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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.
EP 30 - Amanda Goetz
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Dylan Redekop: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Send and Grow podcast. I'm your host, Dylan Rettigoff. In my day job at Sparkloop, I spend all my time analyzing how the best newsletter operators and media brands in the world grow and monetize their audiences. I get a behind the scenes look at how they're growing their newsletters and driving revenue, and there is so much to learn from their success and from their mistakes.
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 about, so you can become really effective at growing and monetizing your newsletter. Today I'm excited to welcome Amanda Goetz, the creator behind the Life's a Game newsletter.
With a rich background spanning startup founding, brand management, and a transformative role at The Knot, Amanda has now turned her talents to the world of newsletter publishing. Life's a game is not just a newsletter. It's a reflection of Amanda's journey, offering a mix of personal insights and professional strategies.
We'll dive into how she's navigating the challenges of monetization, subscriber [00:01:00] engagement, and content creation. We'll also explore her perspectives on the future of newsletters and her advice for aspiring creators. Amanda, it's fantastic to have you here. I'd love if you could start by sharing your story of startup founder to newsletter publisher.
Amanda Goetz: So I've definitely had a non linear journey. That's for sure. So yeah, about 10 years ago, launched my first startup. Really the start of that was because I met a serial entrepreneur through some nonprofit work. And I was, I had been in the wedding industry for a while. I managed a celebrity wedding planner's brand.
So I knew the industry for many years. And he was actually gonna buy the rights of a, it was like an MBA project and he was going to buy it because they were brokering canceled weddings, which apparently 40 percent of engagements. And so it was a very interesting stat. We started to dive into it and we realized that there could be a marketplace [00:02:00] around brokering last minute availability because vendors, you know, have to refund that money.
They have the open date, whatever. So that was the start of my first startup. And the thing that I will say about my first startup is. It was the first time I was managing engineers, managing a backlog, understanding, you know, how to figure out product market fit. And I did a one year accelerator. This was back in 2011, 2012, when the New York city tech scene was first heating up.
Like union square ventures was fairly new. There was a ton of meetups and founders getting together. It was such a cool time to be in New York city. And I view that year where I did an accelerator program. And was all in on that startup as like my mini MBA, I learned how to be a founder. I learned the ups and downs, how one day you think that you're going to be a billionaire.
The next day you think that it's going to fail and you're going to shut down like that roller [00:03:00] coaster that as a first time founder, you ride. So extreme from there that actually led me to The Knot where they hired me to lead is go to market strategy as they were shifting from a media company to a two sided marketplace.
So it was, you know, everybody knows it as a magazine and all about advice. It's the like 25 year old SEO wedding gorilla in the room. But they were shifting to a two sided marketplace. They brought in a new CEO from Google. And so I got to be there during those five years where we took the company private through a private equity firm merged with the big, our biggest competitor, I started taking on international brands.
So I led India, UK and Canada, and then pandemic hits. I had been thinking about launching a startup. I had been at The Knot for five years. I was starting to get that itch when you've done it once you start to like [00:04:00] You can see it coming. You start to think about a problem and you can't stop thinking about it.
And then all of a sudden you have decks created and roadmaps and, and you're like, okay, am I going to do this again? And so I actually, when COVID hit. I, I launched it on the side. I started thinking about it. I started telling people about it. I kind of accidentally raised $400,000 and accidentally. Yeah.
Well, cause I was talking to VCs that I knew from my ecosystem and someone was like, it was really early in the low alcohol movement when I was launching House Of Wise. And so somebody, you know, This is 2020. So this is before, you know, Ukraine and all the things that happened in 2022, that really stopped the VC capital into CPG companies, but yeah.
So launched another startup in 2020 raised over 2 million for that. And. [00:05:00] Learned so much and, and it's 2023 right now, looking back, like, I don't think I could launch House Of Wise the way I did now because the funding is just different. The landscape is so many people come to me for funding advice for a CPG business.
I'm like, this is a different game now. So did that. And then, yeah, now sold House Of Wise last summer. Yeah. Thank you. And went and took like a VP of marketing position just to kind of like get back into the marketing world, figure out if I wanted to like, go back into a CMO track again. And I actually had a call with Justin Welsh, who I'm sure many people on this listening to this podcast know.
