AUDIO - Monetization v2
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[00:00:00] Dylan Redekop: When are you starting the Chanel secret newsletter?
[00:00:02] Chenell Basilio: Actually, I should do that. Cause he hit like a hundred thousand followers on Twitter in two months. She's got 2 million subscribers. I had to double check. This seems like a simple way to add on a couple extra bucks here and there. Build a course, teach people your way of doing things, and then have a software on the backend to upsell and or keep those really interested people coming back.
[00:00:21] Dylan Redekop: I love that because. It's something like you could do with growth in reverse too, right?
[00:00:25] Chenell Basilio: I was just, my mind was broken after this. I was like, this is so good.
Welcome back to the growth in reverse podcast. I'm Chanel
[00:00:39] Dylan Redekop: and I'm Dylan.
[00:00:39] Chenell Basilio: And today we're going to talk about monetization. I think it's one of the topics that So many creators struggle with, especially in the early days, and there are some common ways that creators monetize, but I think we also wanted to dig into some of the more interesting ones just to get those ideas rolling around in your head, um, maybe give you some better options or things you might not have thought about.
[00:01:00] So I think we're going to dive into the top three that we actually pulled out of the deep dives I've already written. Yeah. So these are creators that are doing like 50, 000 plus subscribers for the most part, um, and just kind of see what they're. Doing for monetization. And then we'll dig into some other ideas.
[00:01:16] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. So we took basically your, your sample size of, I think, 66 newsletters with the most recent one on, um, CJ Gustafson. Right. Um, and so through those 66 newsletters, we found that 43 of them, or about 65 percent had, um, sponsorships. We're running sponsorships in their newsletters. So, um, just about two thirds of every newsletter you looked at was.
Um, using sponsorships and I doesn't really surprise me. I don't know about you, but, um, I figured that was probably going to be the case.
[00:01:47] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I think it's kind of low hanging fruit, especially once you build up like a sizable enough audience, you're like, Hey, this seems like a simple way to add on a couple extra bucks here and there.
So I think it's a. Definitely a popular one [00:02:00] for newsletters.
[00:02:00] Dylan Redekop: It was the first method of revenue that I thought I could probably get from my newsletter, aside from like maybe throwing an affiliate link or whatever in a, in a newsletter here and there, but something a little bit more sizable and more, you know, quote unquote guaranteed.
You know, if you sell a sponsor slot, you're going to make that money as opposed to just throwing a affiliate link in a newsletter. I think it makes sense that a lot of newsletters start that way and, and kind of, um, explore at least what an ad and sponsorship, whether or not they continue with it.
Depending on their experience with it and the results of their sponsorships is one thing, but it's not surprising that it's number one. Do you know what number two is? What would you guess? What would you guess? Let's say that the number two most common one is
[00:02:37] Chenell Basilio: number two. Uh, well, I think I've done a lot of paid newsletters, so it's probably paid subscription
[00:02:42] Dylan Redekop: close, but that was actually number three.
Number two. Number two was courses. So that includes cohort based courses, um, or evergreen courses, but the second most common way that newsletter operators are monetizing, at least again, with the caveat that this is through your [00:03:00] 66 you've done and the ways you found people sharing how they're driving revenue.
Courses was the second most at about 29 newsletters or 44 percent of the newsletters you reviewed had, um, courses as one of their revenue drivers.
[00:03:13] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I've seen a lot of. Creators do that with their monetization stack, if you will. Yeah. Um, I think it's just, it's so natural after a certain point, you've learned a skill, you've learned some kind of knowledge base, and you wanna share that with other people.
And I think a course is just kind of like a natural next step for most people. Yeah. So that, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:03:32] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. And I think also with the type of newsletters that you were reviewing as well, with a lot of like solo creator focused. Type of newsletters seems to be a common way to go as opposed to maybe the major, more sort of media focused newsletters, like a 1440 or the hustle morning brew.
Those ones are definitely more on the sponsorship end or that style of newsletter probably wouldn't lend itself as as much to courses, but with the type of newsletters you've been. Studying and researching, uh, [00:04:00] courses makes a lot of sense. All right. So I already said what number three was basically paid newsletters.
Right?
[00:04:05] Chenell Basilio: Definitely. There's a lot of them. Um, I think Lenny would be the biggest one. And then of course there's like Gargay, I think is his name or Rose. Um, those are probably the two bigger ones, but yeah, then you have like a Heather Cox Richardson, which has a paid newsletter, but I think you can still get the content free.
