Creator Spotlight Q2 Recap

Every Friday, we cover one amazing creator crushing it with their beehiiv newsletter.

This week, we’re highlighting the amazing publishers featured in Q2 and breaking down everything you might’ve missed (for all 30,000 of you who have joined since)!

A great publication isn’t necessarily about the number of subscribers–more isn’t always better, but it can indicate that people love your content. Below, you’ll find examples of Creators with lists of all sizes, in different niches, and (in some cases) earning full-time incomes.

Here is what we will cover.

• Leveraging a newsletter for an existing business with Kernal, Level Up, and Sam Ryan.

• Subscriber growth with The Rundown and Superhuman.

• Sub-niche domination with SpaceDotBiz.

• Crushing it on social with Jack Appleby

• SEO with Victoria Kurichenko

• The playbook for starting, scaling, and selling newsletters with Richard Patey.

Each creator on this list is doing amazing things with their newsletter, and it was hard to narrow down each Spotlight to a single topic.

Many of these interviews cover monetization, growth, and more in different ways. You’re sure to find stories & strategies that connect with your goals.

What do all of these publications have in common? Great content. As much as we talk about growth and monetization, quality content is the one factor that can never be ignored, so we’re mentioning it here before getting started.

Now, let’s get into it.

Leverage a Newsletter in Your Business:

Every business has an opportunity with newsletters.

• Own their audience.

• Accelerate revenue.

• Create a new revenue stream.

• Build a connection that’s typically more intimate (and professional) than on social media

Here are three awesome examples.

Kernel: The All-In-One Startup Hub

We sat with Joel Hansen from the Kernal team to talk about their “startup about startups,” a place where the investors, operators, and founders can get together to collaborate on new ideas and potential partnerships.

Early on, the team started a weekly roundup with content that would resonate with all sides of the equation. Posts like:

• 7 Founder Frameworks from Ted 2023

• Advice on Community Building from an A16 Backed Founder

• The 16 Slide Pitch Decks That’ll Make You Millions.

Their newsletter boasts open rates of over 40%, has sponsors and helps not only engage users but win new users as well.

The key takeaway: think of the newsletter as more than just marketing. Think of it as part of the overall membership experience.

Curious to learn more? Check out their Creator Spotlight.

Levelling Up with Jennifer Chou

Jennifer Chou shared how EntryLevel, the career-empowering course company, recently added a newsletter that she’s been growing alongside the existing business.

Naturally, the students are subscribed to the newsletter and remain engaged through the emails.

But the reverse is also true. The team is acquiring newsletter subscribers separately and converting them into course sales.

For example, they are using FB ads to acquire newsletter subscribers. An interesting strategy to consider.

• If the Cost per Acquisition (CPA) for a course customer is $40, but;

• CPA for a newsletter subscriber is $2.

You could track how long it takes for a newsletter to purchase a course and realize it’s less expensive and more effective to spend money on acquiring subscribers first.

Further, Level Up is also dabbling in sponsored ads. So, that $2 CPA (an example) generates future course sales and current ad revenue.

Building a newsletter in the same industry, with content based on the questions, experiences, and insights from existing customers, can be a viable strategy.

For more, check out Jennifer’s Spotlight.

From Followers to Buyers with Fine Artist Sam Ryan.

Many artists who are big on IG often consider a newsletter, but there’s an underlying concern that IG followers won’t read newsletters.

That may be true, but remember, it’s not just about IG followers. It’s about paying customers.

When Sam Ryan added a beehiiv newsletter to his business, it took just two months for him to have his biggest month ever (double his average month’s revenue).

He credited much of this to the professionalism that comes with email.

As buyers become more sophisticated, adding a newsletter is a great way to engage with more premium customers without losing the obvious value of a platform like IG.

Sam has an IG following of over 235k, but the newsletter connects with his higher-value buyers and he runs his new drops through the newsletter instead of IG.

Every business-building artist should read Sam’s Creator Spotlight.

Subscriber Growth

Growing a list of engaged subscribers is key to success for any newsletter. We have two examples of newsletters in the AI space putting huge numbers day after day.

Before you say, “It’s because they write about AI,” it’s important to focus on the tactics.

AI is indeed a trending topic (and trending topics can grow quickly), but if we break down their strategies and tactics, you’ll see other publications can grow by doing the same.

The Rundown:

We sat with Rowan Cheung and were shocked by the sheer volume of work going into The Rundown and its marketing. A daily publication on most major platforms with Twitter threads, IG ads, and more daily. It feels non-stop.

It’s probably how his audience went from 0 to 300k in just a few months.

The first lesson here is to give the people more of what they want, and The Rundown team does a great job of pumping out huge volumes of content (that’s also high quality).

