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Discover how the best media brands and solo operators are winning at newsletter growth & monetization.
Hosted by SparkLoop's cofounder Louis Nicholls and SparkLoop's newsletter nerd, Dylan Redekop—we take you behind the scenes and share the strategies, trends, and tactics you need to know to build your email audience and revenue.
Featuring exclusive interviews with the smartest media experts and operators out there today. Including from the Hustle, Morning Brew, Workweek, The Pour Over, and more.
S&G - Jon Elder
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Louis Nicholls: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Send and Grow podcast. I'm your host, Louis Nichols. In my day job at SparkLoop, I spend all my time helping the best newsletter operators and media brands in the world to grow their audiences. So I get to see firsthand what growth tactics, strategies, and channels actually work, which ones you should copy, and what mistakes you should avoid.
And now with this podcast, you get that access too. Every week I sit down with a different guest from industry experts to successful operators, and we go deep on the stuff that you need to know so you can become really effective at growing and monetizing your email audience. Today I'm joined on the podcast by John Elder John's CV is super impressive.
He built and led a top 3000 seller on Amazon to a seven figure exit, and then he turned round and started his own newsletter, [00:01:00] amazon Insiders, to help other Amazon sellers do exactly the same thing. A little over a year later at his newsletter. Has over 10,000 subscribers, a huge number in such a small niche.
John, it is awesome to have you here with us today. Can you kick things off with the details of your newsletter in your own words? Yeah.
Jon Elder: Awesome. Well, uh, my, my name is John Elder and I started Amazon Insiders about a year and a half ago, and it really sprouted out from this idea of finding a new niche that really was related to a passion of mine.
So my background is selling on Amazon and did really well with it and exited my business in 2019 and pivoted over to consulting and then consulting led into the newsletter. And so the whole purpose of Amazon Insiders is really to. Provide Amazon sellers, um, you know, Most of the time these are like private label sellers, so they're selling their own brand, and the whole goal is to provide really good, valuable information for [00:02:00] people to grow their business faster.
So within a short time span, it's grown to be the fastest, it's the fastest growing newsletter for Amazon sellers. So, Most of the time you'll have agencies and software providers have newsletters, but it's all focused on their, uh, on their service. And so with mine, it's a really more of a community-based newsletter.
And so that's what's made it so popular. I actually just hit 10,000 I think it was yesterday, so that was a huge milestone. So the goal is a hundred thousand and, you know, capturing 1%. Of all Amazon sellers. So it's pretty ambitious, but it's really turning into a really awesome tool, not only for me just to get my name out there for what I do with consulting, 'cause I, you know, I, I obviously use it to pitch people for consulting services, but the really, the goal is, is to help people from a genuine, authentic way because the Amazon space is really notorious for scammers.
And so if I can help people sell the correct way, you know, follow the rules on [00:03:00] Amazon, make sure that you're not doing something that's gonna get your account suspended, that's, that's a great resource to have. Got
Louis Nicholls: it. Awesome. Congratulations on hitting the, the 10 K mark, joining the, the one and a bit comma club.
It's awesome.
Jon Elder: Yeah, it was tough. It felt like molasses. You know, I, people are always like, wow, that's so good. That's so crazy. But you know, it's day by day. I. Trying to tweak things, working on content, all of that stuff takes time and it was a lot of work to get to that point. Yeah,
Louis Nicholls: but I mean, that's a small sporting arena, right?
That's like a, a Texas high school football field size crowd, right? 10,000, that's Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It's an impressive thing if you, if you visualize them. I, I like to do that. So let's, let's start with, I think, a little bit more context on the, the audience, because it is, Super niche, and I imagine most people listening to this from the newsletter space, they, they probably wouldn't have a lot of context.
So help us to visualize this. Firstly, how often are you sending the newsletter and what can a, a typical subscriber, the kind of subscriber [00:04:00] you are, you are writing this for, what exactly are they actually getting outta the newsletter? Is it like advice? Is it news, entertainment? What are they getting outta it?
