Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Growth In Reverse is the must-listen podcast for anyone serious about growing an email list and turning a newsletter into a thriving business. Hosted by Chenell Basilio and Dylan Redekop, two leading voices in the newsletter space, this show pulls back the curtain on how today’s top newsletter operators actually grow and make money.
Episodes include deep-dive teardowns of the strategies behind the most successful newsletters. You’ll hear how creators like Justin Welsh, Codie Sanchez, Sahil Bloom, and other creator founders are building loyal audiences and turning subscribers into revenue. Learn how they attract traffic, increase conversions, boost retention, and scale without burning out.
Whether you're launching your first newsletter or refining your growth engine, Growth In Reverse gives you proven tactics you can use right away. From onboarding systems and referral programs to sponsorships and paid products, this podcast helps you grow faster and smarter. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start applying what works, tune in and learn how the best are building newsletters that last.
Growth In Reverse Podcast with Chenell Basilio & Dylan Redekop - YT Live (v1)
===
[00:00:00]
Chenell Basilio: We're going live yes. excited to get this going. If you are new here or you just stumbled across our stream on YouTube or LinkedIn, welcome. We are Dylan and Chenell from the Growth In Reverse Podcast, and today we decided to go live and answer some questions.
Uh, feel free to drop questions in the chat as we go. We'll try and answer as many as we can in the next hour or so.
Dylan Redekop: Yes we'll get through. Yeah, we'll get through a decent amount of questions, I think. I hope. If for nothing else, we will just start talking about Thanksgiving desserts, so, and rating our favorite,
Chenell Basilio: Yes. All of the pie
Dylan Redekop: yeah, exactly.
Chenell Basilio: Yes. Yes. Yeah. And you've already had Thanksgiving, 'cause you live in Canada, so that's
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, it's like rear view mirror and then some month and a half ago. So yeah, we've had it, it's,
it's been a little while since, since we celebrated with Turkey.
Chenell Basilio: Uh, that's
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I.
Chenell Basilio: Awesome. We are, I think we're operating at like a [00:01:00] 30-second lag, which we're excited about. So this'll be fun. Uh, we're trying to keep up with all the chat and everything. I see some people commenting over here, so that's super fun. Uh, thanks for joining guys. I see Kat Matthew Ranga bunch of Growth In Reverse Pro folks in
Dylan Redekop: Hello.
Chenell Basilio: Awesome. This is gonna be fun. Very, very cool. All right, so what we've done, um, we have solicited questions from you guys over the last couple weeks, uh, via the email list and LinkedIn, all of the places. So we're gonna kind of jump into some of those and then we'll be answering some from the chat as well.
So I'm excited to do this. Where do you uh, what did I miss? Dylan?
Dylan Redekop: did you wanna talk about your little promo code or have you not? Is that, am I spoiling something here?
Chenell Basilio: Yeah, so I was not gonna do a Black Friday, anything. Like, I thought about it a month ago and I was like, yes, I should do it. And then I was like, no, no, I don't wanna do that. And then Dylan was like, uh, yay, you are. So I was like, okay. Uh, so I [00:02:00] actually, lemme see if this works. I set this up. Nope, that's the wrong one.
Dylan Redekop: That's a good link though
Chenell Basilio: This one. So you, I have a pro a product called the Growth Vault, and essentially I find all these really interesting, uh, growth optimization tips that you can use, uh, from other creators. And I record quick videos and like showcase how you can do this for yourself too. Uh, so it's called the Growth Vault.
There's probably 30 or so videos in there at this point, and it's continuously being added to, uh, I just added three this morning. So, uh, you can get $50 off with the code live and if you click that, I don't know if it's actually gonna work. Hmm. Well growth in reverse. Yeah, growth in reverse.com/vault. I will add that too.
Um, yeah, and you can grab $50 off. It's only available while we're live on the call, so it will expire. Uh, I think it's two 30 Eastern. That code
Dylan Redekop: so
everybody who may be watching this tomorrow, uh, next week, whenever, um,
Sorry but [00:03:00] there's benefits to showing of live, so there you go.
Chenell Basilio: There are, there are, uh, so good.
Dylan Redekop: So should we get into some questions?
Chenell Basilio: Yes. Let's do
Dylan Redekop: Okay, so, um, maybe for those who don't know, um, Chenell runs the Growth Inverse, um, newsletter she's been doing that for.
She's coming up on, I wanna say three years. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: years in like nine days. Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: Yes, and I run the Growth Currency Newsletter, which will be about five years in January, roughly. Um, and so we started a podcast a year ago. This is kind of a, sort of a celebratory episode where we're like, Hey, after a year of podcasting, we should try a live episode.
And we may or may not live to regret it or just enjoy it and do it again, um, in the future. But we've published every week for the last year or so, we're answering questions all about newsletters, newsletter growth, um, even podcasting questions since, you know, we've done it for a year and we sort of know what we're doing, but also very much don't.
So, um, we're happy to [00:04:00] entertain any questions around that as well.
Chenell Basilio: Yes. And thanks Kat for stating the obvious that I could just throw the link into the chat on YouTube.
Dylan Redekop: That is something we can
Chenell Basilio: that's
Dylan Redekop: Rookie, rookie, live broadcasters right here.
Chenell Basilio: Oh, good stuff, good stuff. Um, cool. Where do you, where do you wanna start here, Dylan? I know we have some questions,
Dylan Redekop: We've got some.
Chenell Basilio: doc and then we got some this morning too.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. So, um, again, feel free to drop any questions in the chat. We'll try to answer those in priority. Um, but we have teed up a few here that came through over the last week or two since we promoted this episode. Um, one of the first ones I think, and this might cover the answers to this, might actually cover a few of the other questions we've had come in that were kind of around the same line. And Terry actually from our community, um, Terry, I don't wanna say her last name 'cause I might butcher it. Um, but Terry from our community,
yeah. Okay. I was gonna do the English version of it. She, she's a member of the, the Growth Reverse Pro community. A [00:05:00] friend of ours, we've hung out in person in real life. , She asked us, she'd love to see the full range of metrics from return on investment, ROI to ROF, which is the what she coins as the return on fun. For me, the return on fun has been kind of like infinite because like, it's been, it's been a lot of fun doing the podcast. It's been a whole new venture for us.
I think we both wanted to do podcasts for a long time, um, and the opportunity just kind of serendipitously arose that we could kind of join forces and, and do this together. So for me it's been a lot of fun learning the ins and outs of podcasting and, you know, how we can repurpose that content over the year and all that sort of stuff.
So, um, and I couldn't imagine somebody better to do it with. So the return on fun
is definitely, is definitely, infinite. Um, and is that your answer?
Chenell Basilio: and we get to do fun things like this. Yeah,
Dylan Redekop: Uh,
the ROII said though, the ROI is a little bit harder to calculate and. you're, you're putting more of the investment into [00:06:00] this podcast, so I'd be curious, not necessarily even, it's really hard to calculate, like a, a direct ROI from doing the podcast, but what are some of the things that you've noticed from the last year of publishing this, where you're like, I think the podcast has actually benefited me or us in this way.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So I think that it just builds trust faster than written content ever will. We launched the podcast in December of last year, and I went to a conference in February, so like three months in and. Probably 90% of the people that ran up to me was like, Hey, I love your podcast. Like they didn't even mention the newsletter.
And I'm like, I spend like 40 hours a week on those deep dives and nobody mentioned them. They just mentioned the podcast. And I was like, this is not, I mean, it's awesome. Don't get me wrong. It was just like very eye-opening I think. So there's something about being able to see us like make mistakes live on air or talk about personal things that we might not have talked about in like a more professional written piece of [00:07:00] content.
Uh, that I think really builds that community aspect to it.
Dylan Redekop: Absolutely. I think the, you know, from a direct monetization standpoint, we had a sponsor in the beginning for the first, you know, five or six episodes. And all of the other revenue essentially has come indirectly from, um, as many of you know, like top of funnel content is notoriously hard to attribute revenue to.