It's more of like a,
[00:04:22] Dylan Redekop: like a patron model. Yeah. Support me, like kind of Wikipedia, like this is free for everyone forever, but you know, I need your donations to, uh, or to, to continue on. So, yeah, um, that's a nice thing with a newsletter like Heather Cox, Cox Richardson. Um, she has, geez, I think over a million subscribers if I'm not mistaken, and she just basically like offers out all of this free, um, really.
Insightful, interesting writings about, uh, American history and what's happening today in American politics. She offers it for free, but then she's done really well with this patron model.
[00:04:58] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. She's got 2 million subscribers. I [00:05:00] had to double check cause I was like, I think that the number she just hit, but I wanted to make sure.
Yeah. Pretty
[00:05:04] Dylan Redekop: impressive. Pretty impressive. So just those numbers again, about 26 of the 66 newsletters you, um, that you reviewed had had a paid newsletter of some type.
[00:05:13] Chenell Basilio: So interesting.
[00:05:14] Dylan Redekop: I thought it would be interesting to Chanel to talk about revenue streams, like the number of revenue streams that, uh, each of these newsletters had.
And we're not going to obviously go through every one, but did some quick analysis on sort of the average number of revenue streams that of this small sample size of 66 newsletters with the average number of streams. These newsletters had, and what do you think be the most common one, two, three, four, or five plus
[00:05:37] Chenell Basilio: three or four,
[00:05:38] Dylan Redekop: three or four.
Yeah, you're right. Those are, those are actually the two most common. So, um, three was the most, most common revenue stream, number of revenue streams that these newsletters had. So quite often it was like a combination of like sponsorships, um, paid newsletter and something else, whether maybe it was courses or some affiliate marketing or coaching consulting, but three revenue streams, 33, so 50 [00:06:00] percent of the newsletters that.
You have researched and done deep dives on half of them had, uh, three revenue streams. And then from there, it's actually interesting that what's more common is to have more revenue streams than fewer. So there were, uh, 12 newsletters that had four, at least revenue streams you discovered, um, and nine newsletters that had five plus.
And then. Newsletters that had fewer than three revenue streams, there was only a handful. There's about a dozen. So, um, yeah, 12, 12 newsletters had two or fewer revenue streams. Uh, one I actually found had none. So of the deep dives you did, that was one of the first ones you did. That was Ali's, uh, first 1000.
I'm not sure. He probably monetized in some way, shape or form.
[00:06:41] Chenell Basilio: I'm sure he did. Yeah. We could keep that as an outlier and take that number off. I'm sure he monetized in some way. So
[00:06:48] Dylan Redekop: I'm sure he does. Um, yeah, but yeah, there were. There were four newsletters that we could only find one revenue stream for.
And there were seven newsletters that had two revenue streams that we found, that you found when you were doing this [00:07:00] research.
[00:07:00] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And, uh, keep the caveat of in the early days, I probably wasn't as savvy to what people were doing. Sure. Although I, so, um, and I know for a fact over time, like there are some that like, they had so many that I left a few off.
Cause I was like, this is just extra bonus on top. Uh, that probably doesn't need to be covered here. So no, it's such, it's so interesting to like hear that. And it makes sense. I think we talked about this before. Like in the beginning when you're getting started, I feel like having less, having fewer streams of revenue is important until you figure out the best practices and like how each one works.
Um, and then you can grow that over time. Yeah. And so it makes sense that like, if someone has like 40, 000 or 50, 000 plus, Email subscribers like they're probably on the path to figuring out like a better monetization like pie, if you will, to have more and more streams of revenue so that you're not so reliant on sponsorships or if the course.
Industry drops or something, you have something else to fall back on. So yeah, it makes sense.
[00:07:58] Dylan Redekop: I think having multiple rubber streams [00:08:00] is definitely helpful for stability and kind of sort of a sick from a security diversification standpoint, but like you said, you've got to kind of start with one, I think build out the system.
So if you're starting the sponsorships, um, you're gonna be figuring a lot of stuff out in the beginning and to add something else to your pie. At the beginning there, you're, you're going to suffer with what the attention you can spend on really optimizing how you do sponsorships. So I think it's, it's pretty savvy to just kind of focus on one, build up a good system around it.