Jon Elder: Yeah, so my, my writing style is very, I don't wanna say in your face, but it's very, very blunt. So, you know, I use spicy language. I don't swear or anything, but I really like to get to the point of like, what really matters? Like what, what actually affects your business? Like, what tips actually work, you know, so I.
My goal of the newsletter is to make sure that I'm not writing a bunch of fluff. I don't use any AI for my content. So it's, it's very personal content and you know, it's really written for someone who is looking at selling on Amazon all the way up to big sellers. So I have, on my, on my landing page, I have people from Simple, modern, and Hex Glad who read it, and those are, those are eight figure brands.
But I, but I also have. You know, people who are just starting out on Amazon or maybe they just hit their first seven figures on Amazon. And [00:05:00] really the goal is a weekly basis. That issue goes out on on Tuesday, and the whole purpose of it is to provide one actionable hack. Per week, and I use hack kind of broadly.
It might be a a strategy, like right now I'm writing one about tips on how to not burn out with your Amazon business. And it could be something about a branding strategy. There's so much that goes into the Amazon space and it's only I. Getting bigger. People are really hungry for actionable advice they can, they can place into their business.
And so it's um, you know, weekly hack that directly impacts your business. I also have a new section, so on a weekly basis, Amazon's a really, like fast, it's fast paced and environment. So every single week there is. Some news related to Amazon that you as a seller, need to know. And so I include one new story and I basically, I rewrite that story in my own voice because what I'm trying to [00:06:00] do is help sellers understand how that news impacts their business.
So maybe it's a, uh, it's a new module on the platform that helps them understand the, the customer insights, you know, whatever that is. I try to be as detailed as I can with that, so it's very value packed. Really focused on, I'd say the range is, you know, 1 million a year to eight figures is kind of the range of of consumer for the newsletter.
Louis Nicholls: Got it. Okay. Awesome. And I wanna dig a little bit into sort of the origin story and how you've been, been growing the newsletter up to now. But before we do that, can you talk a little bit about the, the monetization of the newsletter? Do you have direct revenue streams? Indirect? Where does it sort of fit into like the business side of things?
Jon Elder: Yeah, so I, I do soft pitches, so at the very end of my newsletter, you know, I have two I, it's a little section I call, you know, two ways I can help out. But basically what that is, is, you know, I'm offering my one-to-one v i p consulting services, and then I'm also offering sponsorships. [00:07:00] So sponsorships play a role into the newsletter.
I have a section called Solutions Worth Checking Out, and really those are trusted tools that I promote. And those are partnerships with those software providers. And typically there's a special deal for, for my following. So if you're on the newsletter list, you'll get a unique discount that you can't find anywhere else.
So, you know, sponsorships involved, some affiliate marketing is involved as well. Those are kind of the, the, the basics of how I monetize it.
Louis Nicholls: Got it. Okay. And can you share any sort of revenue numbers on, on that? I
Jon Elder: don't know the exact number, but I, it is probably gonna hit right around a hundred K and that's, that's a huge leap from last year.
So last year was a lot of just growth and getting the word out, and now it's about consistent monthly income and growing that, you know, I, my goal with it is to, is for this to be the number one. [00:08:00] You know, resource for Amazon sellers, so it's very ambitious. My, you know, Amazon always, Jeff Bezos always said you have to think in terms of decades.
And so that's what I'm trying to do here is be really patient and think about what it's gonna look like in five, 10 years. And so it's, it, it will balloon in size over time.
Louis Nicholls: Got it. Well, I, I want to talk about, about that for sure. Before we do that though, let's talk about the, the beginning of the newsletter.
You've touched on the origin story a little bit already. But walk me through sort of the process of deciding to do issue number one, but let's start there. And then also from there, where did the. The first hundred subscribers come from. So if that's sort of like a related story, let's do both. Otherwise, let's, let's tackle issue one first and then jump into the, the first.