So that's a lot of what this is. Um, sure. We've gotten. Some probably growth fault sales from the podcast and some growth averse pro members and stuff like that. But like Kat's saying here, um, video, video does build trust really fast. So, so for me, it's kind of like the foundation of building trust is writing, proving that, you know, you can think, you can write out your thoughts and, um, share those on the page or on the screen is kind of the base, the foundation.
The next step up is like audio. You're building more trust when people can hear your voice. So they're putting, you know, a sound to your writing. Um, they can't put a face to it yet, but they can put like this, this kind of like your voice to it, right? Um, and your inflections and your tone and all that sort of [00:08:00] thing.
And then to me, the, the third highest level of trust is the video. Video plus audio. So now you've got this stack, this layer of written audio and then video all in one where people can now see you and feel like they know you that much more because they, uh. See your face, hear your voice, and they can relate all that when they read your writing as well. And then the one thing I didn't actually think about before, I'm like, that's the peak. That's the pinnacle. But no, the peak is in person, right? Like when you meet
somebody in person, when you go to, when you're a speaker at a conference, like you've done Chenell many times when you are, just going to a conference like, um, you and I both did in Boise for, for crafting commerce this past June, it just builds that much more trust with people, uh, when you can interface face-to-face with those people.
And so I think those are kind of the four lever levels of, of trust that you can accomplish with content. And really the first three, you don't even have to meet people in person. You can do it, but I think it really comes down to, the video audio [00:09:00] aspect. So that is my
long-winded way of saying the ROI is hard to calculate, but it's definitely there.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I agree with you. I think the other cool thing about video is that. We can come on here and talk about interesting things we're seeing or how we think about a certain piece of this puzzle and then we can turn that transcript into a blog post. And it's so much easier because we've now thought through it together in a way, versus me sitting there in my like basement office by myself, like typing things out.
I'm like, well, yeah, that's kind of cool, but I don't always have like added context or other questions that you ask. And so it's really interesting to have someone to bounce ideas off like that. And I think that's almost invaluable in a way.
Dylan Redekop: it really is. It's a, it's a collaboration and it's like the, you know, one plus one doesn't necessarily equal two. It equals, six or seven in this case where
we're getting value from having having our multiple thoughts bouncing off each other too.
Nice.
Do we have any questions in the chat? I am really bad at, I've just noticed this is
way harder than I thought it would be. I can't even find the live stream.
Chenell Basilio: Uh, [00:10:00] so Lao seven said, do you think it's mandatory? Oh, it moved. Uh, do you think it's mandatory for newsletter writers to also have a podcast video channel to succeed as a professional creator? Oh, I think over time it's probably helpful. You don't have to, it's not mandatory, but I think after a while after you've mastered like the systems and being able to actually put out a piece of content every week, I think it's beneficial to have something like this so that you can collaborate and do more, um, I don't know, interactive type of things.
But I would highly recommend focusing on one in the beginning. Like focus on figuring out your writing things first, like the format. Make sure your audience loves the content before you spread your wings and go, uh, go onto another platform first.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I, I agree. For the most part, I think there's some people who might find themselves actually more comfortable though on camera, um, or in audio
Chenell Basilio: Totally.
Dylan Redekop: So. Maybe you don't love writing, but you do love showing up in short form video or [00:11:00] doing, um, even maybe long form video or maybe long form podcasting. So whatever your mode, your main mode is, your preference, your preferred way to communicate, go with that. Leverage that leverage
the platforms that, um, can highlight those skills that you have. And then once you've kind of got those nailed, then you can adapt and, and grow. And yes, we always recommend newsletters because email is just so valuable.
And having an email, a growing email list is super valuable. Um, so you do want to think about that while maybe you're doing short form video or an audio podcast. Um, but really once you've got that main message in that main platform nailed, then you can really branch out to the other things.
Chenell Basilio: Okay, so I just realized I don't think LinkedIn chat is coming through
Dylan Redekop: Oh, no. Okay.
Chenell Basilio: so Terry is live on LinkedIn and she said it's loan. Yay. Like the bank gives you a loan and says, yay.
And you say Yay.
Dylan Redekop: Okay.
Chenell Basilio: So interesting.
Dylan Redekop: Kinda like Kanye.
Chenell Basilio: and then,
yeah, Angeline uh, had a comment about your trust pyramid idea [00:12:00] and said, this is almost like a pyramid from bottom to top written audio video in person.
So I think that's exactly what you got to at a certain
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. That's kind of when I was visualizing what I was saying in my head, that was kind of what I was
thinking. The, you know, the hierarchy of needs sort of pyramid. The base, the base of that would be, in this case, the writing for
Chenell Basilio: And then lots of people are saying Happy Thanksgiving. So happy Thanksgiving to you all
Dylan Redekop: Yes. Yes.
Anybody else looking forward to a full day of football or No, just me.
There we go. Are the bear plank
Chenell Basilio: Go Bears. They're playing, uh,
Dylan Redekop: Oh, okay. Right. The of the Friday game. That will be
fun.
Chenell Basilio: Yep.
Dylan Redekop: what else we got going on?
Chenell Basilio: Okay. Um, do you wanna keep going through some of the ones that we got there or We have some in the chat
Dylan Redekop: So let's do, um, let's do one from the, the doc here. Um, I wanna pull up another one from another Growth Inverse Pro member. Nope. Sorry, I lied. Totally lied. Uh, let's pull up one from Tom Gibson.
Um, he asked us in my LinkedIn post about this episode, he said, which part of the [00:13:00] workflow have you stopped doing or planned to stop doing? My assumption is he's talking about for the podcast. So, um, do you wanna field a little bit of this one for Chenell or do you have thoughts or do you want me to, to dive in?
Chenell Basilio: Somebody was like, wait, Chenell's a Bears fan? And I said, yes. So I was just uh, putting that in there. Yes, Eagles are my second team 'cause it's a home team, but the Bears have always been my first real
Dylan Redekop: because you were born and raised in Chicago,
Chenell Basilio: playing the Eagles and I'm very, uh, it's gonna be a tough day, but
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, that'll be a
tough one. And you,
you were not born and raised in Chicago? Correct.
Chenell Basilio: I was born in Illinois, but I was only there for like a year, so I don't remember any of it.
But my mom was a big Bears fan, so thus the
Dylan Redekop: There it is.
Chenell Basilio: Yep.
Dylan Redekop: Okay. So did you hear my question about the workflow?
Chenell Basilio: No, I did not.
Dylan Redekop: So Tom asked which part of the workflow have you stopped doing or plan to stop doing? And I'm assuming he was talking about the podcast because that was kinda the premise of my post on social, on LinkedIn for this question, for these [00:14:00] questions. What do you, what do you think in terms of the workflow? I feel like we're doing even more than we were.
Chenell Basilio: Well, because you've kind of started to take over the editing process. So that was different. But I think one of the things, aside from the editing, I think what we're gonna try and do more of in the new year is just like tell stories of like community members and like have really interesting people on, it's so fun for me and you to like, figure out a topic and talk through that ourselves and not have anyone else on there.
But it's also like, kind of a lot to figure out logistically of like, what are we gonna talk about this week? Oh, wait, now we have to make notes. And like, there's just a lot that goes into it. Whereas if you're talking about someone else, it's kind of easier, especially if you've already written a deep dive about them
or know their story.
So,
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, that's very true.
Um, to, just to speak to like the, I guess the behind the scenes stuff, I think the, definitely the kind of podcast editing that I've taken on has been kind of added to the workflow. [00:15:00] In the same way. I've love,
I've really enjoyed learning how to do the podcast setting. We had a, an editor for the first seven or eight, or eight or nine months, really, um, for the first
eight or nine months of the, of the podcast. And we have simplified our edits. They're maybe not quite as fancy, um, as we had our
Chenell Basilio: they're definitely not as fancy. That's okay.
