Welcome to Revenews number jetlagged for the Newsletter Conference.

🫣 Today is a summary of the best bits of the event from my perspective!

Boots on the ground reporting aside, let’s dive in! 🚀

^{The Newsletter Conference}

As a scrappy little industry, we’ve needed a conference for a while. Newsletters have always been around, but we’ve seen a magical industry rebirth, with Morning Brew lighting the flame and fancy new ESPs throwing fuel on the fire.

I personally have been chatting and doing business with numerous people for a few years, so it was a real pleasure to shake hands, drink coffee, learn things and generally have a good time.

Thanks to WhoSponsorsStuff and Dan Oshinsky for putting it on!

🥇 VIP Dinner

As a New York newbie, I couldn’t resist a chance for a fancy dinner on a rooftop.

Most of the interesting conversations centred around:

• Ecomm brands who run newsletters are trying to find the balance between; (a) being content-first, (b) driving product sales and (c) selling sponsorships.

• Dan, I thought you had long hair!? Yes sorry, I got it cut recently, please unsubscribe if this changes anything.

• Most agreed that we’re in some form of newsletter bubble, which brings pros and cons. The cream will rise to the top.

Throughout the rest of the conference, fireside chats and 1-on-1s alike, these are the key themes that came up consistently

💰 Riches in niches

Even though the above saying doesn’t rhyme in British English, this is spot on. if you’re starting/growing a newsletter in 2024, you’ll make life very difficult for yourself if you’re not B2B or very niche.

Specificity = value. Nicole Casperson, CEO of Fintech is Femme highlighted this really well. There are plenty of fintech media brands, so Nicole narrowed the focus and perspective to focus on the female perspective within fintech. Yes, the TAM will be smaller, but the value, emotion,

engagement and CPMs will be incomparable.

To quote Jacob Donnelly from A Media Operator, to find an underserved niche, Zig when others Zag.

🫣 Authenticity

Traditional media brands are struggling for many reasons, including plummeting trust, no individualism and AUTHENTICITY in the content.

In growth, authenticity in your messaging will ensure longevity, right from the first touchpoint.

In writing, authenticity will build and maintain deeper levels of trust with your readers.

In sponsorships, authenticity with lead to better-performing campaigns, happier partners and happier readers. Plus, a better night’s sleep.

Across the board authenticity is a key reason why so many independent media startups have stolen market share from traditional channels.

Be authentic.

📊 1st Party Data

The importance of knowing who your readers are was stressed approximately 564 times. This means beyond basic demographics.

Where do they live? How do they live? What are their problems? What are their interests? What’s their family situation? What’s their job function? And so on…

The more you know the better.

Speak to your readers over a 20-minute call. Ask them to run through how they interact with your content. Ask them what they do and don’t like about it. Invaluable feedback that forms just won’t unearth.

A great tool for enriching your subscribers is Megahit.

🤔 Another interesting point was this…

With today’s AI-driven analytics, surveys can be more powerful with manually typed answers. Not having rigid categories will give a more accurate answer, which is now easy to digest with AI.

👋 Meet people where they are

Mostly discussed from a growth perspective, Aine from International Intrigue highlighted this principle by telling the 405 attendees about their relationship with memes.

They’re a serious publication about international affairs, read by serious people. So when Aine internally pitched sponsoring relevant Instagram meme pages, she was staring at a few frowns. Aine’s winning argument to her colleagues was something along the lines of:

“You guys are very similar to our readers, don’t you all look at memes in your spare time? Let’s meet our readers where they are!”

The same concept can be applied to content, sales, retention and creating campaigns.

Meet your readers where they are.

❌ Don’t diversify (when you’re small)

This concept only came up once on the day, but it’s a principle that’s been making the rounds on various business podcasts recently.

Diversification is rightfully touted as a practice essential to success in business and investing. BUT, trying to establish multiple revenue streams in a business’s infancy will likely multiply operational complexity. Often most of the time/resources injected into the diversifying revenue streams would see much higher ROI allocated into the single, already working, line of business.

This resonates with me a lot. My agency has one tier and pricing format. I regularly get asked to do X, Y and Z. Whilst we could do these things profitably, the time invested into providing one-off services is much better spent increasing the reach of our core offering.

Concentration builds wealth. Diversification keeps it.

Don’t diversify.

🪨 It all comes back to quality content 

All the flashy growth and monetisation hacks are great. But they’re dependent on a foundation of having great content that people value.

This is the same conclusion we’ve come to in multiple interviews and topics. The fact that the biggest differentiator is writing stuff that people care about, is a refreshing note to finish on.

See you next year at The Newsletter Conference!