Jon Elder: Yeah, no, that's, that's actually, that's an easy one. So, you know, issue one, it was, you know, it was, it was an Amazon hack. I don't remember the exact topic, but very similar to what I do now. The very first group of people were, I was just sharing with my contact list with [00:09:00] consulting, so I, I said, Hey, I just launched this newsletter.
I've consulted you and hundreds of brands, so you're invited to subscribe. And then after that I started using Hype Fury on Twitter and, and LinkedIn and reposting my landing page. So that became really cohesive and that produced a consistent number of signups. Once I got that to be a well-oiled machine, I started doing newsletter swaps, so I targeted about 10 that were really established.
Some of them were service providers, so you know, Just think like a marketing agency for Amazon sellers. We just did a swap and so that worked pretty well. And then the real massive growth has been a SparkLoop obviously. So you know, that started, man, probably about six months ago, but I. I started working with Upscribe, and really placing emphasis on that and being really, really specific on who I want signed up.
So I never wanted to have, [00:10:00] you know, thousands upon thousands of sellers or subscribers who had no interest in Amazon. So I really wanted to be specific and, and, and so Scribe has been huge targeting. Entrepreneurs and other newsletters that, that have a general interest in that. And so there's a lot of, you know, direct to consumer brands who those brand owners are also interested in Amazon.
So there's a lot of overlap in that space. So that's been, that's been just explosive growth.
Louis Nicholls: Awesome. So that's, that takes us all the way up to the 10,000. Does it, that's that's a hundred thousand and, and the 10,000, yeah. Can we break it down a little bit more? So the first hundred, am I right in thinking that was essentially.
You've been doing consulting, you had this network and the first hundred basically came from from that, more or less. Is that, is that right? Yeah, because, because
Jon Elder: you know, when I started consulting in, let's see, 2020, so during Covid, that's when I started. So it's kind of weird to say that, but that's like during Covid I'm like, well, let's, let's start this [00:11:00] consulting thing.
So. I have a lot like hundreds of contacts. So that was a really easy, warm market. The trust was already there. I think that's the most important thing is people are only gonna read your newsletter if they trust you. And so, you know, my Amazon experience is pretty, it's pretty clear. And then clients, obviously they've had success working with me, so that was a really easy ask of them to sign up.
And then I even asked them to share freely, you know, if they wouldn't mind sharing on their social media. And so that was kind of the first. Leap or the first step, and then after that was, it was really just optimizing everything and then moving into newsletter swabs. Got it.
Louis Nicholls: Okay. It's really interesting.
There's a, a clear trend that I've seen across newsletter operators to get those first 100 subscribers where if you launch the newsletter and you. Don't know how you're going to get the first a hundred subscribers relatively quickly, that's often a sign that you're not necessarily ready to be writing a [00:12:00] really good newsletter about that, that topic yet.
Because if you don't know a hundred ish people who will happily sign up to read what you are writing about it, the chance that you actually do know what you're talking about and have sort of. Embedded yourself in the, the community well enough is, is very, very low. I mean, it might be possible, but in, as a general rule of thumb, I think yeah, the success rate.
Yeah. No, I think that's
Jon Elder: a good, it's a good, it definitely makes it harder if you don't have that. So like in the Amazon space, almost every single service provider knows my name and I know a lot of the CEOs of, of software companies. So the Amazon space is really small. Like if you could compare it to other industries, it's, it's not very big.
And so that was. Really nice to have that trust factor involved from day one.
Louis Nicholls: Yeah, I think it goes beyond just the, 'cause. You could have a newsletter operator, for example, who, or you could have an Amazon seller even who is very successful. I. And knows a lot about how to be a good Amazon seller, but if they don't have a large, a large-ish network and audience of [00:13:00] Amazon sellers already, they, they may have the, the information, the valuable information may be in their head, but they won't necessarily, like, they won't be able to write a good net newsletter about it necessarily.