Dylan Redekop: But, uh,
Chenell Basilio: Tim, Tim was a very, uh, good editor in that respect of being able to like, put all this crazy work into it. That probably takes him like three seconds. Where it was, it would take us like two hours, so, yeah.
Dylan Redekop: Um, but now it's been, it's been a lot of fun kind of cutting up the intros and that sort of thing. So I've, I've enjoyed that. So that's something we have not stopped doing. We've actually added to our plate. Is there anything that we have planned or that we've stopped doing that we've plan or planned to stop doing in terms of the podcast production?
Chenell Basilio: Um, well, we're not putting out an episode in December, if that is what you're alluding to. We decided just to like, take a couple weeks off, um, you know, start focusing on, uh, improving the community and new group [00:16:00] coaching product and so that kind of thing. Uh, so yeah, I'm excited to kind of just chill for a little bit obviously it won't be chill, but it'll be different and we'll come back in.
Early 2026.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. No, we'll be we'll be back, back with a vengeance.
No, it, it should be fun. I've got a few other questions here that are kind of in the same vein as Terry's question, like what were the biggest benefits of doing the pod, that sort of thing. I think we've kind of touched on those, so I don't wanna, you know, hammer those home. Uh, but another question here, unless there's one you can pull from the chat that you wanna address, but,
Chenell Basilio: I'm trying to find a good one, so go for it.
Dylan Redekop: So question here was, what would you do differently if you were starting in 2026? So what would you do differently? From, again, I, I believe this was a podcast directed question because, uh, the first part of the question was what were the biggest benefits of doing the podcast?
And then what would you do differently?
Chenell Basilio: Well, we, when we started we had like eight episodes in the can ready to go. [00:17:00] And then, you know, I would keep cancelling on Dylan, I'm like, well, I don't wanna do it this week, I don't wanna do it this week. And then here we are like trying to figure out one for that exact week. So it's, we've completely dis like our lead time is completely disintegrated.
But, so I would say. Just like, stick with the plan and don't let yourself realize that you have eight in the can, because then there's like a situation where like, I get bronchitis and it's super hard to record a podcast, and we're like, Ooh, let's just, uh, take a speech that you gave three months ago and throw it up as a episode.
Dylan Redekop: we've done that.
Or you're like all of a sudden, oh, I'm going to a conference and I need to speak and you know, prep my notes and all this stuff. And so like, life happens essentially is, I guess what we're saying. So
having a on, I would like a comfortable runway would be like a month worth of episodes, essentially like in the can,
ready to publish. So you're always do going a month ahead. So that's one thing I think if I was starting, I would do differently, which [00:18:00] ironically we actually did in the beginning. We kind of fell off
that wagon. So, but that would be a great recommendation. Same thing goes for newsletters too. Like I wouldn't start a brand new newsletter without like having maybe a month's worth of additions ready to sh fire off. So,
um, to relate this two newsletters, I think that all goes the same way for like planning your content and thinking through, you don't have to have every word written necessarily, but at least knowing like what topics you're gonna cover for the next four to six weeks. Who you're gonna feature any promotions you might be running. Anything like that, being able to plan those out and think them through, and I know this sounds probably super obvious, but sometimes the most obvious things we just sort of ignore and fly by the
seat of our pants when a little bit of planning can go a long way.
Chenell Basilio: Yep. This goes for everything too. Podcast, newsletter, anything you got going on?
Dylan Redekop: A hundred percent right.
Chenell Basilio: All right. we did that one. Sorry. I was trying to go through and then I got distracted by LinkedIn comments.
Dylan Redekop: Oh, no. Okay.
Chenell Basilio: This is hard.
Dylan Redekop: We need a producer.
Chenell Basilio: I [00:19:00] know. And then as soon as someone comments, it like, messes me up of trying to find Okay. Here's one that's interesting. What do you think about AI integrated into email providers?
Dylan Redekop: And who's that from?
Chenell Basilio: hold on, let me, uh, 20 4K wills, hold on. Now I gotta add it again. I know. Here we go. Okay. There was like a auto ten second timer when you click on something and then it goes away. Example Gmail summarizing emails could be bad for open rates and revenue. Yes. So I think they're referring to this new feature in the last couple months that, um, apple Mail Gmail have rolled out.
Where before you even open an email, it'll say like, this email is about blank. Um, so I know Apple Mail will show it like in the left hand side bar if you're like looking at, uh, all the emails you have, and then Gmail shows it at the top when you open an email. I believe so, yeah. I mean it's, it's totally gonna impact stuff and I think we're just gonna have to.
Be able to iterate and pivot and think through this as well as everything else that we've already been [00:20:00] thinking through, um, before sending an email. So it's just another one of those things. It's kind of like the new preview text, like preview texts might not actually show anymore or the way you want it to show.
So I think that this is kind of just the new
Dylan Redekop: It's actually a thing.
Chenell Basilio: What,
Dylan Redekop: texts not showing up or showing the way you want to.
Chenell Basilio: well, I think for Apple Mail, yeah. I don't even think it shows preview text anymore. It'll just show like a summary. If you have the feature turned on, I think you can turn it off,
but I think it's default on and it'll say, Chenell is asking you a question about blah blah blah in the
Dylan Redekop: Right.
Chenell Basilio: so you can like see that before you even open it.
And so I think that's what they're referring to in this
Dylan Redekop: Okay. I, I'm not an Apple user, so, um, you can
throw your, throw your tomatoes at me if you want, but I did not know that, so I could see that being a challenge. I think just going back to the original question, I think for me it just comes back to what you preach about, what you've literally preached about on stage is insanely valuable content.
So I think if you [00:21:00] are really writing something that people. Want to read and get, some kind of gratification reading it, whether it's like educational, informational, like keeping you informed or, um, entertaining. Then people will open your newsletter and read it and not want AI to read it. It's like, why would you like, yeah, AI could summarize like your favorite TV show, but you're not gonna, you know, get a, Hey, tell me what happened on, you know, so and so TV show this week.
Like, you're gonna actually wanna watch it and enjoy it. So I think for me, that's kind of what it comes down to.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you kind of have to overcome all of these challenges that we're gonna be facing with these platforms with AI and all the new features that are gonna be happening. Um, and now, like with Gmail, you could even. Take. You can look at all your subscriptions and it'll show you a list of every email thing that you're subscribed to, and you can just like unsubscribe, unsubscribe all at one place.
So it's like, I actually think that's a good thing because a lot of those people were probably never opening your emails anyway, so
Dylan Redekop: Or,
[00:22:00] um, to flip that they might love your content, which hopefully they do. And then they'll just unsubscribe from a bunch of other stuff that's distracting them in the inbox
so that, you know, the good stuff still remains. So again, it comes down to publishing stuff that people enjoy reading and want to open and read.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: All
right. What do you got? Anything ne
Chenell Basilio: was a good question.
Dylan Redekop: anything else in the chat we can pull up? I saw
Chenell Basilio: I'm trying to
Dylan Redekop: I was gonna say I saw LinkedIn. While you're scrolling, I'll filibuster a bit. Um, Juliet asked, uh, favorite pie, so totally
on topic that it is nearing Thanksgiving. I would say, I mean, because Thanksgiving I say pumpkin pie is probably, probably right near the tippy top for me for favorite pie.
Chenell Basilio: I would say one that that's usually at a Thanksgiving event that I like is apple pie. However, there are like some really interesting ones like blueberry that usually doesn't show up at a Thanksgiving event, but is delicious. Um, yes, my wife, Anna's a huge pie fan.
Dylan Redekop: Does she make pie?
Chenell Basilio: No, she does not make pie. [00:23:00] But like we went to Arizona last year and the only, not the only thing, one of the main things she planned was there was like this roadside stand that like going from the airport to Sedona, like on the highway there was like a pie place and she's like, we're going there.
And I was like, I love that. That's what you planned for a vacation. It's
Dylan Redekop: That's amazing that I, I would be there, I
would be there
Chenell Basilio: Yes, yes.