And then once you've kind of got say sponsorships nailed, then start looking into, Hey, if I wanted to run a paid newsletter, what would that look like? You can always include sponsorships in your paid newsletter too. It doesn't mean just because you're starting one, you don't have to. Think about courses or digital products.
Um, so I do think that's pretty sound advice.
[00:08:44] Chenell Basilio: So now we talked to the top three that kind of, we found through looking at the data. Do you want to kind of jump into some of the outlier interesting ones?
[00:08:52] Dylan Redekop: Yes. And there, there were a few, there were a few, I don't have the exact count here, but there's probably a good dozen or so.
Um, [00:09:00] that. We're, they're the only ones doing this type of revenue stream or driving revenue with this specific, um, strategy. So why don't you start with, uh, you don't have to start with your favorite if you want to save, you know, something good to the end, but why don't you, why don't you share one of your more interesting ones that you found?
[00:09:15] Chenell Basilio: I'm going to start with the most recent one, which is, uh, CJ. From MostlyMetrics, uh, his paid guest posts. I loved this so much. I think I even called it like the triple stack. What did I call it? I was, I was laughing at myself when I was writing this because it was just so good. Well, no, because I had a pancake emoji in there.
Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, the triple stack approach is what I called it. Um, but he essentially, he writes for CFOs. He is a CFO himself. So he's talking all about numbers and some, what some people would consider boring topics. But. Instead of just having, like, a sponsor buy a spot in his newsletter, he also go to them and find a way to maybe write some content for their website.
So he's essentially writing a guest post, and this isn't, [00:10:00] like, anything groundbreaking until you dig in a little bit deeper. So he, um. He writes, he has written guest posts and he told Nathan Latka on his podcast.
[00:10:09] CJ Gustavson: They had reached out to me and they said, Hey, uh, how about we just pay you a lump sum for six posts?
And so I don't think I can give the exact amount on it, but that was kind of eye opening to me. Like, Oh shit, somebody wants to pay me for my writing. Now. It's not just a way to use companies as a partner. If you've ever made a dollar online for the first time, it's a real holy shit moment. Like I feel. I feel kind of seen and validated here.
[00:10:33] Chenell Basilio: But the, one of the coolest parts of this was like, it wasn't anything new. Like at the bottom of the post, it said this originally appeared on mostly metrics. com.
[00:10:42] Both: So he
[00:10:42] Chenell Basilio: was essentially like letting them license his content and put it on their website, which I thought was so interesting. So he's getting paid, uh, by the sponsor.
And then on the second hand, he's getting free distribution because now his name, his content, his style of writing is out on another platform. [00:11:00] And oftentimes these. Companies have like 10, 100, 000 email subscribers that they're sending this content to. So he's essentially getting free distribution on top of this and getting paid for it.
And then he's also able to share that content with his readers who he has a paid newsletter. So some of them are subscribing and paying to read the content. So it's like this triple, like. I was just, my mind was broken after this. I was like, this is so good. That's awesome. I'm just like, how can I replicate this?
Cause it is so interesting of like the way he's put this together.
[00:11:32] Dylan Redekop: He's basically getting paid to distribute repurposed content. If you really think about it, like that's, that's wild. Like, Hey, I've already wrote this. He probably, I'm sure he had to tweak it a little bit. Um, for their site or to some degree, maybe no, no, it was just like his
[00:11:47] Chenell Basilio: memes and his gifts are in there.
Yeah. That's impressive. And so I'm just like, okay, so somebody reads this, they're like, this guy's dad jokes are on point. I want to keep getting more of this content. They click through, become a subscriber. And then what [00:12:00] if they end up paying for his content? The sponsor. Just gave him a free, you know, like it's just so good.
[00:12:05] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, you, you think that, you know, that would be flipped, right? Like you'd be like, Hey, can I pay to have a guest post almost on your, on your site with my repurposed content that I've already published to my audience? But, um, no, that's interesting. That's really interesting. What was the name of that company that he posted on?
[00:12:20] Chenell Basilio: Uh, it's called Brex, B R E X.
[00:12:22] Dylan Redekop: Okay.
[00:12:23] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. It's like a financial software of some sort. But if you think about it, like these SaaS companies, these. Software companies, they don't necessarily want to keep writing about themselves every week. And so if they can get someone else to create content for them and kind of give them that benefit of like an extra, I don't know, social proof of someone else using this thing, but talking about the same concepts, like they're going to want that.
And I think that's why they pay for it. And that's why they're so excited to give him six to 12, 000 for six articles because of that.