'cause they won't have spent a lot of time talking to people about what they're struggling with and how to frame it and how to explain it. Right. So,
Jon Elder: Oh, for sure, for sure. And it's, it's kind of interesting. Right now I'm actually the only one doing this. So there are a lot of other newsletters that are more just kind of like, Just think, you know, 15 news links.
Mm-hmm. Related to the space, and there's no personal touch to it at all. But I think what's gonna happen as AI gets stronger and becomes more intelligent, those newsletters are gonna be kind of boring to people. You know, it's not gonna have that spicy element to it. You know, that personal touch of, this is my story, maybe this is a client's story, because AI is never gonna be able to basically take a, an analysis.
You know, I have one that I'm doing with Hex cla, and you know, someday I'm gonna meet Gordon Ramsey, but [00:14:00] I'm sitting down with the president and doing a, you know, top 10 tips of why they were so successful in Amazon. You know, AI's not gonna be able to do that because AI can't inherently have that relationship with the person and can't have that conversation.
So that uniqueness, I think people are gonna hunger for more over time and that's, That's kind of part of my long-term vision too, is to make it unique and separate that it's not just regurgitated content from ai.
Louis Nicholls: Yeah. Well, that's awesome. So let's talk a little bit more about, about that long-term vision.
You said earlier you want to hit a hundred thousand subscribers, you're at at 10 k now what's the, the plan to get there? Yeah, that
Jon Elder: is the a hundred thousand is the end of the calendar year for 2024. So by Christmas of next year. I should hit that. So the growth has obviously snowballed. So I have the referral program that's set up.
I have a pretty unique program for that. So my first, the first person that someone recommends or, or [00:15:00] signs up, they get my top five hacks directly emailed to them, and then it goes 10 signups, they get a hat, and then 25, it's a hundred dollars gift card for Amazon. So that is gonna become more and more popular over time.
I'll probably. You know, decrease the numbers to kind of juice it a little bit. And then obviously Upscribe and, and partnering with more newsletters over and over again all the time. You know, naturally as word gets out, as contents produced, especially on Twitter, more and more people are gonna be joining X and you know, that's gonna be something that's gonna balloon in size as well.
So it's like all of those elements are converging over the next year and, and I think that the a hundred thousand is, is definitely, definitely possible.
Louis Nicholls: Awesome. And then what does that unlock for you if you, if you achieve that in terms of how does the, the business model of the newsletter change? I mean, get, I guess firstly, will it still be you doing the writing?
Do you expect to have to hire a team? Do you expect to have to do community, for [00:16:00] example, different products? Yeah. What are you thinking?
Jon Elder: I haven't thought that far out. I like to keep things streamlined, honestly. So whether I have 10,000 or a hundred thousand subscribers, you know, there's probably a lot more back and forth with sponsors at that level than I have now.
So that'll change a little bit, but I don't, I don't see myself building out a team for the newsletter. You know, when people, you know, hire me as a consultant, if they wanna come and read the newsletter. They're reading something that's produced by an ex top 3000 seller on Amazon. They, you know, they trust me.
You know, I'm definitely a, a, a, a face in the industry where people recognize, and so I don't see a whole lot changing at that level. I think the only thing really that's gonna change, obviously my rates go up for sponsored content on the newsletter and things like that.
Louis Nicholls: Got it. Okay. So no plans for a, a community or a.
Uh, a course or something like that just yet. [00:17:00]
Jon Elder: There's definitely plans to do some sort of digital product. Mm-hmm. Kind of what j Justin Welsh does. That's kind of in the brainstorming phase right now because I get a lot of repetitive questions. So if I can have them just do a digital product, that's gonna make a lot of sense.
I, I kind of, I. I like the format of, in terms of monetize monetization, you know, having an offer for consulting. 'cause that's kind of, you know, that's, that's a really, really special thing that I do, that I really enjoy. And then sponsored content and then a digital products. I think a 1, 2, 3 would look really good long-term, but obviously it's always a big question of.
You know, the focus on the newsletter content, which is really important. And then also producing a digital product that's actually good. 'cause the digital product side, that takes a lot of time. I'd probably be looking at a couple hundred hours just for that project. And then balancing that with two kids, you know, working with my clients.