Dylan Redekop: if
Chenell Basilio: Um,
Dylan Redekop: a question here if you're still, if you're still trying to find one.
Okay.
Chenell Basilio: I think I need a new system 'cause this just keeps all the comments, keep making it go down.
Dylan Redekop: Okay. Uh, Andy asked, uh, is it okay to just start without a clearly defined audience in mind and work it out as you go along? Or is that kind of a waste of time? He says he is already launched his newsletter on Substack, but he's still, you know, pretty vague on who exactly it's for. And so I, I related a lot to this question because unlike you who published like this really smart, concept for a newsletter on your very first try, which maybe you didn't know would resonate so much, but it, it ended up working out. When I started publishing my [00:24:00] substack in 2021, I had no idea who I was writing to except for like maybe digital people, um, people on the internet. So I was writing about like marketing and leadership and fi personal finance and all this kind of stuff. Um, even I think crypto like, 'cause it was 2021.
Yeah. So I had this swath of things and I just kept publishing. And leaning into my interests and also seeing, like checking out which links were getting clicked more and letting that be some signal for me to what people were interested in reading about. And yeah, I didn't have a ton of subscribers, but I did have a few and that eventually kind of, I meandered through the first 20 ish editions of my newsletter and finally started landing on, Hey, people seem to, like it when I write about newsletters.
And, um, Justin Moore actually kind of pushed me a little bit as well to write more about newsletters and kind of niche down a bit. And so I guess my point is, after publishing, repeatedly, I was able to figure out where I want it to go. So I don't think it's a waste of time. As long as [00:25:00] it's lighting you up from a place of a passion and you have a long term mindset knowing that you're not gonna, you know, make probably a ton of money from this, especially not in the short term, then I would say start writing if you have the time and energy for it and desire to do it and, um, see where it takes you.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I did not know that Growth In Reverse was gonna take off that way. So that was purely, I was like, I'm excited about this. Hopefully other people are, I haven't found anything like this before, so I don't know. We all start from zero and it just happened to be a good idea. Although, I will say, just to remind you, I had started a gardening blog, a blog about my paying off my student loans, a blog about quitting my day job, and this was the first thing that stuck.
So I've been at this for a while, so don't think that I came out of the gates swinging like, this is not a new thing for me. I just wanna remind you of that.
Dylan Redekop: Agreed. Uh,
I can relate a little bit to that. I had a music blog 15 years ago, like when
WordPress was like the thing, word press blogs. Um, and I had [00:26:00] a, a health like. Health, I guess, blog, which I had no place writing about 'cause I'm definitely not in the health space or really, uh, licensed to write about it.
But that was just another passion thing I was doing, but eventually did land on this. And it's also stuck, so sometimes it takes a few at bats, right? Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah, totally. Keep going. Just follow what you're en enjoying. Uh, it doesn't have to be perfect or a business from day one. And honestly, if you can do it on the side for a while before figuring out monetization, I feel like it's gonna be built on stronger foundations anyway. So
Dylan Redekop: Yep. I agree. I've got another one even unless you wanna pull any in.
Chenell Basilio: go for it.
Dylan Redekop: this is getting a little spicy maybe.
Chenell Basilio: Ooh.
Dylan Redekop: not that. Okay. Now, now I'm, I've oversold it, uh, uh, the littlest bit of spicy. So you sent out an, an email earlier this week that I think this subject
line was beehive or kit, something along those lines.
Chenell Basilio: Beehive
Dylan Redekop: versus okay. Okay. Wow. Not
just, or
Chenell Basilio: which one's better?
Dylan Redekop: [00:27:00] So, uh, you got called out on that subject line, which one is better?
Since you didn't actually say in your email,
and I guess the question
Chenell Basilio: the best. Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: does it really matter?
Chenell Basilio: So the best part was Tyler Denk, like three minutes after I sent that email, replied to my newsletter, which I didn't realize he was on, which is fun. And he was like, great subject line ha ha or wink or whatever. And Tyler Denk is the CEO of beehive
Dylan Redekop: gonna say for those who don't
Chenell Basilio: So
Dylan Redekop: yeah. Kind of started the whole
Chenell Basilio: I was like, oh, that's fun.
Yeah. So as I sent that email, I was like giggling to myself and then I got that reply and I was like, this is fun. Um, but yeah, I was just saying like essentially the short of it is the tool is not going to make you successful. Your consistency, your content, your. Sticktoitiveness, if you will, is going to be the thing that actually stands out.
Dylan Redekop: Cop out answer, cop out, answer.
Chenell Basilio: I know. Okay, here's my framework for what I usually say. There are two things. So Beehive and Kit both have great recommendations platforms. So does Substack, this, I'll bring [00:28:00] Substack into the fold here. Uh, so what I typically say is look for where the people in your niche are. So if your peers are all on beehive, maybe you should go with Beehive because they might recommend your newsletter.
You can't really recommend a KIT newsletter from Beehive, if that makes sense. So you wanna stick on the platform that has your peers on it. Purely if you're gonna use recommendations, if you're not gonna use them, great. Don't worry about it. That is not something to worry about. The other uh, thing I think through is, do you have a website?
Because if you don't have a website, uh, beehive or Substack is going to be preferred versus Kit, because with Kit you have to have your own website, build something on WordPress, build something somewhere else, uh, Webflow or whatever. And so that's just an another layer of this puzzle that you're gonna have to figure out.
Those are my two questions for you. Where do all of your peers hang out? And second, do you have a website? And so that would be what I would look through. Beehive is getting closer to Kit with the new things [00:29:00] that they're launching. But I would say I still think Kit has more robust automations, but again, beehive is probably catching up pretty quickly,
Dylan Redekop: yeah.
Yep. I, I
kind of lean the same way. I think with Substack too, you've got the built-in, um, network effects, which the other two sort of have as well. Like I've grown a lot with the Creator network in Kit. So, they all offer this these days and I think Substack is turning into trying to turn to less of a newsletter platform, more into this kind of all in one sort of social media slash you know, written platform.
I do kind of feel though, um, and I started my newsletter on Substack because I didn't have a website. I didn't know any different, and so that's where I started. But I do feel as though, you're very much kind of walling yourself off a little bit in Substack, and to me it kind of feels a little bit like medium. And I say that because Medium turned into a platform for medium people. So like if you wanted to write and make money on Medium, [00:30:00] you had to write two people who were. On medium, writing about Medium, trying to make money on Medium and grow an audience on medium. And it just turns into this kind of, I'm not saying this is all substack, I know there's, there's a lot of really good writers on there and people doing different things, but I feel as though it's got a little bit of that in it where the content that really kind of rises to the top can have that feeling again,
not total. I know there's people writing really great stuff on there. Um, but I, I just worry that maybe that's kind of what it could turn into as I see like hints of that.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I think right now the writing on Substack, 80% of the writing on Substack is very much more thought out, I would say, than, you know, a beehive or a kit newsletter. However, I feel like that's going to change. Marketers ruin everything so soon enough it will, uh, it will be different. But for now, it is a great place for like, I don't know, unique writing.
Dylan Redekop: Yep, that's fair. And that's why I
think, uh, Louis Grenier says, everyone hates marketers or something along those legs.
Yeah. [00:31:00] Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Ruin
Dylan Redekop: We sure do.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Um, so as a quick reminder, we have this, uh, coupon code up on the screen for $50 off the growth vault. It's only available until 2:30 PM Eastern while we're on the stream. So I literally have that set to automatically turn off 'cause I will forget. So, uh, that coupon code will go away if you are planning on potentially joining us in there.
So just wanted to call that out.
Dylan Redekop: call out. I wanna do one other call
out about pies. You know, it always comes back to that,
uh, pecan pies, getting some votes, some love in the comments. I've
Chenell Basilio: I saw that.
Dylan Redekop: out how to find the comments here. So yeah, pecan pie all day. Kat also said pecan pie is great. I have never had pecan pie. huh.
