The Code Breaker Newsletter - Issue #013 How To Create A Newsletter To Grow Your List

Hey Code Breakers,

Welcome to this week's Code Breaker Newsletter. Here, we share the best insights, tips, and stories. Read today's issue and learn how to break the code on your market and unlock your business's potential.

Today, I wanted to share one of the most influential and consistent ways to grow your email list... the email newsletter!

We all know how important it is to grow our email lists. As coaches and consultants your email list is likely the only tangible asset in your company. Yes, you have your intellectual property. Yes, you have your brilliance as an individual. But many times, those aren't enough.

Unfortunately, most coaches and consultants rely on the wrong things. And if your business relies on cold calling, paid ads, or social media your taking a huge risk.

You Own The List

Not growing and monetizing your list? You're likely suffering from one of the following scenarios:

• You know you should, but don't know how.

• You’re experiencing inconsistent revenues.

• Your business lacks tangible equity

• You’re not developing raving fans of your business.

Done well, an email newsletter can correct each of these issues. Now, newsletters aren't your only option, but they're a good one. It's one I recommend focusing so here's how to get started.

Step 1: Set The Purpose

Taking on a newsletter is no small task, but there's huge upside! A newsletter does three primary things that shouldn't be overlooked:

It gives you the opportunity to regularly connect with your audience and offer value.

Builds a certain level of expectation and consistency with your audience. (i.e. when your audience expects your newsletter to arrive at 0800 everyday, they notice when it doesn't).

Provides the opportunity to monetize through either your own or affiliate offers.

The key is providing regular and consistent value. To do this, determine the purpose of your newsletter.

Is it there to share tips and tricks like this one?

Are you writing to share your specific way of thinking the way Reflections is set up?

Or are you sharing the latest and most up to date news about your industry?

Whichever purpose you choose, think about it from your audience's perspective. Not yours!

Step 2: Pick Your Length and Frequency!

Most coaches and consultants think about frequency through the wrong lens.

Yes, your ability to produce quality content is important.

Yes, your ability to match the volume of output you promise to your audience is important.

And yes, it's important to turn your list into raving fans as opposed to over subscribed lunatics.

We can all agree that these are factors are important. But they're not what's most important.

The type of readership you're wanting to build is. Think about the profile of the reader you're wanting to attract. Consider these questions as a starting point:

• Do I want my readers to be readers of long-form content?

  • Long-form sales letters have the highest conversions rates. Long-form also requires readers to have longer attention spans. How could either of these be helpful?

• Do I want my readers to be readers of short-form content?

  • Short-form has lower conversion rates but higher readership. It's more condensed and easier to produce. In a way, it also demands higher skills to get your points across.

• Do I want my readers to be watchers of video?

  • Are you more comfortable on camera? Video may be a better route for you? But don't forget to consider length as mentioned above.

• Do I want my readers to be clickers of links?

  • Will you provide links to a lot of industry articles or news? Click-through rates are monitored and can present issues with spam filters. If you provide them, you want to make sure they get clicked.

• Do I want my readers to be buyers via email?

  • We all want buyers, but not all buyers like to buy through email. Is that important for you or do you want them to take the next step? Either way, it's important to determine in your mind.

• Do I want my readers "trained" to open my emails daily, weekly, monthly, or at random?

  • Are you going to sell via your newsletter? If so, it's important to note how the frequency you choose will affect your ability to promote.

  • If your audience is used to daily emails and you send an email every day leading up to a holiday, it's normal. If however, you send monthly emails and then up your frequency to daily, you're outside your remit so to speak.

  • Are the consequences worth the reward?

Step 3: Produce - Promote - Publish!

Congratulations! You've determined the purpose of your newsletter. You've decided the length and frequency of the newsletter you'll provide. Now it's time to get to work.

Here are the key steps with a few of my top recommendations:

1. Producing the Content

   • Create Your Newsletter Content Calendar. The easiest way I've found to do this to to create a grid. List the core topics you'll cover along with rough ideas and titles for each post. Expand or contract the grid based on the frequency of your posts. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that.

   • Pick your platform. I use Beehiiv for this particular newsletter. And I Clickfunnels 2.0 for Reflections. There are various other platforms out there, but these are the two that have worked the best for me.

2. Promoting the Content

   • If you don't have something to actively promote, this is what you promote. Many times I work with coaches and consultants that aren't sure what their call to action should be. This makes it easy.

     1. Sign up for my newsletter

     2. Sign up to learn more about my thoughts on "X"

   • Your newsletter topics are also great hooks for shorts/reels, posts, etc..

   • Make promoting your newsletter a regular part of your weekly cadence.

3. Publish the Content

   • Publish your content.

   • Whether people are reading it or not, get consistent with your publishing. You never know when your list growth will take off and you want to have content in the back.

   • Also, each post can act as additional SEO opportunity for your website. Be sure to publish your newsletter on your site after you've sent out the email version.

Producing a newsletter doesn't need to be more complicated than it seems. The main thing is to leverage it to provide genuine value to your audience. Do that. Do it consistently. And before long, you'll be reaping the rewards from your efforts.