176: The Newsletter Profit System: Make Money Every Time You Publish
Hey there! Destini here, and today I want to get real with you about something I struggled with for a long time - my weekly newsletter. For years, I dreaded hitting that 'send' button.
I was following all the standard advice. Promote one piece of content, add a single call-to-action, nurture your audience. But let me tell you, it wasn't delivering results. I wasn't seeing any return on my investment, and I knew something had to change.
So, I put on my university marketing professor hat and dove into a 6-month research study. I wanted to uncover what those best-in-class email newsletter operators were doing that all of us in the creator niche hadn't mastered yet. And wow, did I learn some game-changing stuff!
I developed what I now call my "Newsletter Profit System," and it's completely transformed how I approach my weekly emails. Now, every time I hit publish, I'm actually making money - whether it's from my own digital products, affiliate income, sponsorships, or even attracting new coaching clients.
In this episode, I'm breaking it all down for you. I'll show you why that old-school newsletter advice falls short, and how diversifying your content can turn your newsletter into something your subscribers can't wait to open (and maybe even save in a special folder - yeah, that's the kind of feedback I'm getting now!).
So, if you're ready to stop dreading your newsletter and start profiting from it, you're in the right place!
Timestamps:
[00:00:56] The limitations of following standard newsletter advice
[03:03] Insights from Destini's 6-month research study on successful newsletters
[05:36] Why offering multiple pieces of content is crucial for engagement
[07:48] Examples of diverse content to include in your newsletter
[12:20] How to measure the success of your revamped newsletter strategy
How to Turn Your Weekly Email into a Profit Machine
As creators and entrepreneurs, we're often told that sending a weekly newsletter is crucial for nurturing our audience and staying top-of-mind. But what if your newsletter isn't delivering the results you want? What if you dread hitting that "send" button every week, knowing you're not seeing a return on your investment?
If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. I've been there too. For years, I followed the standard advice: send out a weekly newsletter promoting my latest content with a single call-to-action. But something wasn't clicking. I wasn't seeing the income or engagement I hoped for, and I knew I needed to make a change.
That's when I decided to put on my university marketing professor hat and conduct a six-month research study to uncover what best-in-class newsletter operators were doing differently. The results were eye-opening, and they led me to develop my "Newsletter Profit System." Today, I'm sharing some key insights that can help you transform your newsletter from a chore into a cherished (and profitable) part of your business strategy.
The Problem with Traditional Newsletter Advice
Many of us in the creator space have been following a flawed blueprint. We've been told to focus on a single piece of content – maybe our latest blog post or podcast episode – and include one clear call-to-action. While this approach might work for specific marketing emails (like promoting a flash sale or webinar), it falls short for a regular newsletter.
The issue? By offering just one piece of content, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. If that content doesn't resonate with a subscriber, you've lost your chance to engage them that week. Even worse, if this happens repeatedly, you risk losing them altogether.
Rethinking Your Newsletter: The Magazine Approach
Instead of viewing your newsletter as a simple promotional tool, start thinking of it as a miniature magazine. Remember how you used to eagerly await the latest issue of your favorite publication, savoring each section and returning to it throughout the month? That's the experience we want to create for our subscribers.
To achieve this, aim to include 3-5 different pieces of content in each newsletter. This could be a mix of:
1. Your latest content (blog post, podcast episode, video)
2. Curated industry news or resources
3. A quick tip or "hack" related to your niche
4. A fun element like a quiz, game, or riddle
5. Featured product or affiliate offer
6. Reader spotlight or community section
By diversifying your content, you're giving your readers options. If one section doesn't appeal to them, another might catch their interest. This approach keeps your newsletter fresh, engaging, and valuable – even if a subscriber isn't in the market for your products or services at that moment.
Balancing Value and Monetization
One of the beauties of this approach is that it allows you to seamlessly integrate monetization elements without feeling "salesy." When you're providing multiple pieces of valuable content, including a featured product or affiliate offer feels natural rather than pushy.
