192: Make Money Every Time You Hit Send (without burning out your list)
Ever wonder if your weekly newsletter could do more than just update your audience? What if each 'send' could actually put money in your pocket?
In this week's Creator's MBA podcast episode, I'm sharing a game-changing approach to your regular newsletter that could transform it from a simple "here's my latest blog or podcast episode" update into a consistent income stream.
After diving deep into a 6-month research study, I've uncovered why our usual newsletter methods often fall short - and more importantly, what we can do about it.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why treating your newsletter like a mini-magazine could be the key to keeping readers engaged (and ready to buy)
How to seamlessly integrate monetization without feeling pushy or salesy
Simple design tweaks that make your newsletter irresistible to open and read
This isn't about promotional emails or launch sequences. It's all about making your weekly touch-point with your audience work harder for you.
Ready to see your weekly newsletter in a whole new light? This episode might just change how you approach your next 'send.'
P.S. Want to take your newsletter game to the next level? I've got two amazing free gifts for you:
Newsletter Profit Calculator: Tired of sending newsletters that don't drive revenue? This calculator helps you turn your newsletter into a strong income stream (even with a small list). Get your free calculator here: https://destinicopp.com/calculator
Newsletter Profit Club Collaboration App: Ready to skyrocket your subscriber count? No more wasting time searching for partners - grow together effortlessly. Plus, get free lifetime access if you're one of the first to join! Grab your spot here: https://www.destinicopp.com/collab
Key points with timestamps:
00:04:47 - The problem with traditional newsletter advice and why it often fails
00:13:45 - Key findings from Destini's 6-month research study on successful newsletters
00:27:14 - Introduction to the "newsletter magazine" approach and its benefits
00:35:04 - Common newsletter design mistakes to avoid
00:42:33 - Essential elements of an effective newsletter design
Transforming Your Newsletter into a Profit Machine
In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, email newsletters remain a powerful tool for connecting with your audience. However, many entrepreneurs struggle to make their newsletters both engaging and profitable. Enter Dr. Destini Copp, a marketing expert who has cracked the code on creating newsletters that readers can't wait to open – and that generate consistent revenue.
In a recent episode of the Creator's MBA Podcast, Dr. Copp shared insights from her extensive 6-month research study on successful newsletter businesses. Her findings challenge traditional newsletter advice and offer a fresh perspective on how to approach email marketing in today's digital landscape.
The Problem with Traditional Newsletter Advice
Many of us have been taught to create one pillar piece of content and send it out to our email list weekly, providing value and nurturing our audience until we're ready to launch a product. However, Dr. Copp found this approach wasn't delivering the results she expected.
"I was doing all the right things. I was giving my audience some valuable information, but it wasn't helping, wasn't moving the needle," she explains. This realization led her to conduct a deep dive into what makes some newsletters stand out and generate significant revenue.
Key Findings from the Research Study
Dr. Copp's research uncovered several critical factors that set successful newsletters apart:
Consistency: Successful newsletters were sent out at least once per week.
Structured Format: They had an easy-to-read, consistent layout that readers could quickly navigate.
Multiple Monetization Strategies: These newsletters used various methods to generate revenue, from sponsorships to affiliate marketing.
Unique, Valuable Content: The most successful newsletters provided content that readers couldn't get anywhere else.
Perhaps most importantly, Dr. Copp found that these newsletter operators were treating their newsletters as standalone products, not just as marketing channels.
The "Newsletter Magazine" Approach
Based on her findings, Dr. Copp developed what she calls the "newsletter magazine" approach. This strategy involves creating 3-5 different pieces of content in each newsletter, giving readers options and increasing the likelihood that something will catch their interest.
"You want them every single week when they're getting your email newsletter in their inbox...to see your name, open it, and then you want them to kind of go through it, figure out exactly what sections in there they're interested in," Dr. Copp advises.
This approach allows for seamless integration of monetization elements without feeling pushy or overly salesy. It creates a natural way to serve your audience while also promoting products, services, or sponsorships.
Designing Your Newsletter for Success
Dr. Copp emphasizes the importance of newsletter design in capturing and keeping your audience's attention. Here are some key elements to consider:
Branded Header: Include your newsletter name and logo.
Clear Sections: Use headlines, boxes, or dividers to separate different content areas.
Personal Touch: Include a photo and brief bio to connect with your readers.
Mobile-Friendly Layout: Ensure your design looks good on both desktop and mobile devices.
Consistent Branding: Use your brand colors and fonts throughout the newsletter.
"I like to write in a conversational tone just like I'm talking to a friend," Dr. Copp shares, highlighting the importance of injecting your personality into your newsletter.
Monetization Strategies That Work
One of the most valuable takeaways from Dr. Copp's research is the variety of monetization strategies successful newsletters employ. These include:
Sponsorships: From single-issue takeovers to dedicated sections.
Affiliate Marketing: Promoting products or services you believe in.
Digital Products: Selling your own courses, ebooks, or memberships.
Paid Subscriptions: Offering premium content for a recurring fee.
The key is to integrate these elements naturally within your content, providing value to your readers while also generating revenue for your business.
Getting Started with Your Profit-Generating Newsletter
If you're just beginning your newsletter journey, Dr. Copp recommends focusing on growth first. Start by setting up your email service provider and creating a compelling free gift to attract subscribers. Then, begin sending out weekly newsletters, even if they're not perfect at first.