So I have to be really careful with, with time management
Louis Nicholls: for sure. Yeah. One of the interesting revenue [00:18:00] streams I've seen for newsletters like yours where you, you come in and it's sort of a high ticket consulting or. Or, or coaching item that's sort of the primary revenue stream outside of sponsorships and stuff.
One of the really interesting ones I've seen is this idea of asynchronous coaching or asynchronous consulting. You come across that before. If you look at, for example, um, I think Justin Moore, who was on the podcast recently, he's someone who does this really well where you use a tool like I think Clarity Flow is the, the, the most popular one.
And essentially people have a monthly subscription to you and they get coaching. In the form of sort of short, almost like loom style videos that they send in. And then you reply asynchronously when you have time and they can make a certain number of requests a month. So it's uh Oh. Interesting. Yeah, it's almost like having someone on retainer where you, you know, you don't quite know, you know, I, I don't necessarily want to do just one hour a month, but I also don't want to do an hour or two hours a, a week.
So just being able to send in a couple of requests, so for quick feedback and stuff can be, can be super [00:19:00] useful. Yeah.
Jon Elder: Yeah. No, that's a great idea. Yeah, I've de definitely not thought about that, but now I am. Yeah, I, I,
Louis Nicholls: I've even been thinking about it just for our own newsletter. 'cause it, it scales super well and it, uh, there are so many people where I think, you know, you wouldn't profit from, you know, an hour long, 90 minute call with us.
You know, given the stage of where your newsletter's at right now, like it wouldn't be a, a good investment of, of money. But, you know, a quick 10 minute request, can you just take a look at this or can you tell me what you think about this referral program or something like that?
Jon Elder: We'll call it, uh, TikTok feedback.
Yeah,
Louis Nicholls: yeah, yeah, for sure. Very cool. So that's on, on the monetization side of things. This was your, your first newsletter, right? Yeah. Sort of first proper newsletter business. Yeah, yeah,
Jon Elder: yeah. This is my first, and I, you know, to give you some background, I have researched and read probably 50 plus newsletters over many years thinking about.
How to start one, but it has to be niche. It has to be niched down. So I didn't want to do like a [00:20:00] broad like, oh, like marketing, like I wanted something that was very specific where I had a never ending supply of topics to write about that produced an action for people to take, and I've definitely cracked it when it comes to Amazon or Amazon insiders.
Yeah, and
Louis Nicholls: that's something that's interesting that I, I want to talk a little bit about is you obviously have a, a personal. You as a person being a, a very successful Amazon seller in the past, and that obviously lends a lot of credibility to this and, and is very important. I imagine. You know, people want your feedback and your hacks, your tips rather than just some tips from, from some guy or some brand at the same time, the newsletter is, it is branded, right?
It's not John Elder's newsletter. It's. Amazon seller and so on. Yeah, yeah. Amazon sellers. Yeah, Amazon seller. Sorry. Yeah. Why did you choose to have a standalone brand rather than just naming it your
Jon Elder: own newsletter? So everything that I've done with [00:21:00] Amazon in the past, it was all optimized for the potential to exit someday.
In case that opportunity arises, I want to be formatted properly where I can splice off a portion of what I do. So if someone comes along and says, Hey, you know, we, we wanna purchase a newsletter, I need it to be separate enough where that's possible. So on Amazon it's really similar, you know, you have everything run through an L L C and you have five brands.
That's how many brands I had. I, I needed to be able to. Separate those brands from the L L C entity, but also keep my entity. And so that's a really important thing. And I, and I teach this a lot with sellers, like making sure you are exit optimized. And I'm not, I'm not necessarily building it up to exit, but you know, that's something that.
It doesn't matter what you're doing in business. You need to have some sort of separation and brand it in a way where if, if there's, you know, maybe it's a private equity firm or maybe it's some other [00:22:00] Amazon service provider is like, Hey, we want to buy it from you. It needs, it needs to be able to. To peel off and be, and be sold properly.