And I owe him so much because he really was like, why aren't you building your own thing? Why aren't you? You have 100, 000 followers on Twitter. You haven't [00:06:00] monetized a dollar from them. Like, why aren't you thinking about this? And I really had to like, stop and be like, what are my limiting beliefs? Like, what, what am I holding on to?
That's preventing me from thinking that I am so different than. Justin and that I can't do what he's doing. I can't in Sahil's, a great, great friend of mine. I look at them and I'm in awe of what they do. And I had to really check myself to say, well, why do I feel like I cannot do what they're doing?
And it was weird because. I coach people on how you don't need to seek permission from anyone else. And yet Justin telling me I can do this was so important to me. Like it was the kick I needed to be like, okay, what does step one look like? And step one for me was. [00:07:00] Can I own my audience? Can I move them from 125, 000 followers to newsletter subscribers?
And that was phase one. And that's kind of really what I'm in right now is phase one. Because now it's like, okay, I have a newsletter. I've been showing that I can produce content, high quality content every single week, maintain a 60 percent open rate. We're nearing 20, 000 subscribers. And I'm like, okay, I've proven that to myself.
Now, can I start to like, you know, add revenue streams to it? And so I have launched, you know, two revenue streams over the past six weeks. So for anybody listening, I am still very early in this, this game. So hopefully that's, that's a signal to someone who's kind of like, I don't know if I can do this, like I didn't either.
And you just have to start. And so this is your permission to just start.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah, and which [00:08:00] is very needed for a lot of people. I remember being kind of in a similar spot in terms of the mindset as you back in probably about 2020 before I started a newsletter and it was like, well, yeah, you know, the people that are writing it, they know what they're doing and they're right.
They're better than me, you know, so to speak better writers or what have you bigger audiences. And so I can't remember what the spark was, to be honest, but something in me was just like, I was sick of making excuses for myself essentially. And just like, you got to just hit publish on that first episode and our first step edition and just go and just, and just start.
So you. Hadn't run a newsletter in the past at least not for you know yourself or a personal brand if you will When you announced it this past summer, I think in May you announced it at least on Twitter what I saw that you were launching a newsletter What was the reception and feedback like to that?
We was a warm or did you have a lot of people asking questions? so
Amanda Goetz: When I announced it, the people weren't like really a newsletter. Cause I write on Twitter every single day and I write [00:09:00] pretty lengthy threads and the question I got more was not a marketing newsletter. Like you're the brand person, you know how to launch brands, you are a CMO.
And it was something that I really had to sit with for a while because, you know. Everybody knows the phrase, like the riches are in the niches or niches, however you want to say it. But yeah.
Dylan Redekop: And it sounds a lot better when you say a niches, of course, but
Amanda Goetz: everybody was like, you could start something around marketing, CMO brand, et cetera.
But for me, if I was going to step into this world of being content creator, I had to start to think. Really like five to 10 years from now. What, where do I want to take my career in my life? There were a few things that, that popped into my head, which are like, what lights me up right now in my life is helping other people.
I have now been doing this for about 20 years and I love like. [00:10:00] Sharing all the things that I've learned along the way, whether it's starting companies or going through a divorce with three kids and having a massive, you know, leaving a team of 50 people at the time, there's so much that I love to share and I wasn't willing to pigeonhole myself into.
A very niched newsletter. So that was the, that was like the biggest question I think I got was like, if you would do this as marketing, you'd make 10 times more money and you know, half the time. So I was very aware that I was going to be climbing, running a marathon, not a sprint. Like when you don't go niche, you are definitely setting yourself up for a longer horizon.
But I was okay with that. Cause this is. Stepping into this world of being a content creator is really like a decade long pursuit for me.
Dylan Redekop: [00:11:00] Yeah, I, and I'd argue that maybe you are going somewhat niche because you're the only you, you're the only one who's shared the experiences you've had. You're the only one who can, you know, support people based on what you've experienced and give that advice.
So in a lot of ways, I feel like going into a marketing newsletter, and there's some really good ones out there, don't get me wrong, but they are a dime a dozen these days, you know, marketing newsletters. And so the good ones definitely stand out and I'm, I have no doubt you'd be able to craft a good one.
But I think it's really interesting that you went with more of the. Personal journey and the personal brand sort of as your, as your angle, especially considering, I think a lot of people would find value in your story and, and who follow you would probably be even that much more interested in just what you have to say about those kinds of topics.