"It really comes down to how can you serve your audience," Dr. Copp advises. "So I would just start with figuring out that. What kind of questions do they have, and how can you answer and help them?"
Remember, creating a profitable newsletter takes time and effort, but the rewards can be significant. By treating your newsletter as a standalone product, providing unique and valuable content, and intelligently integrating monetization strategies, you can transform your newsletter from a simple communication tool into a thriving aspect of your business.
As you embark on this journey, keep Dr. Copp's parting words in mind: "We are spending a ton of time creating this content, sending out this weekly newsletter, making sure that we are staying on top of mind with our audience, and that's very important. But we also wanna make sure we're getting an ROI for that time." With the right approach, your newsletter can become not just a way to stay connected with your audience, but a powerful revenue generator for your business.
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Transcript:
Dr. Destini Copp [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Creator’s MBA Podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of digital product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destini Copp, and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desk, constantly live launching, or worrying about the social media algorithms. I hope you enjoy our episode today. Hi there. Destini here. And before we jump into today's episode, I just wanna let you know that this particular episode is from a training I did for a mastermind. Now I mentioned in this episode 2 gifts and I wanna make sure that you have access to them. The first is my newsletter profit calculator.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:00:53]:
So if you take or sign up for this calculator, it will help you figure out how much money you can make from each newsletter you send out. So based on the concepts that we're talking about today and some of the monetization strategies for our newsletter, you can start thinking about, oh, this is another way I can make money from my newsletter, or I could be doing this with my newsletter and make money from it. So definitely grab that calculator. It's actually a Google sheet, and I'll help you figure out how much money you can make from each newsletter sent. The other gift I have for you, which I talk about also in this particular training, is my newsletter profit club collaboration app. Now I put together this app for all of you. So you can get together and grow your audience together and grow your newsletter together. So basically what you do, you just sign up, get access to the app, input your newsletter information, all about your newsletter and your perfect collaboration partner.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:01:59]:
And then start reaching out to people whose audiences would be perfect for your newsletter. To get that or sign up for the newsletter profit club collaboration app, go to destinicopp.com/collab. And I will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. And I hope you enjoy this episode. So So, again, thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to be here today and talking about a subject that I am truly passionate about. And it is making money every time you hit send with your newsletter without burning out your list. And, I'll I'll walk you through kind of the history here and how I got very kind of involved in this topic and doing a research study, a 6 month research study all about this, that newsletter into a profit machine.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:02:58]:
And I do wanna clarify that one of the things that I wanna be clear upfront, I'm talking about your newsletter that you send out to your audience. So the weekly communication that you're having with them to really nurture them. I'm gonna go through kind of what I found during the study and what I've been doing and some of the things I've tested, but this newsletter can bring in money. I'm not talking about in this training, I'm not talking about any launch emails that you're sending or maybe even any flash sales. You should still absolutely be doing those in your business, but you also need to be sending out that weekly, at at a minimum, in my opinion, that weekly newsletter. Some people send them out more often than that, but that's what I am focused on, and that's what I'm gonna be talking about. My name is Dr. Destini Copp I'm a college marketing professor turned online entrepreneur, and I'm a certified business growth coach for digital product entrepreneurs.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:04:00]:
So people who either have or want to have digital products like online courses, memberships, group coaching programs with an online course, or even low cost digital products. I do focus on that quite a bit also. And I still teach at the college marketing level, at the university level in graduate and doctoral programs. I'm teaching, like, a strategic marketing class this fall and SEO and SEM course. So I still do that because I love teaching. I'm also the host of the Creators MBA podcast. So if you're a podcast listener, definitely check that out. And I also have another podcast for my HobbyScool brand, which I'll talk about a little bit more in just a second, but, also, I'll talk about some of the things that we've been doing in all the newsletters that we're running.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:04:47]:
I have 4 different newsletters that I run. My personal brand, which is my destinicopp.com, which is what I'm doing this presentation of under. I have HobbyScool where we do online learning virtual summits and different types of hobbies and niches. I also have a a Shopify store there too, and I have my newsletter profit club, which we have a collaboration app, just so business owners can get together, collaborate, maybe share freebies, maybe share newsletter links so they can all grow together. You can reach me on most social media platforms, most active on LinkedIn, but the best way to get all of these really good tips, these juicy tips that I send out every single week related to digital products and growing your digital product business is my creator's MBA newsletter. Now let me talk about what you're gonna leave here today, what we're gonna be talking about today. I'm gonna walk you through the problem that I had, which led me to this research study and this journey that I took related to making my newsletter, this profit powerhouse. What I failed in this research study, and there were some major surprises there for me.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:06:04]:
Now keep in my eye a bit in marketing, corporate marketing, teaching at the university level, running my own businesses for close to 30 years. I know a few things or more about marketing. I did find a lot of very kinda ahas, and I'm like, okay. That makes sense what they're doing there. I can't believe I didn't know that. So I went through this research study. I'm gonna walk you through some monetization strategies for your newsletter that aren't gonna burn out your list. They're not gonna be super salesy.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:06:39]:
You're not gonna feel like you're selling every single week. And then I'm gonna walk you through some newsletter design principles and how it solves the issue of burning out your list because they think you're selling to them too much. This newsletter design strategy that I've come up with based on the research study results definitely solves that issue. So I'm gonna walk you through. Now I am giving away free lifetime access for this collaboration app. I actually put it together and developed this app for my newsletter profit club, but I know for it to be super valuable for everybody involved, we need people using it. So we need people who have active newsletters and want to grow their newsletter with their ideal customer, we want them using this. So when you submit your newsletter to this, you can just input different information about your newsletter, like the niche that you're in, the category that you're in, just other things about your newsletter.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:07:44]:
And you can also go in there and search for other people like you. So let's say that you are a coach who kinda works in the weight loss health type industry. You can go in and look for other newsletters that might have people who are your ideal customer and your ideal reader. You can reach out to them and say, can we collaborate? Can we, you know, maybe swap a free gift? Or, you know, can you send on my newsletter link and you can have a landing page for your newsletter? So there's a lot of collaboration that you could do there, and you could do that for free. So it's a really great way to grow your list for free. If you want to kinda calculate, if you would, how you can or what you can expect to make from sending out your newsletter, I have a calculator for you. And you can go to this link and grab it, and it will kinda it'll walk you through what you can expect there. Now, really, I want to take this opportunity and set the stage for you.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:08:47]:
So now what I wanted to do was take a second and set the stage for you. I wanna talk to you a little bit about the problem that I had and what I you know, I'm gonna walk you through how I went to resolve it. So for years, you know, when I first started my online business, I was you know, took took some of these courses about list growth and how do you do this. Because I came from corporate America and corp a big corporate America. In my job in corporate America, I was managing a product portfolio of $800,000,000, so almost $1,000,000,000. When I went into university teaching, eventually, I started my own business. A lot of the marketing principles that I learned over the years was very different. So I was used to more corporate marketing, but this is different.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:09:38]:
What we're doing in these niche small businesses, mostly solopreneur businesses, it's a different marketing strategy. So I'm focused on growing my email list. You know, I've taken some courses, so I was following all the standard advice that I was given. And, basically, what that standard advice was, it was create one kind of pillar piece of content, send it out to your email list on a weekly basis, providing them value and nurturing them. And when you're ready to launch, basically, they're they're gonna be ready to buy from you because you've been interacting with them on a regular basis. You've been, you know, giving them valuable information. But what I found was that advice was not working for me. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be doing that pillar piece of content providing value to your audience, but let's take a second and think a little bit more about human behavior.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:10:42]:
And I kinda put myself in my ideal reader's shoes, my ideal customer shoes. And I know that there's emails that I get from people that I love and I followed for years, and they're sending these emails out to me on a regular basis, so they're doing a really good job there. But I know that that email that's coming into my inbox is basically talking about their new podcast episode that they just launched. So what was happening? I would see that email. I wouldn't even open it because I know that that podcast episode is in my podcast app. And when I'm ready to listen to it, like I do, when maybe when I'm working out, maybe when I'm walking my dog, maybe it's when I'm driving to the grocery store, I know that that's when I'm gonna do that. So I really wasn't opening those emails. They had great podcast show notes that go along with them, but there wasn't really any burning kinda reason for me to open that email.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:11:50]:
An issue, and that was happening to me. I was doing all the right things. I was giving my audience some valuable information, but it it just was it wasn't, like, helping, wasn't moving the needle. So I was like, you know what? That's not working. That's not delivering results. The other issue that I had is I had digital products, coaching services. I had a lot of other stuff that I needed to sell on a regular basis that I didn't wanna wait for a launch to promote them. So affiliate offers, I knew that they were valuable to my audience, and I wanted to promote them.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:12:33]:
So I didn't want to be always sending out a email to my audience saying, buy this and buy this and buy this. I had a dilemma that I was trying to solve. So, basically, what I did, I'm like, this isn't working. I know there's a better way to do this. I searched for a lot of solutions, didn't find them out there in marketplace, and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna put my marketing professor hat on, and I'm gonna conduct a research study. So, basically, what I did was I conducted a 6 month research study to uncover what I identified as these best in class email newsletter businesses that we in this creator digital creator coaching niche hadn't mastered yet. Based on what I found in this research study, I implemented my newsletter profit system. One of the key learnings was that these newsletter operators were treating their newsletters like a stand alone product.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:13:45]:
I was not doing that. I considered my email list and my newsletter like a marketing channel. I was distributing information from this email list to my audience. Their newsletters were so valuable and packed full of information that that particular piece of content, if you would, or that product could stand on its own even if they didn't have a website eve or any other content platform. This was a huge mind shift for me. The other thing was I found these newsletter businesses that had sold for 1,000,000 of dollars. So I'm like, okay. So they're doing something different there.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:14:35]:
And you can go to that particular website that I have here, deuce.com, and just kinda get a feel for some of these newsletters that have and if you want to get you know, you can get on some of their email list too and kinda see what they're doing there. But I was like, okay. Holy cow. You know, they're doing something different here. Then I started thinking, okay. How can I apply what they're doing to my brands and businesses, and what do I need to change? Because, clearly, what I'm doing is not working and it's, you know, vastly different from what they're doing there. So here are some other things that I found. The successful newsletters were consistent.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:15:23]:
They were sending out a minimum of once per week, and you're gonna say, Destini, that's no surprise to me. And I agree with you. That wasn't a surprise to me. Now some of them do more. Right? Some of them send out daily. Some of them do twice per week. I didn't find anyone, any newsletter in this particular study that was doing a minimum of once per week. So it wasn't like a once per month or every other week.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:15:50]:
I think it it all of them were at least once per week. The other thing I found in the study is they had a structured, easy to read format that they pretty much stopped to in every newsletter that they sent out. They may have tweaked it here and there based on reader feedback, but it was a pretty consistent format that they stumped to. The other thing that I found was they were monetizing their newsletter in a variety of weeks, some ways that I didn't even know existed out there. Even though I had seen them in some newsletters I've gotten over time, I wasn't paying much attention. But when I started digging into the details, I'm like, okay. This is why they're successful. So it it was a huge from me.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:16:43]:
But the biggest takeaway that I found throughout the study, and I think it's probably one of the main reasons, quite frankly, that these newsletters are successful, is that they were providing valuable content that the readers couldn't wait to open. And in a lot of cases, this was content that you couldn't get anywhere else. You had to be on their newsletter to get it. It wasn't content that they were simply redistributing from their podcast platform. HubSpot stopped sending people from their newsletter to their YouTube channel, and it kinda goes back. This whole research study goes back to what I talked about earlier. You have to think about the reader. And when they're reading your newsletter, what state of mind are they in? They're not normally going to go from reading your newsletter to another platform like watching a video and spending 15 to 30 minutes watching a video, or they're not gonna go from your newsletter and go to your podcast platform.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:17:52]:
That's not human behavior. So what HubSpot found in this research study, when they stopped sending people to their YouTube channel from their email newsletter, their YouTube channel grew. And they just kinda let YouTube do its thing and the results were crazy. I think that it grew, like, 400% during this time that they stopped sending people. Those people were going there, basically, you know, watching for, like, a second and leaving. So it wasn't letting YouTube kinda and the algorithm there do its thing. So you really have to think about when somebody's reading a newsletter, what their behavior is, and their behavior is they're reading. Right? They want that content in that newsletter, so they want that valuable content there.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:18:42]:
The other thing I found in this research study is that you can be successful with different formats. I found in the study all kinds of things. They were doing long news letters. They were doing short newsletters. There are some newsletters out there. They call them minimalistic newsletters where basically there's, like, 3 bullet points, 3 different links, and, you know, go here to read this. And, basically, they're sending people to other content and people, you know, they're successful with that. There's medium sized newsletter.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:19:13]:
And like I said, I have 4 of them that I send out on a regular weekly basis. I've tested out the long. I've tested out the shorter ones, and my newsletters, you know, generally are gonna fall into 5 minutes or less, and I would put that in the medium sized newsletters. And, really, the key of what I found is to pick a format and structure that works for you and it works for your readers and kinda go with it. That's your brand. You're kinda putting it's yeah. Again, you're branding your newsletter. You might even be, you know, putting a name related to your newsletter.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:19:51]:
Like, some of my newsletters or my personal brand newsletters called the Creators MBA newsletter. Right? So I tied it in to my podcast, which is my Creators MBA podcast. I have a certain kind of color scheme that I use and just a format and structure that I use on a consistent basis. Doesn't mean that I might tweak it here and there. In fact, this past week, I did something a little bit different because I wanted to survey my audience. Okay. So now let's move into and talk about monetization because this was a big for me as I went through this. I found, like, these newsletter I call them newsletter operators, newsletter businesses.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:20:32]:
They were focused on monetization. So they're selling what was interesting too, a lot of these newsletters, they might be selling, like, done for you type services, you know, like a data type newsletter might go in and build out somebody's data and tracking system, or they might have, like, a a membership or an online course or coaching or whatever. So they're selling kind of their core products and services through this newsletter, but they're doing a lot of other things. That is certainly not the only thing that they're selling in that newsletter. So what they're doing is they're selling these sponsorships. 1 might be like a single sponsor for an issue. The sponsor might take over that entire newsletter. You could have, like, deck dedicated sections or multiple mentions throughout this newsletter that help people, you know, learn how to do use calligraphy.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:21:30]:
But, basically, we sent out an entire list email driving people to one of the webinars or trainings that they were doing, and then they were gonna promote their membership there. So they paid us to send that out to our entire HobbyScool list. Another example here is I've had sponsors take over, have dedicated sections, or multiple mentions. Like, this past week with HobbyScool, I had somebody on the podcast, and I included information for her, like, in our creative section, kinda expanding on some of the points that she made in the podcast and also had a feature product for her. So that was another example of how we do those single sponsor issues. Now you can also do display ads. A lot of the newsletters, a lot of them, actually, in the study idea, they do supply ad display ads. So these are kinda banner style ads that are placed throughout or within the newsletter content.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:22:32]:
It's pretty evident that is an ad. Going back to the one I talked about earlier with HobbyScool where I had that VIP sponsor, we did a podcast episode with her, a featured product, and then section in the get creative. Those were more integrated than the newsletter. Even though we told people that she was one of our VIP sponsors and we let them know that she was a sponsor, it didn't feel very sales y because all of that was integrated natively, if you would, throughout our newsletter content. You can do, native content. Speaking of which, you can do, like, sponsored articles or sections that match the style of your regular content. You could have sponsored sections. So that's another way you could do it.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:23:15]:
If you start paying attention to a lot of these newsletters, you'll see that a lot of people, especially the bigger type of newsletters, are doing that. The other thing that they're doing is product reviews or showcases. They're going into details about a the specific product, and either that sponsor has paid them to do that or maybe they're getting some type of affiliate commission. But in most cases, that particular sponsor has paid them to do that in-depth review. You could do classified listings. These would be short text ads, like, go here, go here, go here. You could do exclusive deals or offers. The reason why I love this is that these are special discounts or promotions for your readers that they you know that they're absolutely gonna love.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:24:07]:
You can do also, like, a sponsor series. So I saw a lot of these where they were doing multi issue sponsorships around a particular theme or topic. And the last one, I've done a lot myself, especially in HobbyScool, is co created content. You collaborate with your sponsors to create very valuable content for your audience, and I've done that a lot with the podcast episodes. The next thing that I saw a lot in this research study, and this is probably not gonna be a surprise to any of you who are, you know, listening to this, is affiliate marketing. So a lot of times, you'll see people, like, promoting an event. So they might have an event section in their newsletter, and they might be getting paid some type of affiliate marketing fee to promote that event. You can promote a digital product or service.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:25:01]:
Again, in a lot of my newsletters, I have a featured product section, and that's where I either promote some of my own personal products or I might be promoting somebody else's. And that's a very kind of non sales y way to get that in there. And apps or tools were also very popular for affiliate marketing in this particular research study. Now in terms of the other things that I saw them promoting in ways that they were monetizing these newsletters, digital products, ebooks, courses, memberships, templates, coaching, newsletter businesses. They're still promoting some of this coaching, consulting, and other services that they have. So they're doing it just like all of us, events, the webinar, the workshops, in person events. The other thing that I found very interesting, and I actually signed up for some of these in this research study just to see how they were doing it. Some of them had paid newsletter subscriptions.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:26:04]:
So, basically, what they were doing, they were offering premium content for recurring fee. And the ones that I joined and kinda checked out to see what they were doing there, it was super valuable because I could see why for some niches out there, you know, that is a really good option is to have a free newsletter. Okay. So let's talk about what I designed for my newsletters based on those research results and, really, how this helps you kinda integrate all of those monetization opportunities into your weekly newsletter. Okay? So here's what I want you to think about, and I'm gonna be probably dating myself a little bit here, but I want you to think about when you were back in high school and when your favorite magazine was scheduled to come into your mailbox. Now for me, it was Cosmo Cosmopolitan. I used to love getting that magazine. I would run out to the mailbox.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:27:14]:
I would get it. I would open it up, read it. I would dog ear some pages. I would go back to it. There was so much in there that I liked, and, of course, there was some stuff in there I didn't pay much attention to. So that's what I want you to think about. That is the experience that you want to create for your readers. You want them every single week when they're getting your email newsletter in their inbox.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:27:40]:
You want them thinking, okay. First of all, I gotta open it because I know there's a valuable content in here that I can apply to my wife, I can apply to my business right away. So you want them to see your name, open it, and then you want them to kind of go through it, figure out exactly what sections in there they're interested in. And then if there's something super interesting in there that grabs their eye or grabs their attention, they're like, oh my gosh. I love this. I don't wanna lose this. I wanna save this in a separate, you know, special Gmail folder so I can go back to it and maybe even reference it at some point in the future. That is what you want to kind of that's the experience, I should say, that you want to create here.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:28:28]:
So here's what it looks like. Here's what I call your newsletter magazine, and it's basically 3 to 5 different pieces of content in each newsletter. And the reason why I like is that you're giving your readers option. If one section doesn't appeal to them, another might catch their interest. I can tell you that and I've just surveyed my audience for my creator's MBA newsletter. I have a wide variety of different kind of businesses, different kind of needs. They're all over the place in terms of where they are in their business journey. And there it is not a one size fits all for sure.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:29:16]:
So when you are kind of, you know, giving them different pieces of content, people are gonna go in there and they're like, oh, this I love this. This applies to me. She's speaking or he's speaking directly to me. And some of it, they just might skip over. They're like, okay. I get it, but, you know, not kind of where I am right now. I've already passed that stage or I'm not to that stage yet. So that's definitely gonna happen.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:29:40]:
So that's why I love this newsletter magazine approach. And if you go out in in this research study, most of the, I would say, kind of larger newsletter kind of businesses, they had this kind of approach. But like I said, there were other kind of newsletter, structures out there. I talked about that minimalistic one. You know, a lot of times with that, they're sending something out every day, and it's just 3 bullet points. So that's a little bit different strategy. All of them work, as as you know, but this is the one that I felt like for our digital creator and coaching niche that we are in. This seemed to be the one that I felt like was the best one.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:30:30]:
It allows you to seamlessly integrate those monetization elements. Different ways that you can bring in sponsors, different ways that you can promote affiliate products, different ways that you can promote our coaching services, our ebooks, our memberships, our courses, all the stuff that we're promoting. We may not be in a launch, but we wanna make sure that we're getting an ROI on sending out this newsletter that we're spending all of this time putting together and sending out to our audience. We wanna make sure that we're monetizing it. I don't wanna spend all this time doing my podcast and putting together my newsletter content and not make money from it. That's you know, we're not for the most of us, I would assume, we're not running nonprofits here. We're doing this to make money. We have bills to pay.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:31:26]:
I have 2 more kids to put through college. Right? We wanna make money from our newsletter. What I found, from this newsletter magazine approach, it allowed me to kind of slot in either sponsors or slot in feature products or slot in, you know, affiliate stuff. And it just felt natural to me. Right? It was a natural way for me to serve my audience. I wasn't feeling pushy. I was more providing value and, oh, by the way, you can get this to accomplish this type thing. So what I did was I took this kinda newsletter magazine approach and started implementing it.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:32:11]:
It wasn't perfect in the beginning. If you go back and look at some of my early stage newsletters, you'll see how some of it involved. But here's some of the things that I was measuring to determine my success here. I was looking at open rates. I was looking at click through rates. Click through rates were very important to me. Not only click through rates because you're basically driving traffic maybe to a product that you're offering or you're coaching. Also for sponsors, that's the number one thing that they're interested in.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:32:43]:
They wanna know how many clicks that they're gonna get. So, like, when I send out that newsletter for HobbyScool for the caligraphy business that I mentioned, they're interested in how many clicks am I gonna drive to their webinar page sign up because they know let's say their webinar page is converting at, you know, 50% for sake of argument here. They know if I send them a 100 clicks, they know that they're gonna get 50 sign ups, and they know how much that they can pay or they're willing to pay for those 50 sign ups. So clicks are very important for sponsors as you can imagine. So people who are replying back to your email and just direct feedback. So what what was happening when I started implementing this newsletter magazine system, people started responding back to me and they're like, I love your content. I love getting your newsletter every single week. I'm saving it to a special Gmail folder because people started responding back and say, I'm saving your emails to special folder in my email service provider because I love them so much, and I go back and reference them.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:33:52]:
That's when I knew, okay. I'm on to something. This is working for me. I'm starting to make money from this. It didn't all happen overnight, and it's not gonna happen overnight for you, for sure. It definitely changed my thought process about my email newsletter, and I felt good about sending it out rather than dreading it. Because previously, I dreaded it so much, I wasn't consistent. We know how important consistency is here.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:34:19]:
And then, of course, sales or conversion. So the sales that you're seeing maybe from your affiliate products, maybe from your coaching services that you're promoting, etcetera. Okay? So now I wanna go into a little bit more about newsletter design mistakes to avoid. So we've talked about this magazine kind of approach system. So let's talk about some things to avoid here. The first thing that you want to avoid is content that's not designed for email. So you want it to be very concise, skimmable. You want it to be useful content, and I like to do these 5 minute or less newsletters.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:35:04]:
I found based on kind of the testing that I did, the 5 minutes or less worked for me. We know that people are super, super busy. The other mistake I found that people were making and, obviously, I was making, they were only delivering one type of content. So I want you to think of your newsletter like a newspaper or magazine and offer 3 to 5 different pieces of content. I like to do around 5, and that's typically what I will do in my newsletters. You want your email to be skimmable. So you wanna have these sections in there. You want it to have basically kind of like a newspaper magazine.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:35:45]:
I mean, it's the same thing. You want people to be able to look at it, skim it, get exactly what they need, what that key takeaway is, and kinda move on throughout their day. Take action and then move on.
Speaker B [00:35:58]:
Destini, we have a couple of questions that have come in. Do you recommend doing a paid newsletter?
Dr. Destini Copp [00:36:05]:
I think there are definitely opportunities out there for paid newsletters. I recommend having a free newsletter. And then if you want to have some type of premium content for people who want to take that kind of to the next level, then you can absolutely do that. I'll give you some examples of some paid newsletters that I have seen that have been successful. One of them is for basically, what he does, he helps people with SaaS startups. So his news is kind of free content newsletter. He gives some information, about that, but then he has a premium one that has a community around it, and you can also ask him questions. So he's doing, I think, the premium community in WhatsApp, so you can go in and ask him questions, but he also sends out premium content for those SaaS newsletter operators that he doesn't provide in his free newsletter.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:37:07]:
The other one that I've actually been in this particular paid newsletter in the past, she's a copywriter and she sends, I mean her, the email that she sends out on a regular basis is fan fantastic, but her paid newsletter is a little bit different. Her paid newsletter, she's giving you like copy templates that you can use, email subject lines, just or headlines that you can use like on a sales page, Fantastic content. So those are two examples. 1 would be for somebody who is in basically, what she's doing is, like, tarot card type stuff and read your readings, and then she has a paid newsletter where she does more horoscopes for you daily type stuff. So I definitely think that there's opportunities out there for the freed and the paid option. If you're gonna do a paid newsletter, I still think you need that free newsletter and then there's gonna be a certain portion of your email newsletter subscribers that will opt in for the paid content. Thanks for the question.
Speaker B [00:38:14]:
Did you create a sponsorship guide for brands that might want to support your newsletter? And can you talk about how to figure out pricing for sponsors?
Dr. Destini Copp [00:38:25]:
So I do have one of those in my newsletter, Profit Club. It's something that I actually just launched that this week. So it's basically, something that people can put together and they can outline what they're offering for sponsors. In terms of pricing, a lot of it does come down to your click through rates because what are sponsors gonna be interested in? They're gonna be interested in the traffic that you're sending to them. Right? So they're, you know, we're kind of past this awareness. They want to know how many people are you gonna send to their landing page. So let's say that they are promoting a webinar or maybe they're promoting a free gift or maybe they're promoting a free sign up for an app or tool or something like that. They want to know how many clicks are you going to get on that.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:39:19]:
So in terms of pricing, you have to look at it on a case by case basis and the niche. That's the b to c niche. The pricing for something like that is gonna be vastly different than somebody who helps, you know, the SaaS business owners. Going back to my previous examples, you need to know how much are they willing to pay basically for those 50 sign ups. So let's say that they're willing to pay $2 a lead. Okay? So basically, a $100 for that. They're willing to pay a $100 for that. That that then you know if you have a section in your newsletter, they're willing to pay $2 a lead.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:40:02]:
Then, you know, you get 50 clicks. You'll know how much to charge for them.