[00:12:52] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, absolutely. It takes the, I guess that lens off of them and it's like, look, somebody else is writing about how awesome we are and, [00:13:00] and, uh, about us. Somebody who is some kind of cache and authority in the space too.
So that's, yeah, that's really interesting. We talked a little bit about, um, patronage already, so I won't get into that, but I do think that's a really interesting model and, you know, Heather Cox Richardson is one person that. That, uh, we mentioned Kyla Scanlon also has that option. At least she did when you, when you wrote, uh, her deep dive where you could basically like pay a small monthly supportive or supporters kind of fee to get her, her content.
Um, and then Jason Woodruff from the pour over also did that. So again, you could, um, donate support, um, the pour over and, uh, he had a bunch of different tiers there. Really interesting model. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about, I think software software as a service. Yes. Is like, when you think about it, it's like there's whole companies just focused on building the software, but the way the world is evolving, technology is evolving, no code apps, uh, you know, these chat GBT AI models that can kind of code things for you to some degree software as a service for a newsletter, [00:14:00] um, is a really interesting.
A lead magnet. We just talked to Justin Moore, who was using, um, something for his sponsor magnet book. I think it was his, uh, social audit tool that he built this, like the simple free software as a lead magnet. He had somebody do it for him. So to be fair, he didn't do it himself. I think I just see this huge opportunity with like creating a useful tool that's relevant to your niche, your audience, your newsletter.
Either charging for it or even using it as a lead magnet at the very least, but even potentially charging for it. So Dickey Bush famously started a ship 30 for 30 with Nicholas Cole. They were publishing these atomic essays, right? A lot of people who were on Twitter back in 2020, 2021, 2022, they would have seen these like image posts that were.
Text based somebody was creating a software product called TypeShare. I can't remember his name, but, um, he created this product called Type and Dickey and Cole loved it. And it was basically a way to sort of stylize these atomic essays and make them look a little bit nicer, format them better. Um, and really it helped push their cohort based course of ship 30 for 30.
[00:15:00] Um, that much bigger because now these essays look good and people were reading them on Twitter, um, that much more. And so it was kind of like this. Flywheel effect. And so they ended up just buying from, uh, or at least, uh, they might've been now co founders. I'm not sure if they outright, um, or if they just bought into it, but they invested in it and now part of their, in terms of, um, revenue.
[00:15:20] Chenell Basilio: And it made so much sense. I went through ship 30. For 30 and it, it just made so much sense like on the backend because they're teaching you how to write online and they're telling you to write every single day and they have their own like templates and like things like ways to formulate, formulize your post.
[00:15:35] Both: Yeah.
[00:15:35] Chenell Basilio: Um, not really sure if that's a word, formulate,
[00:15:37] Both: but that's okay.
[00:15:39] Chenell Basilio: Formulate. Okay. That's fine. Um, yeah, the software essentially took those formula or yeah, the formulas or the templates and just like made it so much easier for you to actually create that content. So they're telling you to do this one thing and then they're giving you.
A free, of course, 30 day trial to the software. And I'm sure the backend response of like people signing up and staying on that software was [00:16:00] pretty decent. Um, so it just makes so much sense. It's like the software is the business and the course is the lead into that software.
[00:16:07] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, exactly. And chances are you.
Are going to convert just so many more people when they're already taking the course. Right. And you know, it's just like this add-on. Um,
[00:16:18] Chenell Basilio: they're buying into your whole like ecosystem and the way you're doing things. Exactly. So why not?
[00:16:22] Dylan Redekop: Um, there's two others that I thought were interesting. I won't go too far in depth with them, but Danko, another one who's, um, people are online are probably pretty familiar with.
[00:16:31] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So Danko has a software called Cortex. With a K, uh, it's essentially, he's touting it as a second brain for creators and it's a place for you to like, put all of your notes and your thoughts and everything. It's kind of like notion, um, actually it says cortex is like, if Google Docs notion and obsidian had a baby, so yeah, another productivity slash organizational software.
Um, honestly. I kind of feel like this would have been genius for Tiago Forte to [00:17:00] have built and or just because of, you know, building second brain is his whole ecosystem. Um, Dan Coe has a similar ethos, but I feel like just the verbiage is like, so on point for Tiago, but. Anyway, this is a Dan Coe product.