So I did that by design just because my brain's wired to do that already with,
Louis Nicholls: with Amazon. Yeah, no, I, I love that. It's a great, it's a great decision. I think it's super smart. I, I see so many people who start off as creators with their newsletter and it's, it's branded under their own name directly, and.
That seems to give a real boost in the early days, especially if you have an existing audience elsewhere, but you very, very quickly reach a cap of I can't expand this in a way that makes sense, because people are expecting only to hear from me. So it has to be me writing and creating the content, and I can't sell it very easily because again, it's, it's branded under my name.
So that would require a name change as well and, and all of this kind of stuff. So I I I love that, that move. That's very smart. When we're thinking back to the, the newsletter so far, and you said it's been. What, 18 months? Is that right? Uh, it's been roughly
Jon Elder: 18 months. Yeah, I'd have to look up the exact date, but that's, it's
Louis Nicholls: been roughly about a year and a [00:23:00] half, a year to two years of, of doing it.
What do you think are some of the, I don't wanna say the lessons learned, but like the things that have shocked you that, that you didn't expect sort of going in, and that could be around growth, monetization, the writing process, and really anything, just something that sort of stood out to you as like, well, this is.
Not what I was expecting. You
Jon Elder: know, I think in the beginning, probably the first 500, it was, it was still shocking to see people actually sign up. You know, I think a hesitation with anyone, you know, especially if you're brand new to something like a newsletter of like, oh, people are actually interested in what I'm saying.
Like that's, that's a pretty surreal feeling. That feeling is similar on Amazon. It's like, oh my gosh, I have thousands of customers every single day. Holy cow. Like that's, that's pretty amazing. Like people really love my product. So that's, you know, that was always surprising in the beginning of like, I.
You know, people actually are interested in it. And then just people just organically sharing. That's been surprising too because, you know, there's really, you know, that was before I had my referral program set up, [00:24:00] you know, seeing people share willingly and not getting anything in, in return. So I call those, you know, good friends.
Um, the feedback as well, you know, when I think when I. Started the newsletter. I wasn't expecting a lot of responses to email, but every single issue that I do every week, I have time allotted to respond to those people. So there might be a question that expands on a newsletter that I sent out. It might be a question about the Amazon related news.
So that's been interesting people. Using the email as a, a source of conversation has been pretty
interesting.
Louis Nicholls: Awesome. Yeah, I, I love that. I think it's, it's so underrated to use that as a metric, especially now with, with opens and clicks being a little bit of a challenging metric to use, can be some inflation on those.
With Apple and everything, seeing the number of. Replies coming in, and also the amount of sharing that's happening. Those really for me, alongside potentially, you know, purchases if you have something that you're selling directly, those are really the, the [00:25:00] metrics that tell you how well your, your newsletter is doing.
Yeah, it's encouraging. Yes. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I mean, that's what we say to people and they come to us and want to do referrals. You know, they come and they say, well, how quickly can we grow with a referral program? And we have to sort of sit them down and say, well, how many people are sharing at the moment?
Because the best rewards in the world for your referral program, they're only going to to multiply what's already happening, right? If your newsletter currently isn't good enough for anyone to want to share it, Adding rewards onto that is only, you know, it's not going to change much really. Whereas if people are already sharing Right.
Adding rewards onto that, it's just gonna put fuel on the fire. Yeah, that's so true. That's a really good point. Well, one thing that I find interesting and I want to ask you a quick question about is how you bridge the gap between the newsletter and sort of the, the consulting or the coaching services that you're offering.
Mm-hmm. Do you have a, a podcast of your own? Uh,
Jon Elder: no. So I, I go on a lot of podcasts. I don't have my own [00:26:00] podcasts, but I do a soft pitch at, at the end of every single email. I offer those two ways that can help people out. One's for sponsors and then the other one's for one-on-one consulting. And so I, I basically just keep it simple.