Yeah. Yeah. So that ain't good. I definitely need to get on that, get on that really soon.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. No kidding.
What are you doing?
Dylan Redekop: I don't know, not living fully apparently.
Chenell Basilio: Uh,
Dylan Redekop: I, I see another, [00:32:00] another question here about metrics. Um, so which metric, uh, let's see, who is this? I gotta move around to get away from my mic stand.
So forgive me which metric inside your email newsletter tool do you actually look at every week? And can you please share a recent decision you made because of it? There it is. Thank you.
Chenell Basilio: yeah, what, what do I look at inside a newsletter
Dylan Redekop: So, so in Kit, I would say, like, what
metrics are you looking at? I'm, I'm assuming, let me assume what you look at. I'm assuming you look at your open rate.
Chenell Basilio: Okay.
Dylan Redekop: I'm assuming you also look at , subscriber count.
Chenell Basilio: Not as
Dylan Redekop: Okay. So
share with us what do you, what do you, what do you check?
Chenell Basilio: I, I look at I look at the open rate in terms of yes, like what is the open rate. I don't take that as like the number, 'cause I know it's wildly wrong these days with certain platforms that automatically open every email. And so we can't really trust that number as like a true number.
But I do look at it in terms of [00:33:00] like week over week. So if it's dropping or if it went up, that's a good sign that maybe, I don't know, the subject line resonated, that kind of thing. If it drops significantly, that might be something wrong. Maybe I included a word or something that forced, uh, the email to go into the spam folder.
So those are, I'd look at it like just week over week in terms of like trends, but not actually as a, I don't know, factual
Dylan Redekop: Well, I think if you're sending an, uh, email broadcast on a recurring rhythm, so whether it's every week or every, you know, twice a week, whatever it is, you have at least a benchmark. You know that your open rates, even if they're not accurate, you know that, that everyone says they're not. But you can see, like if the last 10 emails you send were hitting, say, 50% open rate, and then the one you've just sent. Was like down in the low forties or even maybe below that. That's where, I mean, that would be a signal to me, like, oh man, maybe something I did went this, sent this to spam. Maybe the email got clipped. Who [00:34:00] knows
what. Right. So, um, that's I think something that you should be looking out for and not necessarily, the, the open, the open rate as a vanity metric, it's more of like, it should be like your guide of what you're doing, how your content is engaging.
And I, if it is slowly going down, try to figure out what, why, what's changed, what's different, what can you do to maybe your subject lines, you've been kind of thinking, put in the first thing that comes to your head and you haven't really been putting in a robust subject line. Or maybe your content hasn't been great in the last few weeks, or you've felt uninspired.
All those things could be reasons why the open rate is slowly trickling down. But if
it's like this drastic
Chenell Basilio: Or your list is growing a
Dylan Redekop: Totally. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: could be going
Dylan Redekop: Yep. Growing lists will always be, I mean. It's almost possible to get a hundred percent open rate when you only have, you know, maybe 20 people on your email list. But as you grow it's gonna come down and down and down.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah, totally. But that, that question threw me off. 'cause the thing I think through the most is like, how many replies did I get that week? And so that doesn't actually [00:35:00] live inside the newsletter tool. That's more in like Gmail. So that's the one that I pay attention to the most. But those are some other ones.
Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: the knowledge enthusiast has another, actually great question. Uh, I dunno if you see this, what's one thing most newsletter creators over invest in and one thing they under invest in.
Chenell Basilio: Hmm. I would say over invest in subscriber count under invest in content quality.
Dylan Redekop: Hmm. That was almost too easy.
Chenell Basilio: Short and
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I'm aligned with that. I'm aligned with that.
Chenell Basilio: Okay. Um, I know this person, Andrew said not seeing a discount. Is the vault normally $200? Yes, it is normally $200. And so that $50 off is the coupon code to get you for 150?
Dylan Redekop: and the coupon code is, is the word live, right?
Chenell Basilio: Yes.
Dylan Redekop: Um, so the
subject line is the significant push in the open rate. What others do you think? I think the, the, the subject line can be a significant push in open rate, especially for new subscribers who aren't used to your [00:36:00] getting your content. So you kind of have to, you know, stand out from the crowd of other things in their inbox.
But for people who have
been on your email list for a while, they're probably gonna, and they like your content, they're probably gonna open your, your newsletter. 'cause they know what to expect. They know the quality that's coming at them and. Again, if it's good, they'll open it regardless of your subject line for the most part. Um, for people who are new on the list, I think that's where a subject line can have more of an impact. So if you are, if you do have a higher growth rate, um, meaning you're getting more and more people to your list day by day, week by week, that's where your subject line's probably going to either help you or hurt you that much more. Versus maybe somebody who's
growing a little bit slower, who's got a more established list or maybe whose list has matured to some degree. Um, the subject line still matters for sure, but I don't know if it would have quite the same impact.
Chenell Basilio: yeah. And there's also something to be said like. Because my deep dives were so long form, people would put them into a folder and not open them until like, all at once. [00:37:00] They would read all of them. They'd like be like, okay, I have an hour and a half, I'm gonna sit down and read the last four deep dives.
And so sometimes the o open rates fluctuate. Sometimes people just throw 'em in a folder. They're like, I'm gonna get to it later. And they never do. So if you can, you know, every now and the, and every now and again, um, you know, kind of change things up and send out like a shorter email or send out something different with a different subject line that they're not expecting, you can probably kind of win back some of those
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I agree. Changing things up never,
never hurts. Uh, Matt's got a good question.
Chenell Basilio: Here we go. How do you prevent burnout?
Dylan Redekop: shout out to Matt,
Chenell Basilio: loaded question of the day.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Uh, yes. Well, um. Probably ask for help, talk to people,
Dylan Redekop: a break maybe.
Chenell Basilio: take a break. So for context, I, I ran like a Facebook ads business essentially back in 2020, well, 2017 to 2021 and a half, 2022. Did really well [00:38:00] during COVID.
People needed help with ads, so I was doing super well and I took on way too much work. I didn't ask for help. I wasn't asking peers for help or questions or anything like that. And so I severely burned myself out and, um, slowly just like watched that business. Light on fire and crumble. So I have a lot of experience with burnout in that respect.
So in, in this current business, I've tried to ask for help. I've been so much better about like, I'm in a mastermind and I'm actually talking to people and asking questions and like doing things and not joining a bunch of courses and lurking and, you know, not asking. So I think that's the biggest thing is just ask for help.
Dylan Redekop: All I got. I like that. I
think, I think that's it. I think one other thing I've noticed you do just in our communication is like, I'm just feeling spent this week and I don't wanna push it. So whether that means, doing something a little deviating from the plan, the content plan, the podcast plan, whatever that might be, you're okay to, [00:39:00] to make that sacrifice for your mental health and the ability to kind of press on in the business, uh, with more of a long-term mindset.
So, um, I don't, I didn't really know you back in the Facebook ads days when you were burning out then, but I can tell just in the way that you communicate, in the way that we do things that you've been, you've been very protective of that. So I think, I think it's working
Chenell Basilio: Thanks. Um, I saw this one come up before and we didn't get to it, so let's do this one. So get a life. 1, 2, 3,
Dylan Redekop: a good name. Oh, I'm here for the name.
Chenell Basilio: uh, how would you grow a biweekly newsletter about a university ecosystem like Harvard's from zero to one K subscribers organically, especially in markets where newsletters aren't common. Okay. So I guess, um, is this like you're working at a school like this and you're trying to grow their newsletter, or is this just like totally separate?
I guess if you're writing about Harvard itself and like maybe the sports [00:40:00] programs or that kind of thing, I feel like it's pretty simple in a way. I mean, you could either start posting on Instagram about this stuff, you could reach out directly to people who are interested in college sports or whatever the actual focus is.
I'm not super sure. But, I think honestly most people get stuck in the beginning. Zero to one K in my head is mostly like personal outreach. Figure it out. Go find these people talking on Twitter or LinkedIn or Reddit, comment, help them provide value. Maybe you have a link to it in your profile, but you're not like pushing it like people will find it if you're just helpful.
