SPECIAL SERIES ==> How & Why YOU Need an EMAIL NEWSLETTER Now! 📰<== | BATHROOM Break #41 (COLLAB: The Marketing Millennials + Do This, Not That)

0:28Welcome to a new special series called The Bathroom Break. Thanks for checking it out. Welcome back to another episode of The Bathroom Break. I'm here with Jay Schwedowson of Do This, Not That podcast. And I'm Daniel Murray of the Marketing Millennials. Today, we're going to talk about how to start a newsletter. But I want to ask you a question. So I get fed TikToks for Vinny's Cafe all the time and the Caesar rap. So isn't it worth the hype? is it worth going to that cafe? Let me know. Okay, so Vinny's is like two miles from where I live and it's fine. It's definitely not worth the hype, but it's annoying.

1:10You know, when anything goes viral on TikTok, if it's in your neighborhood, it's very annoying because now you can't go to it because the line is so incredibly long. But I will say something about TikTok food trends and I want your take on this. So my teenage kids will come home like, oh, there's a new TikTok recipe that's gone viral uh so we should do it like like for example like big feta pasta that went viral and we started making the house it was so good and what i've come to the conclusion is these these recipes on tiktok that go viral are really good do you ever make any of these recipes on tiktok i wish i was that type of person um but it actually i remember that baked feta thing and i remember how they had all those ingredients were hard to find in stores after that went viral all so i think they do look good and i wish i could make something like that but i'm not a cook all right i'll make some and i won't invite you over so there you go thank you for that but i want to start about why to start a newsletter and how to start a newsletter but do you want to kick it off on why you think newsletters are so valuable yeah look um coming out of all this tiktok nonsense stuff where things are getting banned and they're losing all their followers and all that, you'll hear everywhere that your email database is the most important thing because it's your owned asset.

2:31You don't lose it. It can't get banned, all of that. And that's all true. Okay. But that's not really the reason you want to have a newsletter. The newsletter, it does, does two things for you. Number one, whether it's coming from you personally, or it's coming from your brand, it is establishing that voice, the way that you're going to communicate how you are articulate information, how you present information to your database. And the most important thing though is it is this thing where your company has to put it out or you have to put it out. And it's the ongoing stream of information, thought leadership, content, ways that you're staying in front of your person that you have to do.

3:18And it doesn't exist anywhere else. Everything else is in like these, oh, up and down calendars. Oh, we're going to do this promotion. We're going to do this event. We're going to do this thing. It's not continuous. And so having that newsletter as the continuous piece of your brand, I think there's extreme value there. What do you think? Why should you have a newsletter? I think it's one of the best expertise builders. I think you have to go into it and thinking, I'm going to put out the best content for the audience. I think you got to think of it as this product is going to be the best in my niche with a unique angle or take.

3:55Otherwise, I wouldn't start a newsletter because I obviously the consistency is important. But I think once people see you are giving so much value and you're giving it for free, they start ignoring asks. And that's what you want to get to the point of, hey, we're having this virtual event. People will start signing up. hey we're having this people will start to sign up because you're putting up so much things that help them get better their job entertain them that's how you have to think about it it's the ultimate trust program shows that you understand the topic whatever product or service you're pitching it shows you understand this product so i think it's the ultimate trust build along with that it's algorithm proof so you're owning that you can move it around you're building something you're getting more emails so i think those are the reasons why i went yeah let me build on something there what you said which is when i started my newsletter i didn't have any conferences i didn't have a podcast i didn't have a lot of stuff and when i started doing my newsletter i was able to build it up and then when all these things that we decided to do events and whatever came to be, I had somewhere to promote them.

5:13And so you almost want to create this newsletter, whether it's your brand, your company's newsletter, or your personal newsletter, not for what you're doing today, but for all the things that you have absolutely no idea that you're going to be doing a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, because it takes a lot of time to build up this audience, to build up that presence in their mind, like Daniel was talking about, about you being relevant to them. And so in a year from now, after you've started it and you have this new thing you want to promote, you will have somewhere to promote it.

5:42So you don't want to do it for what you're doing today. You want to do it for the unknown, which is down the road. And the other key thing is it doesn't matter if you have five subscribers, 50 subscribers, 10 ,000, a hundred thousand. If you have a handful of people that are willing to get that newsletter, you should be doing a newsletter in my opinion. I also think just like Like a podcast, it's an ultimate way to put your thoughts in a long form piece of writing that could be chopped up into short form pieces of writing. So one, it's a way to distribute your ideas, but also it's a way to distribute things in a medium that other people consume.

6:22So say you have a podcast or something like that or a virtual event, you could take the key takes and put it in your newsletter. It's also the opposite way. You can take an idea that resonates with people in a newsletter and make it into other things. So a lot of people that I know use it as a way to create multiple pieces of content. So that's how they start and think about it at first as a way to start as a content engine for themselves. Here's the worst thing that you could do with a newsletter, whether it's your newsletter or your company's newsletter. If you are checking the box that, okay, we have a newsletter.