So I don't know. It's, it looks like it's It's been a good move so far. I'm, I'm wondering, you kind of answered this question a little bit already when you talked about Justin Welch, but you already had, you know, a job as a VP right now of marketing
Amanda Goetz: for a company. Yeah. I left the corporate world. So I did step away two months ago, so I've been on.[00:12:00]
Yep. But yeah, I was just a VP of marketing at a massive company and I was leading innovation, which was super cool. I definitely was like, after you sell a company and you're like, you were your own boss and you were like in charge of everything going back into like a role where I didn't have complete control of my calendar over the roadmap.
It was just like, I definitely was struggling in that. And so it was, it was time to, to go all in, which also like removing my safety net is always. Like a forcing function for me to get into high gear. And so things that I was like, Oh yeah, I'll do that later. I do. I'll do that later. Like once I gave notice.
I was like, Oh shit, I got to do this. And so I joke like the last two months of stepping out on my own, I've worked harder than I have in years, but [00:13:00] it's also so worth it. Cause it's, you're one, you're figuring out passive revenue streams. I try to like. work really hard towards a goal that will be scalable.
And, and two, it's just like, it's so fun when you own it all.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Oh, totally. You've got the, you got the reins and you get to kind of reap the rewards and. I mean, share with them with your team if you have one, but there's definitely some benefits there and some motivational factors. Um, so with your experience, especially The Knot with the five years, they're running marketing was there.
Did you have any experience with kind of the newsletter, the newsletter as a, as a form of marketing? I'm sure there was, you know, like. The classic, you know, email marketing, especially with, you know, CPG products and that sort of thing. But did you have an experience with writing a kind of recurring newsletter with any of those businesses?
And if so, did you bring those into what you're doing now?
Amanda Goetz: So [00:14:00] email marketing was huge for The Knot for sure. We did a lot more personalization though with that because we knew somebody's wedding date. We knew where they were in their planning journey, but House Of Wise. So the founders of pop sugar, Brian and Lisa sugar and sugar capital were our lead investors in our seed round and understanding and the intersection of media and commerce was a big pillar for House Of Wise.
And so we actually brought on Our editor in chief of House Of Wise came from pop sugars, early editorial team and built out. So email marketing and specifically our weekly newsletter was a huge driver of our sales because House Of Wise, because it was a cannabis company, CBD and supplements. It was. We couldn't advertise, so 95 percent of our sales were organic and 60 percent of those came from email.
And the way [00:15:00] we did that was, it was truly about, we were a media company. We were, we were creating content around. Sleep, sex, stress, and strength, how to help women, you know, seek, create permission for them to take up space in their own lives for those pillars. We brought in guest contributors and every single week, our newsletter was packed full.
Of great content, almost like they were subscribing to a media company. Now, this is not new. This is a very Goop and Poosh model, but for us, it really, really was powerful. And the thing that I took from that, that I'm bringing into now Life's A Game is a very different approach to ad sales and partnerships because with House Of Wise, it was a newsletter.
That the only product we were selling was our products. [00:16:00] And I, with life's a game and thinking through what is the actual value of, of a media placement and can I make more from a product I own versus selling the impressions to someone? And I am, I'm figuring out very quickly that the answer is. Yes, I can.
I can drive those eyeballs to further offers that I have and increase the LTV of a customer and continue to build the trust and own, own that ecosystem. So I've created very, very like strict boundaries and guardrails around when I take on a true, um, sponsor.
Dylan Redekop: Okay. Okay. And so in terms of, let's talk a little bit about revenue.
We don't have to get into exact numbers, but in terms of revenue streams right now, what are they [00:17:00] for, for your Life's A Game, the newsletter?
Amanda Goetz: Yeah. So Life's A Game. There is sponsor, right? So I do package that. So someone cannot just buy a placement right now. It's, it's what I call an octopus, not a swordfish.
Um, they, they get access to my Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and newsletter because I believe the power of multi touch campaigns. So, um, that is the sponsor revenue stream. Okay. Next revenue stream is I have what's called office hours, which has three tiers to it. It's, uh, you can just sign up and get access to the weekly videos that I create about my creator journey.
So it's a behind the scenes of my road to becoming a content creator. So it's way more accessible learning tier two is actually getting into group coaching. I have a Slack channel that I'm in every day for one to two hours reviewing people's newsletters or, you know, launch strategies. [00:18:00] Offer matrix. And then the third tier is a one on one coaching.