Um, so I think usually zero to one k, zero to 500, whatever it is. The easiest way to do that is go out into your network and just be a human. I think that's the easiest
Dylan Redekop: Yep. I think the, my first thought was, um, morning Brew started on a university campus. It was
not a, it was not a newsletter about their university, but [00:41:00] it was, that's where it started. Right. And they were, they were just, I just look it up, just search, um, morning Brew, you know, story, um, growth story or whatever it might be, how they started up.
And you'll see a lot of great ideas there. However, I think what I think about with something like, you know, Harvard or a, maybe a major university is like. can bring in content that's very exclusive behind the scenes, that's gonna help future students, that might help current students, whatever that, that kind of content is, I think that's gonna just help the newsletter grow in and of itself.
So, um, I remember there was a newsletter sort of similar to this, where the writer was, it was a paid newsletter even. And she was doing amazing. And what she did was basically she was finding grants for people to get into universities or get money for universities. Kinda like scholarships sort of thing, like grants, right? And so she would basically surface these grants for people and they would pay her money to, um, basically get, have her. Collect all [00:42:00] these grants. They could find this on their own, definitely. But she was doing all the hard work of finding these grants, kinda like Creator Wizard as well, where he would find all of the, um, sponsorships that you didn't know about. Uh, and he
curates those for you. And, um, I don't even think he was charging people for that, and he would just deliver them to you. So if you can, that's just one version of this. But if you can like, basically get this content that people, either have trouble getting themselves and getting that in front of them or getting some kind of exclusive nature to the newsletter, I think that's gonna be that much more interesting and engaging and will help it grow organically, kind of on its own to some degree.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And I think, uh, the men, the. The last part of this said, uh, especially in markets where newsletters aren't common, you don't have to position it as a newsletter. You can just position it as like, Hey, get the blah, blah, blah every week. Like it doesn't have to be, oh, sign up for an email list. Like most people don't want that anyway.
So if you can position it differently and actually take, make it more fun. Uh, if you're trying to get college kids, just be like, Hey, here's some coupons to local bars or whatever. Like [00:43:00] every week you send them a new coupon to whatever it is. Um, I mean, you'll get people signing up left and right for that one.
Dylan Redekop: Yep. Very true. Very true.
Chenell Basilio: This person said, oh, I'm trying to change the layout. This is fun. Uh, what was your first digital marketing role? So I had mentioned that, I was working, doing Facebook ads, but I actually worked at aaa, like the towing company in America. And I was doing Google ads for them for a long time. So yeah,
Dylan Redekop: how you got good at
Chenell Basilio: a short it.
Good edit. Yeah, I was, I found SEO through Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, and I took it to my boss and I was like, we need to be doing all of these things. And they were like, cool, you go do them on your, like on top of what you're already doing. And I was like, oh, okay. And then their paid ads guy left and they were like, you should do this too.
And I was like, okay. Sounds good.
Dylan Redekop: Nice. And, and the rest is history.
Here we are.
Chenell Basilio: The rest is
Dylan Redekop: I scrolled up and I saw one from a question here, from a, a tsunami. A tsunami. I'm not [00:44:00] sure how to exactly pronounce that. What advice do you have for people that say, I know I need a newsletter, but I'm terrified of starting?
What if I run outta things to write and I disappoint myself in others?
Chenell Basilio: I know I need a newsletter. Okay. Yeah, I would just. My best advice for this one, if you have an idea of something you wanna write about, I'm gonna hide this, this is huge
Dylan Redekop: It's really big.
Chenell Basilio: Uh, if you have an idea of what you wanna write about, just make a list of like, try and come up with 30 ideas, 30 topics that you could potentially write about.
Make that list, uh, just like brain dump them into a Google sheet or whatever. If you can't come up with 30, I would say it's probably not the right idea. However, once you start writing, you're going to naturally come up with more ideas. I know it sounds crazy, but as you start writing one piece, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, that whole other topic.
And then you can add that to the list. And over time, you're just gonna have like unlimited ideas to be able to write about. So I wouldn't worry too much about running out of ideas, but there is something to be said about strategizing in the beginning and being like, okay, do I have enough content to potentially [00:45:00] keep going?
Starting is horribly scary. When I first started Growth In Reverse, I don't even think I told my wife, I think I published the first one and then I was like, Hey, by the way,
doing this thing, because I, I naturally have so many hobbies and so I get nervous to like share something. 'cause she's gonna be like, oh, another one of these that you're with for three weeks.
And then, so you don't have to tell anyone. You could just, you know, write it on your own. I started posting on Twitter, but I didn't know a ton of people on Twitter, so it was kind of like me hiding from others in the internet. Um, yeah.
Dylan Redekop: That, that reminds me of what, um, Millie Tamati shared with us where she's like, I, I can post on TikTok so freely because I don't even like know anybody there. And it's just like a playground. Like it's a bunch, it's
a sea of like random people. So I can experiment there. I don't worry about looking like an idiot. 'cause people just are, they don't, they don't judge you. They're just like, if they're not interested they swipe. Like it's not
this thing where people are like being harsh and critical and judgy. Um, [00:46:00] and most people our age, are not spending as much time there necessarily. So. That's kind of the approach you could take with it of, um, if you're posting on LinkedIn, that's one thing because you very well may have some colleagues there or people you know, in real life.
Um, so I totally understand that. But if there's a social platform that you feel like you can experiment, like Substack for example,
that's, that's a, both a newsletter platform and a social platform where you can start experimenting there and publishing stuff and seeing if any of it gains traction.
And one other thing, just to wrap up, my thought on this is use social media as like a, a feedback loop and a a rapid feedback loop, right? If there's something that you kind of are interested and you wanna write about and see if anybody else wants to hear your thoughts on it. Start publishing and writing about it and see what traction it gets, if any, or use the signal, um, the questions that people are asking you.
And that, like Chenell said, the more you write, the more ideas will come, um, to you naturally. And also from maybe comments people make or questions people have or other people you follow [00:47:00] in the space, all of a sudden the algorithms showing them up in your, um, in your feed and maybe you get some ideas based on what they're writing about.
So starting is scary, but as soon as you do it, you'll be like, oh man, I wish I didn't wait so long to start.
Chenell Basilio: Totally. I kind of wanted to answer this question somebody had about, how to, how I snooze emails. Do you remember this question? So at the, yeah, I was trying to pull up an email. I guess I could just do it in kit.
Dylan Redekop: Gonna screen, are we gonna share a screen on our first live stream? This could go,
Chenell Basilio: I wanna try, what do you
Dylan Redekop: Do it
Chenell Basilio: this could go really wrong. Um. Uh, so fun. I'm trying not to share my Gmail screen. Okay. All right. So at the bottom,
Dylan Redekop: see anything yet.
Chenell Basilio: Okay. So this is one of the community, uh, emails that we send out. And so at the bottom you can do something like, oh wait, this isn't the right one. But anyway, so at the, at the bottom of my emails, it'll say like, do you want to, uh, skip, [00:48:00] like, snooze these emails for 30 days? And so you can click here and to snooze the email.
And so essentially what I do. I send them over to this form. And so, because naturally, like inherently people are going to have too many emails, especially during a black Friday week or holiday week, or maybe it's the last week of December, and people are just like, I am checked out. Like I do not wanna get more emails.
So I set up this, um, landing page where people can go and they can enter their email address and it will automatically snooze them from getting any of my emails for the next 30 days. So how that works, is I have this automation set up. So essentially if they submit that form, I know this says clicked, but that's just 'cause I named the tag clicked.
Uh, it, they submit the form, it'll go to this. So is this the rule that I have? Ooh, I don't know. I don't know what's what. Try not to show email
Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: So. If somebody submits that form, they get added here and then it [00:49:00] newses them for 30 days.
Dylan Redekop: It is just a tag that's
applied, right?