6:57We got it out this week. thank God I can't take it. It's the worst experience ever. And then you don't even think about it again. And all you're doing is just trying to get it out the door. And you're not really saying, okay, how are we going to make this really engaging? How are we going to make this something people really want? You're literally just going through the motions and you know that your newsletter that you're putting out is epically boring and terrible. Don't do it. Okay. You're actually creating, as Daniel will talk about, a negative signal for your brand, right and that's terrible and then i get messages all the time where people say well jay i work in a regulated industry i work in a really boring industry we sell boring products i can't make it interesting i can't put out content it'll be off brand and i couldn't disagree with you more there are so many little things that you could do content blocks that you could do i don't care how boring your industry is that is interesting to the people that are potentially going to read it.

7:52Yeah. And that goes in the point of when you're thinking about starting a newsletter, the first thing you should ask yourself is why someone would read your newsletter and why should this even exist? And the ways to think about it is what niche are you going? Is it specific? Don't be, I'm going to write a business newsletter, go more deeper, like Jay having email marketing tips. So if you're in email marketing tips, that's specific. Then the next filter, you have to say, is this an actual newsletter? Does it give someone a reason to open every email? Is it actual enough? Is it giving tips that are helping someone be better at their job?

8:30The next filter is, is it entertaining? Because nobody just wants you to put out boring-ass content. So don't put a make another, nobody needs another dry corporate newsletter. They want it to be entertaining. So that's like the first thing I think about when you're asking, like, why is this? Who's it going to serve? And what is the deep niche and unique angle I'm going to take in this industry to stand out and write something unique for that audience? And the thing I would always think about is email is like a chain. OK, and if anything breaks in the chain, then people will stop paying attention.

9:08So you start with, you know, that subject line. OK, great. Interesting. I'm going to open up and you have your preheader and then you have your headline that you're messaging. and then you have that first content block. If any of the chain at the start is not compelling, you lose them. And the mistake that's made with a lot of newsletters is they put some of the best stuff towards the bottom, right, or in the middle. But if you don't have something awesomely interesting at the top of your newsletter every single time, that's it, they're gone. And you wanna make something fun, even if you're in a boring industry.

9:39You could put the wildest industry fact that you never heard about, right, in your plumbing industry, right? Or it could be this week's behind the scenes fact or tip or video clip or anything to show you what we're doing behind the scenes that you never get access to. Right at the top of that newsletter, make sure the top of that newsletter keeps them wanting to read the rest no matter how boring your sector is. I think another thing I want to add, and you say this a lot, having a pop-up form on your website, this is one of the best things to have a pop-up form to collect more emails on your website.

10:19Because it's easy. It's free. You're giving that free value. You're getting emails, which you don't know 98 % of the people coming to your website. So you're getting more information, more first-party data coming in. You can enrich these people. through an enrichment database. So it's a way to start getting at least top of funnel. Not everything needs to be a middle funnel and bottom of the funnel play. You can start getting people on your list, nurturing them, showing your expertise before they even know everything about your product. So I think that's one of the biggest reasons too, is you can start capturing people on your list.

10:56See what we said before, market to them in the future or show that you are the most trusted resource in the industry for X topic. Yeah. And you know, if you're really just trying to get going and growing it, I do this on almost every call that I'm on with new people that I'm talking to. If the call is going well, I'll say, by the way, I have a newsletter. Would you want me to subscribe you to the newsletter? Because that's where we're sharing a lot of information. And I say that like a broken record on almost every call that I'm on and everybody on the call like, oh yeah, I would love to get your newsletter.

11:26And then we sign them up and then they start getting it because those are the people you're trying to get their business. You're trying to stay in front of them. and it's a golden opportunity to add the right people to your newsletter. So you want to kind of always be thinking about how do I get more of the right people onto my newsletter, even if you're doing it one at a time, because you'll turn around after a week and you're like, oh my God, I just added 20 people I spoke to this week on Zoom calls and they're the exact right people. And it also sets a standard for you to write better newsletters.

11:57I think once you start getting the right people and people you respect, I think you as a writer or a company start actually saying like this needs to we need to invest time and energy to put out great content and that is the content doesn't always have to be used for the newsletter so getting that in your head this content could be used as a blog post could be used as a social post like 10 social pages you can use in twitter x thread it could be used as an eight quotes on instagram you could use it with so many different things so think of it as a way to create more content and in-depth content for your audience.

12:33All right. Since we're over time here, everybody go and subscribe to Daniel's newsletter. You'll find it at the Marking Millennials. It is absolutely the best marking newsletter on the planet. I'm not even going to tell you about mine because who cares about mine? No, go subscribe to Jay. It's going to be nice. And you all are awesome. We'll see you at the next one.

12:55Daniel, come on, man. I got to get back to work. Get out of there. While he's still in there, this is Jay. Check out my podcast, Do This, Not That, for marketers. Each week, we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing. And I hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out. Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Mark and Millet podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the bathroom break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email, subject line, to any marketing tips in the world.

13:28We'll talk about it. Just give us a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out. Later.