I take five people a month and I actually do one on one coaching with them. So that's now the main funnel. Somebody comes in to learn from me and then they can push to this other offer category. I also then launched break an egg. With another content creator, which I think is going to be huge in 2024. I think we're going to see a lot more content creators coming together.
Collaborations. Yeah. And it, it was insane. We launched a webinar. We launched it with a webinar. We had over 2, 000 people sign up for the webinar. We had 600 people attend the webinar and, you know, we had a thousand people subscribe to a paid newsletter in a week. And. So that now, like the way I think about my offer matrix is I always think about.
What are my different [00:19:00] categories of people who are reading my stuff? And then do I have a free, low, medium, high offer for that? It's a matrix. And so for me, break an egg was a no brainer because I don't have anything that is a super low accessible price point for someone who is just wanting to take up a bit more space on social media.
And so it was a perfect fit. Um, what is the price point on break an egg? It's 5 a month and they get an email a day. It's a prompt a day. Wow. Yeah. So it's, look, it's, it's not. And they also get a private LinkedIn community, which is now turned into a massive engagement pod where basically they, they get their prompt at 8 AM.
They go write the LinkedIn post and they drop it into the LinkedIn group and they automatically get, you know, 50 people. Liking there. And so for 5 a month, it's like a no brainer for so many people. [00:20:00] So, yeah. So that's how I think about like the offer matrix and the revenue streams.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. And that reminds me a lot of Nathan Barry familiar with convert kit CEO who talks about, I believe he calls it kind of like the product ladder or the, the offer ladder as well.
Like when you have to have something in different steps and Louie, our co founder also calls it like the rule of tens, you know, a hundred percent of people can, can buy your free product or opt into your free offer. And then Yeah. You know, every 10 percent that you decrease their, the money goes up and the amount of people who will opt in will go down.
Yeah. So it's really smart. And you know, you've been in business for a while, so it sounds like you've got it figured out pretty good. And a lot of people I think should, should look into those, those offers a little bit more, or at least that, that product matrix. Do you have anywhere that you share articles on that at all that we could link to?
Amanda Goetz: Really, it's all been in office hours, but, um, maybe I should write a newsletter on it.
Dylan Redekop: Maybe, maybe it could be helpful. Okay. So you, one thing about, actually, let's just say, first of all, you've been writing life's a [00:21:00] game. I believe you launched it in June, if I'm not mistaken. So we're coming up on six months, pretty close.
So congrats. You've stuck with it for six months and it's a once a week newsletter, correct? Yes. And so my, my assumption, and correct me if I'm wrong, you've probably been reading newsletters longer than you've been writing them. But even now in your journey of writing them, what makes to you, what makes a newsletter like a must open or a must read to you?
Amanda Goetz: Number one thing is original content. I, there are a few newsletters that you can tell they've, it's a system they're figuring out how to drive. Sales and it feels just like a sales vehicle for me. I want to see someone really who's passionate about the writing and that they actually care about the content, not just the sale that they're getting from me.
And as we see newsletters grow. It's really important to understand, like, give and [00:22:00] take, and I have a 90 10 rule, like I have to provide 90 percent of value in that. And only 10 percent can be asking something of them. And if, if that ever. And I look at other newsletters and I say, do I see 90 10 or is it really 30 percent of value?
You gave me a few links to articles and then now you're asking me to do all of these things. And that's just how I, I look at newsletters now, now being on this side of it. And that, and when I read them to like really looking for people who genuinely care about the content, even if it's a marketing newsletter, like, do I see that that person cares about brand brands?
Like they've been doing it for a while. They don't just see this as a cash grab. And Like they put their own frameworks, their own like analysis behind it and why they think it works. So [00:23:00] the uniqueness is going to really be a thing that stands out in 2024.
Dylan Redekop: Well, and actually leads me perfectly into the next question because.
You know, something that really stands out to me from your newsletters, how actionable you make it most editions. There is, if you want to explain to the, to the listeners, how you kind of structure, but there's a, you know, it's my turn, it's your turn sort of thing. And I really appreciate that because so many newsletters, it's just kind of like.
An info dump. And you know, we're at the point where some of us might be a little bit oversubscribed to, you know, our inboxes are full. We don't have time to read everything, even if the value is really there. Can you explain to our listeners kind of how you structure your newsletter and how you get readers to take action?