Chenell Basilio: It's just a tag
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Skip
Chenell Basilio: And so when I go to send my broadcast, I will exclude those people. And then, so after 30 days, this removes the tag.
Dylan Redekop: And then I thing with that is you can just keep that filter on for
every send. Right. And it'll just automatically snooze it for the people that want it. And when the 30 days up, they get it again.
Chenell Basilio: Exactly. So I actually found this through a newsletter called Sigma. Actually, I can just show this. So this is kind of what the, the growth vault looks like over here.
Dylan Redekop: And growth in verse Pro.
Chenell Basilio: The whole community.
Yeah. Um, so this is the one that I was looking at. So I record these videos and I'll just showcase like, Hey, I found this from this newsletter, and so they actually were, where I found this, I kind of walk through how I found it, give you the automation template that you could plug in if you're using kit.
It shows you the page you're taken to after you submit the form and all of this stuff. And so this is kind of, oh, I gotta fix that. But so I have like a [00:50:00] bunch of these in here that just kind of showcase like how you can optimize, uh, retain your subscribers, monetize better, grow all that
Dylan Redekop: This is a shameless plug for the growth fault, by the way, just so anybody's
Chenell Basilio: totally a shameless plug.
I'm horrible at these. And Dylan always yells at me, so I figured I would, uh, do
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Good for you.
I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Well, we got, we
got a few minutes left. I, I had one question here that I thought was a good one about lead magnets. One, how do you feel about lead magnets? So that's first, and then the second part of that question is, what is your favorite lead magnet format you enjoy the most, personally, enjoy the most?
Now my, there's that could be you enjoy receiving and consuming or enjoy creating. So let's answer those three questions. As quick as we can.
Chenell Basilio: Okay, so
Dylan Redekop: So how do you, how do you feel about, how do you feel about lead magnets for one to grow newsletter?
Chenell Basilio: Okay. I love lead magnets, however, they must be extremely related to the topic you're typically sending. So if you are sending, um, a deep dive about growth levers, don't give a lead magnet about like how I'm [00:51:00] handling the books for my business, like the finances, like that's totally unrelated from what people are going to get.
It might be interesting to them for a lead magnet, but they're not actually going to enjoy your typical newsletter. So they're going to unsubscribe fast, which is why don't like those kinds of lead magnets. But a lead magnet can do wonders for growing a newsletter. Uh, it just has to be super related to the topic you always talk
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Fully agree. Okay. So what is your favorite lead magnet format that you enjoy the most? Consuming, like once you find yourself, like downloading a lead magnet or, or getting access to it and actually using.
Chenell Basilio: Um, I like, like a workshop recording of something that's actually very valuable. Or
Dylan Redekop: a specific problem. Problem, essentially. Yeah. Or an email course.
Chenell Basilio: Email course. Email course is my favorite as a creator. Um, I want to create one of these for myself. Haven't done it yet, but will do. Um, but for creators, I think an email course is probably the highest impact thing you can do. Just [00:52:00] because you're teaching people to open your emails and it's getting sent every day.
Typically, you're like, if it's a seven day email course for the next seven days, they're gonna get an email from you. They're going to learn to open the email, they're going to learn to take action from that email. And so I think that is just like setting the relationship between you and your subscriber off on the best.
What possible.
Dylan Redekop: I agree.
There's, there's one other lead magnet that's kind of popped up in the last year-ish, uh, our type of lead
magnet, and that's AI bot lead magnets. So
yeah.
GPTs, exactly, that's the right word. You've created a few for the community, like, uh, and I think in the growth vault, if I'm not mistaken, there's the, is the hook helper in there?
Chenell Basilio: It's not, but I will put it in
Dylan Redekop: So Chenell created this great, custom GPT, which add GPT, called Hook Helper. And so the premise of this is you put in a LinkedIn post
Chenell Basilio: Such a
Dylan Redekop: that has Yeah. It, hey, it works. Um, it's clear, right?
You put in a LinkedIn post that didn't perform with you or perform very well for you, or maybe [00:53:00] you have a draft of a LinkedIn post you wanna post, but you wanna make sure that people actually click on it and read it, engage with it.
So you plug it into Chenell's Hook Helper and it will give you some different iterations of how you could craft a hook for that post. So it's not writing the whole post for you, but it's just giving you some ideas that you could use maybe to at least, um, get people's attention or you could modify them, what have you.
And I've found it very useful to like. Not necessarily just always copy and paste the answer, but think about my post from a different angle. And usually it, if it doesn't, you know, surface a great hook that I can essentially copy and paste, I will come up with one on my own based on what it's, it's presented to me.
So a hook helper is really cool. So that's one example of how you could use, Chenell could use that as a lead magnet if she wanted to. It's somewhat relevant to her content. Uh, maybe not directly relevant, but you've got another custom
GBT you created recently about landing pages and how to make those convert better.
So that might be a better lead magnet for you [00:54:00] to use. But
yeah, these GBTs are, are pretty wild and very functional and tactical if they're built properly. And I think there's a just gonna whole, gonna be a whole new opportunity for creators to use those to grow their email list.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I agree. Katelyn Bourgoin is someone who does this really, really well. Um. So if you don't know Caitlyn, go to Learn. Learn why
Dylan Redekop: Learn why we
Chenell Basilio: Her newsletter's amazing. Such good stuff. I was trying to find this other question. Are you done with that question? I know we're
Dylan Redekop: I'm done. Done with it.
Chenell Basilio: you're done.
Okay. This one. Okay. Anyway, uh, a service-based business, landscaping, house cleaning, et cetera with local customers, sees value in a newsletter, but doesn't wanna compete with events media. How would you do it?
Okay. So I would say, is there, oh, did I hide it
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, you did. There we go.
Chenell Basilio: Okay. Uh, so if you're, if you have a service business, like landscaping, house cleaning, you have local customers, I think. I would [00:55:00] follow, kind of like what, you know, there's this guy named Matt Giovan. He has swim university.com. Now he doesn't sell locally, but I think the content play that he does and like how he pre presents his content is so good.
And I think that a local business could do something similar. I actually recently, we had wasps in our basement. This is so random, but I'm gonna tell you this story 'cause I think it's so on point. Okay. So we had wasps in our basement and I was like, I, there has to be a nest. We were getting like eight or nine a day.
And so I was like looking around the basement. I'm like, where would this nest be? So I went on YouTube and I searched how to find. wasp Nest in basement or something and a video came up from this guy and it was super professional. He was walking through this stuff and I was like, man, I wish I could hire them.
I bet these people are so far away. Wouldn't you know that YouTube showed me a video from someone literally in my area and I hired that company based on that YouTube video. And so I think just the targeting that YouTube's coming up with, I know it's not a newsletter, but similar kinds of [00:56:00] vibes here. Uh, I think, I think there is something to be said about creating content that is just helpful for everyone, even if they're not gonna be using you
Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I, I think that is very valuable and you, you know, your experience is proof that that can work. Um, I think back to, in terms of local, like Matt, or not Matt, Ryan Snedden from, um,
Chenell Basilio: Nap
Dylan Redekop: Nap Town. scoop.
thank you. Um, from, he
runs a local newsletter for the town of Annapolis, Maryland. And it's a town of like 40, 45,000 people and he's got almost half of them on his newsletter.
And his goal was not to necessarily run a media business with this local newsletter, but really to actually use it as a marketing tool, to promote businesses that he has stake in or that he maybe owns. So he's bought like a luxury, toilet rental, if, for lack of a better term, um, which people, people rent for weddings, for events, right?
To have like a, um, restroom on site that isn't just like an
outhouse, which is gross. So, he's bought, you know, companies like that he promotes in this local [00:57:00] newsletter. And of course it's a local business, so the audience is, is perfect, right? So what you could do with a service-based business is you could not just start up a business or a newsletter for your business, but you could start up a service business for the town and you can promote your businesses and you can promote a whole bunch of other businesses.