I'm like, if you, if you're interested in this, if you're interested in taking your Amazon business to the next level, here's my Cal Calendly link and I let them kind of take action there.
Louis Nicholls: That's awesome. Have you, have you done any, any videos or anything that you share with
Jon Elder: people? Actually, no. So the only videos I've done is really podcast interviews.
Mm-hmm. I haven't done any short form contents. I have zero YouTube exposure. So yeah, it's been, it's been pretty much, it's really similar to what Justin has done. I, I, I, I always go back to him because I kind of model a lot what I do after him, but it's very text heavy. So focus a lot on, on, on, uh, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Louis Nicholls: It's interesting. I, I'd be interested to see if you did experiment with the occasional podcast episode or YouTube thing, what that would do for the conversions. Because one of the things we've noticed is if you're selling high ticket items, [00:27:00] Where you're going to be spending face time with someone on your newsletter, essentially, where they're gonna be paying to, to speak to you.
One of the things that seems to really bridge the gap in terms of conversions is them getting the opportunity to see your face and to hear your voice, and to feel like their relationship with you in advance. So I'd be very interested to see what that, what that did in terms of making people more. Yeah.
So give them a closer relationship with you and feel more comfortable and, and potentially, yeah, definitely. Yeah. Purchase. That would be,
Jon Elder: yeah, it's definitely something to look at long term. Yeah, it, it's, I've been so focused on content production and threads on Twitter that I just, I just honestly had just have not given the time to video production, it's also kind of a scary element, you know, putting yourself out there.
That would be, it would definitely be outside of my comfort zone, but definitely something to look at.
Louis Nicholls: Yeah. What's something that you are excited to try out in the near future? Oh,
Jon Elder: man. Prob probably the [00:28:00] videos. You know, I, I've, I actually get pitched a lot of, they're like short form agency. I. You know, type, type services.
I think probably the realistic next step is to do short little clips, like maybe do film like an hour long content session and then have that marketing agency do a little clips that I can share, share on social media. That's probably the next step that I'll probably experiment with. I don't see myself doing like hour long YouTube videos, things like that, just because of the, the time that it takes.
Louis Nicholls: Yeah, totally, totally. So I have two more questions, and the first one of them is we've talked a little bit about things that surprised you as you were growing the newsletter. And a lot of what we've talked about seems to have gone really well, which is kind of makes sense after all. You're kind of sitting here with, with me rather than at home with 10 subscribers.
And you know, we don't tend to invite people on when nothing's gone well. What's something that didn't go well for you? Something that you tried and just I. [00:29:00] Absolutely fluff.
Jon Elder: Yeah. You know, I wish I could go back in time and, and, and capture money, but I've done a couple, like smaller little advertise advertisements in newsletters and they just haven't panned out.
You know, if you look at, you know, the return on investment, it's pretty poor. So, you know, I find that genuine newsletter swaps work better. You know, coming from a very personal, you know, it, it's an obvious exchange because if you're signed up on both new newsletters, you're gonna see that. But it's a real, it comes across as more authentic because you actually are recommending each other and there's no exchange of of money.
I think part of the problem with that too is that Amazon Insiders is so specific. That it's really hard to find like really good newsletters that would work for, you know, doing a, an ad with them. So that definitely historically did not work well.
Louis Nicholls: And I guess one other thing that I should have touched on, and I forgot to, but I want to pick it up back now while [00:30:00] we still have time, is the sponsorship side of things.
'cause you said, I think that that's one of the main revenue streams you have for the newsletter that you plan on growing in the future. Yeah. And also that it's one of the main sort of soft pitches that you have in the newsletter itself, right? Is that where the bulk of the, the sponsorships are coming from, or are you doing any outreach sort of manually or otherwise to get?
Um,
Jon Elder: I do a little bit. I'd say it's very minimal. I have a lot of great relationships already, you know, establishing exclusive relationships with various software companies, but a lot of that is just, Maybe posting once in a while on Twitter saying like, Hey, I just landed another sponsor. If you're a software provider for Amazon sellers, feel free to reach out.