For example, in a recent newsletter for my Hobby School brand, I included:
• A section highlighting our latest podcast episode
• A featured product with a flash sale offer
• A creative prompt to inspire our audience
• A community section directing readers to our Facebook group
This mix keeps the newsletter primarily focused on value, while still creating opportunities for sales and engagement.
Measuring Success and Iterating
As you implement changes to your newsletter strategy, it's crucial to keep an eye on your metrics. Look for improvements in:
• Open rates
• Click-through rates
• Reply rates (are more people responding to your emails?)
• Direct feedback (are subscribers telling you they love your newsletter?)
• Sales or conversions directly attributed to your newsletter
Don't be afraid to experiment and tweak your approach. What works for one audience might not work for another. The key is to stay consistent with sending your newsletter while being flexible enough to adjust based on the feedback and data you receive.
Creating a Newsletter Your Audience Can't Wait to Open
The ultimate goal is to create a newsletter that your subscribers actively look forward to receiving. When people start telling you that they save your emails in a special folder or that yours is one of the few newsletters they always read, you know you're on the right track.
Remember, this transformation doesn't happen overnight. It took me months of research and testing to find the right formula for my audience. But with patience and persistence, you can turn your newsletter into a powerful tool for nurturing your audience, showcasing your expertise, and yes – driving real business results.
Are you ready to revolutionize your newsletter strategy? Start by brainstorming different content categories that would appeal to your audience. Then, gradually introduce these new elements into your next few newsletters. Pay attention to how your subscribers respond, and don't be afraid to ask for feedback directly.
With a little creativity and strategic thinking, your weekly newsletter can become one of your most valuable business assets. Here's to hitting "send" with excitement, knowing that each newsletter is an opportunity to delight your audience and grow your business.
Mentioned In This Episode:
Creator's MBA Newsletter: Actionable marketing advice that you'll want to save in a special Gmail folder to grow your digital product business, sent weekly to 10,000+ readers. Subscribe here.
Creator’s MBA Newsletter Examples
HobbyScool Newsletter Examples
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Transcript:
Dr. Destini Copp [00:00:00]:
Hi there. Destini here. And today, I wanted to talk about an issue and something that I have struggled with for a long time and how I solved for it. Now today, every time I hit send on my weekly newsletter publication, which is called the Creator's MBA in my personal brand, and we also do one for HobbyScool. So whenever I send that out and, you know, hit publish on that, I sell either my own digital products. I may be getting some affiliate income. I may be getting some sponsor income if we have a sponsor for that particular email newsletter, or I may be getting a coaching client from my email newsletters. But I will tell you that it wasn't always that way.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:00:56]:
So for years, I followed the standard advice, which was send out a weekly newsletter email promoting my content, whatever I you know, my main form of content. For me, that's mostly my podcast episodes with a single call to action. So I was doing that. I was sending it out, but that approach wasn't delivering results for me. I wasn't getting income from those emails. Sure. Was I nurturing my audience? Yes. I would say I was definitely do that.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:01:34]:
I was staying on top of their mind, which is very important, but I wasn't seeing the return on investment from my weekly newsletter since. In fact, I actually if I'm being honest, I dreaded sending them out. And I knew I was doing something wrong, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. I had also signed up for some email marketing memberships, you know, that, you know, they give you the content or, you know, prompts or whatever, but that really wasn't helping me with the right content or the right strategy for my newsletter. And I know I know I'm not the only one who has struggled with this issue, and a lot of you can probably relate to this. You're probably sending out your weekly email newsletters. You're sending them out, but you're just not getting any sales from them. You're not getting any business from them, and you're probably even questioning, is it worth your time? So what I did was I put on my university marketing professor hat, and I decided to conduct a research study to uncover what those best in class email newsletter operators were doing that all of us in this creator niche had not mastered yet.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:03:03]:
I also pulled data and info from some newsletters that I personally loved and looked forward to getting them every single week and studied them and looked at them and, you know, tried to figure out what was it about them that made them special to me. And this was a 6 month research study. I started it back in 2023. And based on my research findings, I developed and implemented my newsletter profit system, which I am sharing now with you in the newsletter profit club. But I really wanna talk about, in the podcast episode today, some of the things that I found in this 6 month research study. And what I started to do as I started, you know, going through this research study and if you've been, you know, on my email list, you may have noticed some of these changes, or you may have not because they didn't happen overnight. Right? I tested things out. I tweaked things here and there.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:04:13]:
I made this little tweak or this little tweak, you know, and I kept improving until I started seeing, you know, my return on my investment go up. I started making money from every single newsletter that was going out. I started getting new coaching clients from even if I wasn't mentioning my coaching in that particular newsletter, I was getting people signing up and clicking on that little thing at the bottom, you know, if you wanna work with me type thing. And I got people responding back to my email saying, yours is one of the few newsletters that I actually read and save in a special Gmail folder. And when I started getting that type of feedback, I knew I was onto something. So I started getting that feedback. I started actually seeing the difference in my email stats and also seeing the difference in my bank account. So one of the things that I found in this research study is that many newsletters in our niche, in this creator niche, which is a broad niche, they're really falling short by offering just one piece of content or one call to action? And I I would say this is one of the top mistakes that I'm seeing people made.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:05:36]:
And quite frankly, I was making this myself because that's what I was told to do. Basically, you know, nurture your audience with your one piece of content. Your you know, for me, it was my podcast content, you know, and point them with that call to action to go listen to your podcast episode. So that's what I was doing. The other thing I would say if in your emails, if you are solely driving traffic to your website like I was doing, I might, you know, might be sending them to my website or go listen here on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever, you're not really sending newsletters. So what I found in this particular study is that those would be considered marketing emails. Right? So we're talking about weekly email newsletters here. And I want to make an important point of clarification is let's say that you're doing a a flash sale, or let's say that you are doing a course launch where you're driving people to a webinar.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:06:44]:
You're gonna want that one call to action there because you want them to take that action, to take action on that flash sale, or to take action to sign up for that webinar. Your newsletter is different. I want you to think of your newsletter like a newspaper or a magazine. So if you're my age, you may remember back to when you're in high school and you had the Cosmopolitan magazine, and you would, like, save it, and you would read it over and over, and you would fold over or bookmark a page or an article or a quiz or something that you absolutely loved in your magazine. You would go back and share it with your friends. So you want to think of your newsletter like that because newsletters are the new newspapers, newsletters are the new magazines. So with that being the case, you want your newsletter to deliver multiple pieces of content in each issue. And this could be a variety of different things.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:07:48]:
And that's one of the things that I cover in the newsletter profit club is helping you figure out what are your categories, what are you going to include in your newsletter. And right from the beginning, you're gonna start testing things out. You're gonna explore different things like I did. I've done that over the past few months. You could be like you could do articles or stories or curated content. Right? It doesn't always have to be content that you're creating by yourself. You could pull something in that somebody else has done and highlight that because you think your audience would be interested in it. You can include images and infographics.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:08:31]:
I definitely include those in my email newsletters. You can include games and quizzes. People love games and quizzes. And I've actually started doing something that something like that and maybe even adding a riddle in here or there. Just fun stuff. I call it Easter eggs. Right? These little, you know, surprises that you put in your email newsletter just to make people smile or, you know, just to get them thinking. You could do an interview section or an advice column.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:09:01]:
So think about it. If you're a relationship coach, you could have an advice column in your weekly newsletter. How cool would that be? People would love, love, love that. You could do customer profiles or reader reviews or reader feedback. There's just so much you can do with these email newsletters and the various categories that you can have in there to make them interesting and engaging to your readership. So the other thing I want you to remember is that by offering 3 to 5 pieces of different content, you are letting your readers pick and choose what interests them the most. So keep in mind that if your newsletter only delivers, like, one piece of content, like what I did for years, like my latest podcast episode, it might not appeal to everyone. So one of the recent podcast episodes I did, I had somebody on and we talked about Shopify.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:10:05]:
Are some people in my audience interested in selling digital products on Shopify? Absolutely. Absolutely. But not everybody. So if somebody got that email and that was the only thing I was talking about in that email newsletter, they might just unsubscribe and say, you know what? She's not speaking to me. So this is not for me. This is not something I'm interested in. But if you include 3 to 5 different pieces of content, there's a really good chance that at least one of them are going to resonate with each reader. So by diversifying your content, that makes your email newsletter so much more valuable, so much more engaging, and it really it turns it into something that your audience looks for to reading.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:10:57]:
So I want you to start mixing things up, and I think this one simple change will make a ton of difference in your weekly email newsletters. The other thing that I just want to point out, when you have those different categories and you have to figure out what makes the most sense for your business and your audience. But when you have those different categories, you can start adding, like, a product in there that you want to promote or an affiliate offer or maybe even something from one of your sponsors. Like, for instance, in one of the recent HobbyScool email newsletters that I did, I had a podcast episode section. I had a featured product section where we're pointing people back to our Shopify store where they can basically doing a flash sale on that particular, product. We had a creative prompt section, which was, you know, something that was really cool just to create a prompt to for them. And we also have our in our community section in our HobbyScooll newsletter, and, basically, that's a prompt where we point them back to have a conversation in our HobbyScool Facebook group. So it promotes that kind of it promotes that community aspect.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:12:20]:
So in the email newsletter, we're pointing them to the Facebook groups so we can have conversations and members in our audience can have conversations with others. So you can kinda see the different sections that I have in that email newsletter, and I will include a a link to both of my email newsletters, my Creator's MBA one and my HobbyScool one, just so that you can see some of the different sections that we have and how we are incorporating different ways to actually make money and profit from these weekly email newsletters. So I knew that I was on the right track with these changes that I was making in my weekly newsletter when my email engagement stats started to increase, whether it was my open rates or my email responses that I was getting back. What really increased was our click through rates. Those especially went up. And I also had people contact me and telling me how much that they love, love, loved our weekly newsletter and that they were saving it in a special Gmail folder for future reference. Now that is what you want to hear. Now if you go to destinicopp.com/profit, and I'll have the link for that in the show notes, you are going to find the information about the newsletter profit club where I will help you make money every time you hit publish.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:13:53]:
Now in this club, in addition to the monthly drop where we have writing prompts for your weekly email newsletter, I will help you publish your newsletter consistently. I will also allow you to steal my newsletter ideation and content planning system. So I have a very specific system that I use to come up with ideas for our weekly newsletter and how I plan it out. It's actually my content planner, my promotional planner, and my newsletter planner all in one. So I'm giving you that. In this particular membership, we're also giving you newsletter designs that you can imitate because that's very important how you actually set up your newsletter and all those different categories that you select. We go through and help you do that. And because I know how important it is to grow your newsletter, a major emphasis in this membership is on newsletter growth.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:14:58]:
But what is also, I think, so cool about this particular membership is that I'm gonna be taking you behind the scenes as I grow a newsletter business from scratch. From 0 email subscribers, I have none in there right now. I haven't even started doing this, so I'm gonna take you behind the scenes on this. There's no lead magnet today, no newsletter landing page. I have absolutely nothing built, but you're going to see behind all the you're gonna get behind the scenes as I grow set up and grow this newsletter business. And, also, for a limited time, what I'm offering for our yearly subscribers is that you can submit your newsletter for an expert review. So I can review your newsletter opt in landing page, your newsletter thank you page, your newsletter welcome email, and a couple of newsletter issues from your archive. So go to destinicopp.com/profit
Dr. Destini Copp [00:16:00]:
Check it out. If you have any questions whatsoever, let me know. I'm more than happy to answer any questions that you have. And I cannot wait to help you make money every time you publish. Bye for now.