It doesn't just have to be, oh, here's our, you know, here's five tips to, you know, taking care of your lawn this fall. It doesn't have to be that. It can be for sure. You can have that kind of content, but really what I would lean into is the one newsletter that people would wanna subscribe to in your area that's, that's gonna help them deal with, you know, maybe floods in their home or they need a new roof, or like, there's, there's just a whole swath of businesses that probably would want to be in there and you can also promote your own content, to, in that.
So that could be an angle you go, lots of really different ways you can go, but I think it's worth probably competing, if you will, with the events media. I'm not sure exactly what that means,
Chenell Basilio: there's a guy in or Orlando or something too. And he's built this [00:58:00] incredible business. He was, he is a real estate agent, but he did, he wasn't gonna like tell people, he is a real estate agent up front. He just has this huge Instagram following. I think he has an email list off the back of it. I really hope he does.
Um, and he's been able to just explode his business because people see him for like the local content, but he's actually a real estate agent helping people. I know that's different,
Dylan Redekop: The same idea. I
Chenell Basilio: you could,
yeah,
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Cut you off.
Chenell Basilio: no, I was just gonna say that I think the local newsletter angle is a, is a great one.
Dylan Redekop: I, yeah, I've, I've thought about this too, and I don't have the capacity to run a local newsletter, but our town is about the same size as Annapolis, like 40 ish thousand people here. And I just see the opportunity for a local newsletter and a local realtor or local business to like position the, you know, create it, curate it, write it, publish it, even bring in a few sponsors.
But really this could be like their marketing tool, um, for their realty realtor business, right? So,
I don't know, I think, I think there's a, a mindset shift maybe that [00:59:00] should be made with these kinds of businesses. And there's a huge opportunity for, um, I mean, I still get a local newspaper, like, it's like literally it's right here, but it is full of like ads, right?
Like that's all it is, is ads. There's like a few articles. So reach out if you wanted to start a local news, and I'm going on a tangent here, but if you wanted to do that, you could just reach out to the people that are advertising in these newsletters and, um. Grow your newsletter fast with, with paid ads if you wanted to.
'cause you know, the local targeting and that sort of thing. I just, I don't know. I think there's so much you could do with it and
you just gotta experiment and think a little bit differently maybe.
Chenell Basilio: Totally.
Dylan Redekop: dj. Yes. Local newsletters. Sorry buddy.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Oh, that's great. Any other questions we wanted to
Dylan Redekop: Um, that's all I'm seeing, that I've seen in the chat, but somebody says they still use the hook helper after the 30 day challenge. That's awesome. I'm not sure who Lao
seven is, but that's great. Um, how tough is a music discovery niche to build a newsletter around?
Chenell Basilio: So me, [01:00:00] 2001.
Dylan Redekop: Music discovery niche. I, I think this tough personally because it music is so personal and so, I don't know. Subjective,
Chenell Basilio: Yeah, but I feel like there's those people who, and I'm not one of these people, I am like, let's listen to some nineties or like old school stuff. Um, and that's my go-to typically. But I feel like there are audio files who will actually seek out new music. So they'll like go into like the depths of Spotify and look for like people who only have like a hundred followers and they're like, discover these new artists.
So I actually kind of wonder, I feel like you could do this, but it would have to be for that very, very, very specific person, which is a good thing. Like niches aren't bad. That's a good thing. You just have to make it explicitly clear that it's not for like me or Dylan. You know, like it's a very type, specific type of person.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I think.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: I think it would be, it would be hard. I see. I see that as being a very hard nut to crack. Uh, like where do
you promote it? [01:01:00] Who do you, yeah, it could be really tough. For a while I was posting like playlists that I was putting together in my newsletter just for fun. 'cause I do love music and
I, I'm kind of like one of those people, like you mentioned Chenell, who likes finding sort of the random artists, but not everybody likes that.
And uh,
and so I just kinda stopped putting that in there. But I think it's still, it's still something like we talked earlier about finding your passion and writing about that and you never know, right? Some like what you think might just be something you enjoy. You could all of a sudden look at having 10,000 subscribers in a few years.
If you do it right and you do it well, you never know. So I don't want to say not to try. I think if, think if you love it, you should try it. Uh, just know, know when to throw in the towel if you're not loving it anymore or if it's just not getting, getting the traction that you thought it would.
Chenell Basilio: Yeah. But on the other side of things, there is a newsletter all about nineties culture and stuff that I'm like, I'm here for this. 'cause this is like my stuff.
So yes, it's a very specific niche, but yeah,
Dylan Redekop: I mean, there's a [01:02:00] whole
decade of people born in that, no, sorry. A decade worth of, you know, people born and growing up in that era that relate to it.
So stuff works too. Alrighty. I think, should we wrap there?
Chenell Basilio: yeah. Let's do it.
We didn't discuss the wrap, did we? Or did we? And I'm missing it. Okay.
Dylan Redekop: I, I thought for a second you were just gonna go over to the end stream. No, we gotta say bye to everyone.
Chenell Basilio: No, no, no.
Um, again, you have 20 more minutes to use that coupon code. The code is live. If you wanna buy the, the growth fault, uh, you'll get 50 per, not 50% off, $50 off, which is kind of like 25% off, I think. Um, yeah. So you can use that for the next 20 minutes if
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Half, half past the hour.
Chenell Basilio: stuff half
Dylan Redekop: Very cool.
Chenell Basilio: Um, but yeah, this is fun. I think we'll have to do this again. Yeah.
Dylan Redekop: Yes. And we will post this on
the feed, tj, don't worry. We we're gonna put this live.
Um, it'll, it'll be live as soon as I think we're done. I'm not honestly [01:03:00] not sure how YouTube lives work.
Um,
Chenell Basilio: this'll be live on YouTube as soon as we're done. Um, but we will post it on the podcast feed I think
Dylan Redekop: yeah. It's going out. It'll, it'll go out to audio next Wednesday, but if you wanna
re-watch it or re-listen to it on YouTube, you can do that. As soon as this is mostly basically over, you'll be able to watch it, uh, the whole thing. Yeah. The Awkward Exit.
That's right. I hope you're here for it.
Uh,
Chenell Basilio: This is like my MO is the awkward
Dylan Redekop: yeah,
Chenell Basilio: that's it. Yeah.
Um, no, but this is actually our last episode of the
Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Chenell Basilio: so we will actually be back in January-ish, uh, with some new episodes. So
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. We're gonna do, we're gonna do that thing that we talked about earlier about planning, um, during December.
Yes.
Chenell Basilio: And avoiding burnout.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, exactly.
Chenell Basilio: this isn't causing burnout, but yeah. It's good to take a
Dylan Redekop: No, but we're drinking our
Chenell Basilio: Good luck to the bears. Yes, thank you.
Dylan Redekop: Good luck
to the Bears,
Chenell Basilio: this'll be crazy if we win this. I [01:04:00] will be shocked.
Dylan Redekop: There was a poll, just to end on this note. There was a poll in a newsletter I read Fantasy Football Poll saying, which is the Fakest team right now in the NFL and the Bears were, were second, the Jaguars were
Chenell Basilio: Okay. We weren't, we
Dylan Redekop: Jaguars at seven and four. The Fakest seven and four record out there. The
Bears were second with their Fakest record at eight and three.
But I mean, you gotta give 'em props. They've won eight games, so.
Chenell Basilio: That's crazy. Crazy. Anyway, well go Bears. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Uh, if you haven't already had Thanksgiving a month and a half ago.
Dylan Redekop: I'm gonna go with Pecan Pie, so that's what I'm gonna do
Chenell Basilio: There you go.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
Chenell Basilio: Do it. You'll have to post about how it
Dylan Redekop: I will, if I can
find any.
Chenell Basilio: Well, thanks everybody. If you enjoyed this, please subscribe to the YouTube channel so that when we come back in January, you'll start seeing these again. And, uh, yeah, I guess we'll, we'll see you then.
Dylan Redekop: That's the pod.
Chenell Basilio: See.