don’t know, but you get the point.)
You’re technically right (as always) that you can’t have a reader until someone becomes a subscriber, but you can influence who becomes a subscriber to give yourself the best chance of those subscribers becoming readers.
And the way to do that should be right up your alley.
Be more specific.
With what you create, who it’s for, and how it’s positioned.
How do you actually do that?
Well…
A Few For The Road
I’ve rambled enough on this topic for one day, but here are some resources to check out if you’re looking for a deeper dive into how to get newsletter readers:
• The most useful newsletter growth advice I’ve shared in my podcast
• The Newsletter Social Playbook