Amanda Goetz: Yeah. So it's called life's a game and I am a marketer. So of course I want to bring in any kind of terminology that, that comes from gaming. So it's broken into, uh, two sections, primarily my turn, your turn, and then there's a let's play together. And that's the like offers that I have, if they want to go [00:24:00] deeper on anything, but my turn is to Talking about something, usually something I've experienced or I've learned through, you know, I've done a decade of executive coaching.
I have been in both talk therapy and CBT therapy. So I will bring something forward that I believe is powerful and a tool that I've used. Then it goes to your turn quickly and it says, okay, you just learned this. How do you actually apply it? And that is always going to be like, You Steps tips questions to ask yourself if you want to get curious about this thing that I'm sharing and or like a routine that I use that you can steal like I still talk about like how I doubled my linkedin following in eight weeks and That's like, okay, my turn.
Here's what I was thinking when I did it, why I did it your turn. Okay. Here's my five step routine in the morning. You can steal it. So everything I want someone to, [00:25:00] it's kind of my, my progression of therapy too. It's like talk therapy. I went, I did it for so long. I was like, cool. I now know all this stuff, but then there's the like, so what do I do about it?
And then going to CBT therapy, which is all action based, I was like, Oh, cool. This person's like literally telling me, okay, you know, this thing triggers you. Here's what to do now. And I'm like, this is the stuff that I feel like is missing from so much information. We're on an information overload. It's like, how do I make this personal and actionable in my life?
And that was really important to me.
Dylan Redekop: And I, it's, you can see it in the content. So kudos to you for, you know, putting that out there because I found it helpful and I'm sure lots of people, other people do as well. I noticed something as well, when I was just kind of doing a little bit of a dive on some stuff, content you've created on Twitter at the beginning of the year, you put out a long thread.
And one thing I noticed that you took out of there is I have to be excited about what I'm working on. Otherwise I have zero motivation. And first of [00:26:00] all, I can 100 percent relate to this, you know, being excited about writing about something definitely helps big time for context. I think this was part of a thread where you're writing some lessons you learned, and this was specifically in reference to writing about tax legislation, which props to you for surviving that.
Uh, I don't know. I don't think I could have made it past day one, but how do you, how will you. If you have had to yet, I'm not sure, but how do you keep the excitement level high for writing something like life's a game so you can stay motivated to write and publish a weekly newsletter? Because I think a lot of people who are either considering starting to write a newsletter or already have started and maybe they're hitting a little bit of that, you know, It's exciting.
The first few public additions you publish and then you start kind of, it starts feeling like more of a choice. How do you keep that excitement level up or what would be your advice?
Amanda Goetz: I'll share two tactical tips. Um, the first one is I have what I call an ideation station, which is literally a Google sheet that any time I'm inspired by something, I have it open at all times.
I'll drop it in there. So say I see [00:27:00] somebody go deep on the neuroscience of procrastination. I'm using that one. Somebody wrote an article about procrastination. It was very tactical. And I was like, I wonder what happens to our brain when we procrastinate. And so then I like put that into my ideation station.
Cool. So that's number one. Like you're constantly seeing other people talk about something. That's an idea. Put it in there. Then when I sit down to, I have a very like systematic way of writing the newsletter. So Saturday mornings, I get up before my kids are up. It's my time where I don't feel pressure because it's not a work day And that's my idea day And what happens is when I sit down I open up my ideation station And what tends to happen is I will start a skeleton of probably three Topics, because I will say I pick neuroscience of procrastination.
Say, I look at thinking about goal [00:28:00] setting, what's stopping you, whatever the topics are. I will start those. Then I will start researching, see what studies are out there on procrastination, and I will see what lights me up and where my energy starts to go. That's the newsletter I choose to write. So on Saturday I just am doing almost like an energy audit of what I get pumped about.
And then I pull all the research that I want to, you know, use for that week's newsletter. I get the skeleton done. Great. Sunday morning is when I actually write the newsletter. That's, I now know what I'm excited to write about. I've been thinking about it all day Saturday. I sit down on Sunday and I'm like so jazzed to write about it. So give yourself these vehicles and systems, because if you just sit down with a blank sheet of paper and you're like, I have to do this and send it tomorrow, there's no way I would be able to do that.
Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I, I [00:29:00] would say, you know, guiltily I have. You know, suffered out a session like that.