You know, I, I don't do that very often, but most of the time it's the, the provider's on the newsletter that click the link for my sponsorship that takes them to a media kit. And then if they're interested in the media kit, then they fill out a form and then I get that, and then, and then we take it from there.
Louis Nicholls: Very cool. I guess that's one of the, the advantages [00:31:00] and the disadvantages of having such a super niche focused newsletter is there aren't many sponsors out there that could potentially be, be an interesting fit, but the ones who are a good fit, it's probably super easy to discover them and you know, to convince them.
Jon Elder: So the, the Amazon space really interesting. There are. Probably easily 500 potential sponsors actually, and they're hungry. You know, these are capital providers for lending, you know, analytics tracking software. There's a lot out there in the words getting out. Obviously that my audience is amazing for that, and that's actually one of the new.
One of the things upcoming is reaching out to each of those companies over time, so that, that's obviously a lot of effort. I've had a lot of companies just reach out to me right away, but it would shock people. You know, how many potential sponsors, you know, that exist for the space. So it'll be, it'll be real interesting to see what the reception is when I, when I reach out to them.
Louis Nicholls: Awesome. Well, my last question of today is we've been here [00:32:00] for about oh, 40 ish minutes or so. Yeah. And I've asked you lots of questions about the newsletter. Is there any question that I didn't ask that you think I should have done?
Jon Elder: No, I, I don't think so. I think we covered everything. I, I, you know, I'll just, I'll just add my own little, like little tidbit at the end.
I think for anyone listening, if you have a story to tell, that is gonna be extremely attractive to people over time, I. So many times newsletters are very, well, they're just boring. If you have a unique experience, like maybe you're the king of storage units or you can shed light on the construction industry, for example.
Wherever there's an opportunity like that, you should go into that because people are gonna be, I. I'm really interested in that, in that angle that you have. So that, that was an inspiration for me going into this was one, I actually love writing, so I love sharing my thoughts on things and helping people.
So that was kind of natural. And then obviously I have a very unique story and so any [00:33:00] anyone listening, I'd encourage them to go down that road and just start. Yeah.
Louis Nicholls: Awesome. Well, that's, I think, a great proactive place to, to leave it. John, where can people find you and the newsletter and to follow along?
Jon Elder: Yeah. Um, so, uh, I, I have a main website that has the link at the very top on the menu. Uh, it's black label advisor.com and that's my consulting website. And then you can find my links on LinkedIn and Twitter. On on Twitter, my handle is black label a d vsr. It's shortened a little bit, obviously, and I should call it X because Twitter's dead, but you can find it on my profile.
I, I can send, uh, Louie a, a link to share as well.
Louis Nicholls: It'll be in the show notes. Yeah, we'll, we'll record it with both the Twitter and the X versions because we, we don't know which one will still be surviving, if any. When this comes out and, yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Jon Elder: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, it's great to be on the show and you know, anyone who's, who's listening, if you're interested in Amazon or you're already on Amazon, it's really, Amazon's side [00:34:00] is really for you.
So the whole, the whole purpose of, of why I write is to help you and your business and you know, I'm always here. I respond to every single email literally. So it was great connecting with you today. Thanks for having me on the
Louis Nicholls: show. Awesome. Thanks John. Best of luck with the newsletter growth, and we will hopefully have you back on again when you hit that, that a hundred K milestone.
Oh, definitely,
Jon Elder: definitely looking
Louis Nicholls: forward to it. Awesome. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Send and Grow podcast. If you liked what you heard, here are three quick ways that you can show your support. Number one, Leave us a five star rating or review in the podcast app of your choice. Number two, email or dmm me with some feedback with your questions or with suggestions for future episodes.
And finally, number three, share your favorite quote from the episode on social media and tag both me and our guest, all of the links for that are available in the show notes and whatever option you choose. I am really grateful to your support. Thanks, [00:35:00] and see you next week.