Week 5: I need this newsletter flywheel (so do you)

Welcome to the 5th update of my minimum viable newsletter experiment: Be Like Shiva.

(See previous update’s here)

I won’t BS you.

I didn’t do much last week because I took a week off to travel with my sister around Mexico…

BUT…. I still wrote + shipped another edition, and the ads kept sending me subscribers….

So we are still growing, but I did zero experiments last week.

I still have a few cool updates for you AND some wisdom on how to build your own newsletter flywheel (From a newsletter operator you definitely know about with 300+ subscribers)

The Week 5 numbers

Still growing..

1678 total subscribers

644 new subs this week.

Oh, and last week we crossed a milestone - 1k subscribers!

I know its just a number, but you gotta celebrate the milestones along the way and have a little fun!

Last weeks newsletter numbers…

• Open rate: 46%

• CTR: 3.6%

How much I’m paying per sub from Facebook ads

As a reminder I have 2 campaigns sending me subs right now:

• A regular ad campaign that sells the newsletter idea, and sends visitors to the newsletter landing page

• A lead generation campaign that offers visitors a lead magnet on Facebook in exchange for their email. They fill in the form on Facebook, get their PDF, and then are added to my email list via something called leadsync (Zapier is also an option).

The best performing ad for the regular campaign is still sending me subs for around $1.25.

The lead generation campaign is sending me subs for 70c.

But I’m more excited for the regular campaign for 3 reasons:

(1) Revenue: I can use SparkLoop (the newsletter referral tool) with this campaign (I can’t with the FB leads campaign), and my estimated earnings per subscriber is $1.35-$1.50.

If that’s accurate I can grow my subscribers for free.

(2) Quality: I’m second guessing the quality of those Facebook lead ads because of a Tweet I saw from Marketing Max.

He has a point - the email you use for Facebook is probably not your best email. So I’m trying to figure out a way to see the quality of these leads.

(3) Potential - Last week I whinged about how my UCG ads (user generated content) were not getting impressions. Well, it seems those impressions are just starting to trickle in (fingers crossed)

Clearly not enough data yet to make any conclusions (I want at least 1k impressions on each)…BUT…its looking promising.

If these ads can get my subs for less than $1 and I’m earning more than that from SparkLoop; I’m getting paid to build this email list.

(Projected) Revenue last week

$746 last week!

Expenses last week

Facebook ad spend - $746

Three ONE Newsletter biz thing I learned this week

Sorry, there’s only one lesson this week since I didn’t do much…but its a doozy.

Newsletter goals: The newsletter flywheel

I came across an amazing podcast yesterday: The Send & Grow podcast by SparkLoop.

And in one of the recent episodes, email lord Nathan Barry lays out Sahil Blooms email flywheel machine.

It’s pretty f**king good.

I want one.

Sahil Blooms Email Flywheel

He kicks off the process by driving traffic to his newsletter via social.

On sign up, subscribers see the SparkLoop recommendation popup, and as you can see, Sahil recommends other big newsletter people, who are probably reciprocating and recommending his newsletter back to their audiences.

This supercharges his subscriber growth 🔥 

So his subscribers base is growing fast, and those subscribers are getting what they signed up for: emails. Automations (like a welcome sequence introducing you to his best content) and 2x broadcasts go out each week.

Those emails educate his readers, yes, but they also play a role in his flywheel. Two roles, actually.

Firstly, they further grow his list by tempting subscribers with incentives for sharing and referring his newsletter (using the SparkLoop referral program).

And they also earn him sponsorship revenue via the ConvertKit sponsor network (which requires 10k+ subs to apply)

Sahil then puts this together to create his flywheel.

He takes every sponsorship dollar and uses it as a budget to continue growing his list via the SparkLoop partner program.

Its a flywheel because every time the wheel goes round, Sahil…

• Gets more subscribers…

• Which means he can charge more for sponsored listings…

• Which means he makes more dinero…

• Which he adds to his SparkLoop referral budget…

• So he can acquire more subscribers…

• Which allows him to charge more for sponsored listings…

• And so on.

This is how he is compounding his aleady 300k-ish email list faster.

Want your own flywheel?

listen to the episode above where Nathan lays out the foundations of a good email flywheel, and study these 3 points that he lays out:

1. Every step must flow into the next (rather than being separate)

2. Each rotation of the flywheel should be a tiny bit easier than the last

3. Each rotation should generate more output than the previous

And then start reverse engineering other newsletter Flywheels, like Sahils.

That’s what I’m gonna do. And I’ll share my journey here, of course

That’s all for this week.

Questions? Feedback? advice? I want it all…please hit reply right now and let me know!.