And usually those are the lower performing articles or newsletters, right? Because I think you can feel that you're, you're not as excited to write it. And the audience can sense that as well, too. I'd love to know what's working best for you. I know it's only been four or five months coming up on six, but what's been working best for you with growing your newsletter since you started it?
Amanda Goetz: So something that I learned from Justin Welsh that I see really the best newsletters doing is he calls it hub and then pre hub post hub. But this idea that every single week you, you are promoting your content. It's such a silly thing, but as creators, and I see it in my office hours crew as well, we do this really hard thing and we get it done.
And then it's almost like we're scared to tell people we did it. And so every Thursday, my newsletter goes [00:30:00] out. So every Wednesday, you're going to see a post on Twitter and LinkedIn about what that topic is and telling people to sign up. So Justin has a formula for this. He teaches it in his LinkedIn operating system.
So I strongly recommend people go to that if they're struggling with how to frame these things. So that's number one. I have my pre hub, my hub and then my post hub. So hub is actually you talk about what was in the newsletter. You have a thread, whatever. Your post hub is where you Recall and say, yesterday I shared with 17, 000 people how to grow their LinkedIn audience.
If you missed it, you can read it here because now I have it on my blog content and I can just send people to my, all of my Life's A Game content. Cool. So that's number one. Number two is I use a couple of tools, but auto like adding a tweet to a thread. Five, 10 minutes later, or I have triggers where it's like, if this tweet gets over a [00:31:00] hundred likes, add this, um, sign off.
And so again, it's constantly reminding people that you have this thing and there's value to it. And I just think that people assume that a link in bio is them promoting it and it feels icky to talk about your thing. But you have to, and we know rules of advertising is someone has to hear something seven times before they purchase it.
The same goes for newsletters. You have to tell them over and over again. And then I usually have one, one post a week. That's literally just a promotion post where I'm like, Life's A Game has grown to this, like join. If you're looking to do X, Y, and Z sign up here. So that's all the organic side. Then on the paid side, I do have obviously SparkLoop and that has been really wonderful for a couple of reasons.
One it's so I hit my dollar amount in the first [00:32:00] five days and that's,
Dylan Redekop: and when you say dollar amount, just so for reference, you mean like your monthly total budget spend.
Amanda Goetz: Yes. Yes. There's the technical. Okay. I'm like, I hit the dollars, but yes, my, my monthly budget allocated to spark loop to allocated to paid advertising.
I right now, because I'm still early, I'm only spending and I'll just share. I spend $2,000 a month because that's usually, I I'm making more than that with the newsletter. So I feel comfortable doing that. Plus, you know, putting money into my bank to pay for, you know, my kids. Yeah. So I hit that so fast. And what that tells me is people are excited to promote my newsletter, and that's like a good signal.
So now as my revenue goes up from my life's a game ecosystem, I will then up my spend on spark loop. The other thing that has been super helpful is the auto deletion of unsubs, like being able to set those [00:33:00] parameters because What happens is somebody sees you or is like, Oh, that sounds cool. And then they, they get it and they don't open it for two, you know, two weeks and they're not an active subscriber.
I am cleaning that list constantly. And so it's always really fun because you see this huge jump at the beginning of the month and you're like, Oh, it just grabs, you know, 3000 subscribers. And then all of a sudden it's like. Oh, just kidding. You have 1000. But when you set those rules, you know that you're keeping a really, really clean list because my number one metric of success is, is open rate and engagement are people opening that.
And so I, I care less about what my subscriber count is at. I care more about keeping it between a 55 and 60 percent open rate every single week.
Dylan Redekop: Yep. And that's, I think a metric that's more important than, you know, the, the vanity metrics of, you know, I've got 200, 000 subscribers, but if you only have, say [00:34:00] a, you know, 5 or 10 percent open rate, that it doesn't mean that much.
Right. Yeah. So I think there's, thanks for sharing that, by the way, I really appreciate it. And there's a lot of people. Listening right now, probably likely trying to grow newsletters and in similar shoes is yours. You know, they're, they are, or were working full time close to it. They're raising a family, also trying to balance a social life.
What would your advice be for those people when it comes to, you know, injecting a newsletter into the mix and kind of trying to manage it all?
Amanda Goetz: The first thing I'll say is. It gets so much easier. So I'll share a very real world example. In the beginning, it would take me about 10 hours to write the newsletter every single week.