Further, they made transactions seamless. Initially, there was a single link to a calendar for advertisers to book (and pay) for their ad right away. No salesperson, just a smooth transaction.

A great tip to consider is making it very easy to collect payments, even if you don’t charge as much as you could, to collect revenue early.

Of course, we asked if they use AI to write the newsletter.

They do not, but AI helps summarize key articles to accelerate the writing process (a great tip for all researchers). Why spend hours reading something when you can get the key points in minutes and then add them to your newsletter in your own words?

For more, check out The Rundown’s Spotlight

If you haven’t heard, we recently launched AI features in beehiiv.

Superhuman:

Another example of massive growth with a trending topic, amazing content, and high-volume marketing (that resonates).

One of the first things Zain mentioned was the early focus on copywriting, and it shows. Copywriting applies to the newsletter, your advertisements, sponsorship decks, and so much more. Don’t sleep on the copy.

And that was what Zain described as the key priority. Growth above all. Quality is great, but it’s hard to meet demand (and build the skills you need) without quantity.

Quantity leads to quality. It’s about the repetitions.

There’s also a turning point where most newsletters go wrong and see their growth decline: hiring.

Zain was clear about his hiring strategy. As he is the growth driver for the business, he hires to give himself more time to focus on growth and delegate accordingly.

Thinking about outsourcing what you’re best at? Maybe think again.

For more on this, check out their Creator Spotlight.

Dominate a Sub-Niche with Space Dot Biz

Not everyone will have one of the fastest-growing publications worldwide, and not everyone will cover AI. That’s okay.

Some people have niches they’re more interested in or pursue a career outside of trending topics (but still want to turn it into a successful newsletter).

Space Dot Biz is a great example of a niche newsletter growing through Reddit (community), and engaging with several small forums of interested people who would make great subscribers (and they do). Ian’s open rates are over 50%.

Generally, the smaller the niche, the easier it is to get started and grow because you spend less time debating topics and more time focusing on what’s more relevant to the readers. In a narrow niche, it’s more clear.

If you want to start a newsletter but are worried about the topic, it’s easier to start narrowing and expanding than the other way around.

For more on how Ian makes it happen, check out his Creator Spotlight.

Crush it on social media with Future Social

Jack Appleby is absolutely dominating on social media, and it’s clear that his Spotlight has some amazing suggestions anyone can learn from.

Naturally, great content is key. Jack focuses on practical deep dives to help his audience succeed in the industry. He describes two types of newsletters:

1. A roundup of recent events and news in a particular industry. Daily or weekly.

2. practical, actionable advice, including deep dives into specific tactics in a space to teach people new skills. Weekly (in Jack’s case).

If you are very clear on which type of newsletter you have, it becomes easier to create content (and it typically performs better due to the focus).

Once your content performs well, Jack’s newsletter would suggest it’s time to monetize with a strategic partnership (not just a transaction).

Take this example from working with impact.com.

This partnership model helps you stand out as a creator and provides advertisers with better content to work with (and a reason to pay you more). Something to think about.

Lastly, have you checked out Threads? Jack did. Here’s his guide.

Passive Income via SEO with Self-Made Millennials

So many people talk about passive income, and it’s become a bit of a meme. But if you look past the fluff, you find entrepreneurs like Victoria Kurichenko creating just that, and in her case, with SEO.

In her Spotlight, she covered how she generates income through referral programs (and creates review articles that convert several ebook sales per month passively).

Having said that, while we can learn about SEO from Victoria, there’s an important disclaimer. It’s not going to happen overnight. Of course, purchasing ebooks like hers to learn best practices can help accelerate the process, but again, it takes time.

Learn more in her Creator Spotlight.

Multiple Newsletters at the same time with Richard Patey:

Serial newsletter creator, Richard Patey, gave us a very useful toolkit for operating and monetizing our newsletters.

Richard scales his newsletters with beehiiv’s growth-oriented features, such as recommendations, the referral program, and automated journeys. These build a more engaged subscriber base, which is the premise for monetizing with ads, and the first major takeaway.

As for the toolkit, Richard uses:

• beehiiv’s ad network.

• Passionfroot.

When multiple publications are consolidated on the same platform, everything becomes easier. Analyzing metrics, applying a successful tactic from one newsletter to the others, duplicating beautiful design templates, and so much more make operating this way more efficient and effective.

And if you’re curious about selling your newsletter one day, learn more about how Richard does it in his Creator Spotlight.

Wrapping Up:

Thanks for reading this week’s Quarterly recap.

Do you know a beehiiv creator we should feature in a future Spotlight?

Reply and let us know!

All the best,