Speaker B [00:40:07]:
Wonderful. Thank you. Should we think of the newsletter content like blog posts? And can you please remind me of the ideal length of these posts?
Dr. Destini Copp [00:40:18]:
So that's a a really good question. You're not putting a full blog post in your email newsletter. When people are reading your newsletter, they're basically reading. So you can link to a blog post, like, on your website from your email newsletter, and it kinda continues that typical human behavior. So when I am consulting or working with clients on this and they're like, okay. I'm a blogger. I wanna link to my blog post. I'm like, perfect.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:40:47]:
You know? You're continuing that behavior. So what I would do in that case, if you were wanting to link to a blog post, I would kinda tease the content and then you can link to it. What I don't recommend let's say you have these three sections in your email newsletter. But I wouldn't put a 1,000 word blog post in your email newsletter in one of your sections. I think that's too much. I think you need more concise information to give them some quick tips. And again, sometimes you have to test it out to see what works for you and your audience, but generally I like to keep these newsletters 5 minutes or less. So think about that when you're putting it together.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:41:35]:
I'm gonna jump in here. Another mistake I see people making is they have, you know, basically a lack of color, lack of images and personalities. So when you're putting together your newsletter design, you wanna think about your brand. You wanna think about, you know, when people think about your brand, what are they thinking about? If you go to my creator's MBA newsletter, a lot of times I'll have, like, images in there that kind of they all of them correspond with the brand and kind of the images that I have on my website, maybe on my blog post or my podcast episode. So you'll want to use your brand's primary color very consistently there. You'll want to use relevant images to kinda complement your content. So I like to have the images in there so you're not having just straight text in your email newsletter. And also because your cover your your personality, make sure your personal personality comes out.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:42:33]:
I like to write in a conversational tone just like I'm talking to a friend. So, you know, when I sometimes I'll use AI to kinda help me with this, but then I have to go back and edit it just to make sure that it's using my own personality there. I wanna give you a design checklist and some specific examples that you can look at. So you might want to and I know a lot of you might have a name for your newsletter, so you can put that logo up there. I've given you a couple of examples here for my Creator’s MBA and what we're doing in HobbyScool. So in HobbyScool, I have the logo there and then kind of our tagline where creative passions become life changing journeys. And I try to communicate that. Basically, that's what's communicated on our website.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:43:21]:
So I'm also bringing that kind of branding into my newsletter for that consistency. The other thing, and this kinda gives you what the layout might look like. And I I actually kinda stole this from the morning brews newsletter layout, and there's a lot of newsletter businesses out there that use a very similar type of layout here. But I like to have that little headline, that little headline there where it says new episode. That's one of my newsletter sections. So I have in this particular newsletter, the creator's MBA. I have new episode, upcoming events, some workshops, featured product, quick tips, and bookmark worthy. So those are the 5 sections that I have in this particular newsletter.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:44:09]:
In the HobbyScool one's a little bit different, but you can kinda see what it looks like there. Now a lot of times what I've started to do now is I'll just have the new episode and then underneath it, I'll have the picture of what I'm using for that particular blog post. The other thing you'll want to have is kind of either box up your sections. Again, we're gonna make it super easy for people to scan. You can have this dividers in there. You can have white space in there. You can see here in the HobbyScool one, I have a custom image divider in there that's between, like, the podcast episode 1 and the upcoming works upcoming workshops and events. In my creator's MBA one, I'll just use kind of, either the boxes or some type of dividers.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:45:01]:
And most of your email service providers are going to have ways for you to set this up. Also like just including a picture of you. I would love for all of you to have a picture of you, your name in there, letting people know your title, what you do, basically how you can help them. I do this with HobbyScool also, even though it's not a personal brand for me. Emails that come from people. They're not gonna wanna email that comes from HobbyScool like this general brand out there. They want emails that come out from me. So in my email service provider, I have even the emails coming out from HobbyScool, they're coming out from my name.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:45:43]:
So I have, like, Destini and I have a little slash there and I have HobbyScool. So when they see that showing up on their phone, they're gonna see my name. They're gonna see HobbyScool there too, but they're gonna see my name because people want emails that come from people. And this is actually when I did the research study, this is actually one of the biggest challenges. A lot of these bigger newsletter operators and these bigger, like, ecommerce people really struggle with this is because, you know, it's a larger company, but people want emails coming out from people. So they're trying to they're even trying to do that in their business. Also, you know, think about your colors, your fonts, your design. Definitely black text and a white background is the most legible.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:46:31]:
I would say that overall simple is better. And I've changed some of this over time even for me because I'm still continuing to test it, to tweak it, to see what's working. But for the most part, I'm using kind of those the colors that stand out. The other thing that I've come especially in my HobbyScool because the readers for that just because of the nature of what we're doing there, a lot of them are retired so they have trouble reading and this is something I've recently kind of found out about because we're doing a lot more things to make everything more accessible to them. So we're definitely changing some things there, but we try to make sure that everything is accessible to everybody. Links, you wanna make sure that your links can stand out, can be a bold color. Definitely, you want people know when they see that particular section in your website, you want them to know, okay. I can click there and it's gonna go to the website or it's gonna go to Apple Podcasts or whatever.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:47:34]:
So width and columns. So one thing that I would suggest that you do is always test out what what you're doing on mobile and be very, very careful of bullet points. Because if you use bullet points on mobile, especially if you go more than one level, so let's say you have one bullet point and you have bullet points underneath that, they're not gonna read correctly on mobile. So I've actually stopped doing that. I will have bullet points, but just one level of bullet points. It just you know, every time you send something out, view it on desktop, view it on mobile, make sure it's skimmable, make sure it's readable. And then, you know, we talked about this earlier. If you haven't grabbed your lifetime access to the newsletter profit club collaboration app, definitely jump in there.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:48:25]:
Get that. Destinicopp.com/collab. Super easy to remember. And then I want you to grab your newsletter so you can, you know, look at all the monetization topics that we talked about today and there was tons of them. Right. And I want you to kind of go in, use this calculator and figure out the amount you can expect to see over time when you're sending out your newsletters. Wonderful. So just to kind of wrap it up, I want to give you some next steps and things to start thinking about.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:48:57]:
And the first thing is to start thinking about the different ways you want to monetize your newsletter. We are spending a ton of time creating this content, sending out this weekly newsletter, making sure that we are staying on top of mind with our audience, and that's very important. But we also wanna make sure we're getting an ROI for that time. Also, start a folder in your email service provider. Whenever you see a newsletter design that you like, save it. I would go and just swap to some of the top ones, the hustle, the tilt. Trying to remember them all off the top of my head like MorningView, StackMarketer. Go subscribe to some of the bigger ones out there.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:49:41]:
When I started doing this, I found some of the most ideas and inspirations when I went completely outside of my niche. So I highly, highly recommend that. And then start thinking about the sections that you might want in your newsletter. How can I provide value to my readers? Like, I in my creator's MBA, I have a quick tips section, but I also have my bookmark worthy section. That's where I really try to provide something that really makes them think, something that they're like, oh my goodness. I really love this. I know that this is gonna help me, but I wanna save this. So I want them to kinda bookmark that, email based on the content in there.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:50:27]:
Next week, we're gonna start exploring some other things. We're gonna go into details about your newsletter sections, maybe even name in your newsletter. I'm still working on this content, but definitely join me for next week. And, you know, I love to answer any questions that you have.
Speaker B [00:50:45]:
If you just put those links into,
Dr. Destini Copp [00:50:48]:
to chat,
Speaker B [00:50:48]:
then I will make sure that everyone has access to your wonderful, free gifts.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:50:56]:
There you go.
Speaker B [00:50:57]:
Great. Thank you very much. Oh, I don't see any more questions at the moment, but I have a question for you, if that's okay.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:51:04]:
Absolutely.
Speaker B [00:51:06]:
It looks to me that there's a lot of work to put out a newsletter in terms of finding content, putting together content, ideas, all of that stuff. So what's your perception of that?
Dr. Destini Copp [00:51:22]:
I mean, I think that's a very valid question, and here's how I handle it. I definitely have a system, you know, that I use, and that's very important. I'm also producing regular content,
Speaker B [00:51:36]:
which So it's easy for you because you've got into the rhythm of it.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:51:40]:
It's easy for me. Yes. You know, I I have, like, a system that I'm using. I'm producing rather regular content, but the other thing that I'm doing that makes it easy for me is I'm interacting with my audience. You know, I might be meeting with them in my membership or with my coaching. So I know what questions they're asking me. I know what they're struggling with, and that's what I use to create the content. It's easier for me and my personal brand because it's the brand I'm so close to.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:52:12]:
HobbyScool is a little bit more challenging, but what I've learned even there is whomever we're kind of partnering with, like on the podcast or what I'm doing there, maybe some of the speakers from some of the events, I'll pull in, stuff from them to promote. It's a little bit more difficult for me in HobbyScool because I'm just not as close to all of that, but I can still do it there because I have that system that I'm talking with you about.
Speaker B [00:52:40]:
Got it. So for a beginner, what would you recommend in terms of getting content getting started on the content?
Dr. Destini Copp [00:52:48]:
I think for a beginner, the main thing that I would be focused on initially is newsletter growth. So growing that email list. Let's say once you've started, you have your email service provider set up. You have your free gift or whatever you're doing to attract your ideal customer. Start sending out that weekly newsletter. In the beginning, it doesn't have to be perfect. It may just be content that you posted on Instagram that did well or you can repurpose it for your email newsletter and vice versa. Right? A lot of the content that I use in my email newsletter, I'll also use that content for social media.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:53:26]:
So it doesn't have to be a blog post if maybe you're not blogging yet. They're not doing any type of pillar content yet. They're not doing blogging, podcasting, or YouTube. And if that's you, that's fine. It really comes down to how can you serve your audience. So I would just start with figuring out that. What kind of questions do they have, and how can you answer and help them?
Speaker B [00:53:50]:
Great. Thank you. And thank you so much for your amazing training call today. I haven't come across this concept before, so I learned a lot, and I hope everyone who's been watching has learned as well. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your interactions, and we will be back same time, same place, same link next week. You'll get a replay that goes out tomorrow and get an announcement email for next week's call as well. So please do attend live if you can because as you can see, Destini gets to answer your questions in real time.
Speaker B [00:54:20]:
Thank you so much, and see you next time.
Dr. Destini Copp [00:54:24]:
Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you love the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day, and bye for now.