I would sit down, I'd think about it, I'd craft it, I'd to edit it, to add imagery. And just like anything, the more you do it, the better you get. I, to put it into context, I, I need to go heads down on a deadline in December. [00:35:00] And so I wrote all four newsletters for December. In two days. Wow. And, and yeah, and still high quality, still my same like process.
I just condense the process, which normally is like a Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, published Wednesday. I condensed that process and it proved to me that, you know, Parkinson's law, whatever amount of time you give to somebody, it will happen. I gave myself two hours for each newsletter to write and I got up and I did it.
And To anyone who's thinking about it, know that there's a steep learning curve. It will be painful at first, but if you keep going and keep that consistency, it gets easier. And so what takes, what took 10 hours now takes two hours. Now I have eight hours that I can now work on the next revenue stream.
And so that, that's how I think about it. Don't bite off more than you can chew thinking about [00:36:00] like it took me four months. Of just doing the newsletter while having a full time job for me to even add one revenue stream, which was office hours. So I see a lot of people and I coach people through this too, where I'm like, okay, what do you want to accomplish this quarter?
And they're like, well, I want to launch a course, launch a newsletter. I want to start getting active on Tik TOK. And I was like, you can't do three things. Like it's not. You're setting yourself up for failure and I'd rather you do one thing to 80 percent completion and mastery than three things to 30 percent or 20%.
So let's, let's take one thing and get you to 80 percent and pick one. What do you want to do this quarter? And so. Same goes for anyone wanting to start a newsletter. If you really want to start a newsletter, clear everything off and just do the newsletter for a quarter. Give yourself a quarter to get the art and science down, and then you can talk [00:37:00] about doing something else.
Dylan Redekop: Set a goal. Remain consistent for that period and see what happens. It's a, it's pretty sound advice. So what is, what is next for yourself and for life's a game in 2024? And, and in addition, what is, what do you see as the biggest opportunity for newsletters in, in the next year?
Amanda Goetz: So we touched on it a little bit.
I think collaboration consolidation, like you said, there's a ton of marketing newsletters. There's power in combining things. So I. I would encourage people to really start thinking about building out a creator community that they're a part of because chances are you might find your next like partner in something like that.
Two things that are coming for me are I'm launching my first digital course in Q1. And so that'll be the next revenue stream where I start to create, you know, passive revenue through digital courses. Um, it's been really awesome to have now a really highly engaged [00:38:00] community of. Almost 20, 000 people that I can pressure tests.
Like I actually surveyed them. My birthday edition of the newsletter was just asking them like, Hey, for my birthday present, will you fill out the survey? Nice. Got to love, you know, making people feel guilty, but. But I got, you know, hundreds of responses, and it was perfect because what I thought that they were coming to me for was actually not the case.
And so it gave me full validation into what content I should create the course around heading into Q1. So that's number one. And number two is I'll launch my next. Business line, which I am going back into the CMO world where I'm joining a podcast for season three as the co host interviewing fortune 500 CMOs.
And we will have a course offering for somebody looking to get into a CMO track. [00:39:00] So that,
Dylan Redekop: Are you allowed to share the podcast by chance?
Amanda Goetz: Yeah, it's called Destination CMO. So the first two seasons. Vincent, who was the founder of it and the host, he was really just setting a foundation. And then season three is where we really bring in, you know, we have the CMO of Yahoo, Atlassian, Angie's list, like big names talking about really like their chalk to get there, what they needed to learn so that we can then build out the course offering that would help somebody build their toolkit.
So that's, that's the next thing that I'm working on. I have not announced that anywhere else. So that was like an exclusive thing.
Dylan Redekop: Surprise behind the scenes. That's awesome. Well, thanks for sharing with that, that with us and for being so open and transparent, uh, with everything here I've learned, I've learned a lot.
I know our listeners will as well. So why don't we finish off with you sharing where people can learn more about you and subscribe to your newsletter and all that other fun stuff.
Amanda Goetz: Yeah, they can just go to AmandaGoetz.Com. It's G O E T Z. I'm most active [00:40:00] on LinkedIn and Twitter. Instagram is a wild West of my personal life and life, but.
Twitter and LinkedIn is where I'm sharing how I'm growing the newsletter and all the behind the scenes of the creator journey.
Dylan Redekop: Okay, great. We will include all of those in the show notes and thanks for coming on Amanda. We wish you the best in 2024 and yeah, thanks for taking the time. Yeah. Thanks Dylan.
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