Um, and so I think it's just interesting because he has similarly, he also has courses and they teach his writing method and how he does stuff. And so again, it's probably a natural lead in to the software. So I think we're seeing a theme here, a little trend, build a course, teach people your way of doing things, and then have a software on the backend to upsell and, or keep those really interested people.
[00:17:38] Dylan Redekop: And it makes sense to when you thinking about scaling is sponsorships are a good revenue driver, but they're harder to scale. We talked about, you know, systematizing and making your processes solid. So it's easier, but it's still not something just like, you know, build once and sell twice, like it's not quite that easy.
Um, but something like a SAS tool. TypeShare, like Cortex is a lot easier. There's one more I just wanted to quickly talk [00:18:00] about. And that was, um, Michael Houck, who you did a deep dive on a while back. He had a sort of a, kind of like a SAS tools, almost like a product as service. Um, it's called Megaphone and he is writing to a lot of startup founders.
That's kind of his, his niche and Megaphone, um, basically helps people grow their audiences. So if you're a startup founder and you're wanting to get your, your, um, content shared on social media. Basically you sign up for this and it's almost like paying for high quality, high signal engagement pod. Maybe I don't want to, I don't want to like make it sound like it's a bad thing, but essentially you're, you're, you're posting your content in front of influencers and creators who have reputable audiences and will kind of share your content, retweet it, comment on it and that sort of thing.
So a little bit like an engagement pod, but also I think there's. Some decent authenticity behind it, but I'm not super sure exactly how it works, but I thought it was a really interesting way to, um, kind of monetize your newsletter and your [00:19:00] audience and sell a, sell a product.
[00:19:02] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I think it is kind of like a paid engagement type thing.
Cause you're from what I remember, I think you're like signing up to, and then you put in your content and then you like find relevant people to like share it out.
[00:19:13] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, they find it for you. Yeah. So really, you're just like paying for it. Pick keep choosing your niche, essentially. And then they kind of like match it up with with people in the right niche to kind of elevate it.
[00:19:24] Chenell Basilio: Interesting stuff. I think the software thing you mentioned, it could be a lead magnet to it makes me think of Brian Harris. From growth tools. And he has, I don't know, six or seven of these free software tools where you can essentially like build an email sequence or do all of these kinds of things. Um, and then it kind of naturally leads into his, uh, his coaching and that kind of thing.
So it's super smart and it's all free, which is pretty interesting.
[00:19:49] Dylan Redekop: And they're, they're like, not just like flimsy tools. Like they're pretty, they're, they're reasonably robust for something that's free. Yeah. Definitely. Very interesting strategy.
[00:19:57] Chenell Basilio: Um, one of the other ones I thought we could talk [00:20:00] about was, yeah, Dan Runcie of Trapital has, uh, industry reports.
So he writes about the business of hip hop. And so he, he kind of curates, like he has all these contacts and insider, uh, industry contacts from the hip hop. industry. And he kind of goes through and, you know, surveys a bunch of them and figures out like what's happening. Um, and kind of puts together this really in depth report.
He has a free version, but there's also a paid version, which I believe was like 1, 300 for that annual report. But if you're in the business of hip hop, like it makes so much sense, um, to be able to like buy that and get like the insights of like, what's happening, what are. People seeing and what's coming up.
Um, so I thought that was super interesting.
[00:20:42] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, no, that, that really is in it. It's like something to some degree. I know Dan's like really in the weeds, um, in that industry and is pretty well respected as well, but I think it's something that we talked about exclusives. This is like exclusive content that you can do the research on.
You can basically curate, put together and then [00:21:00] potentially sell. Uh, we talked about, you know, I think Jeremy Enns who did the state of podcast marketing report. Um, there's, there's, uh, Richard Vanderblom who does the LinkedIn algorithm report. So there's all these different things that you could, that are relevant to your niche that you could create and, um, either sells or giveaways lead magnets or potentially sell when there's, um, when the value's there.
So it's, for sure, it's a really. Interesting strategy, both in that, um, it'll tie in nicely with your newsletter because the people reading your newsletter probably going to want that information. And just about anybody could put this information together. It's not, it's a low barrier to entry. You just have to put in the time and the effort to, to gather
[00:21:37] Chenell Basilio: it.
And so because there's a free version, like this is going to get shared throughout the industry too. And then there's always this like natural, like, Hey, if you want to keep reading,
[00:21:47] Dylan Redekop: yeah.
[00:21:50] Chenell Basilio: So I think it's a super interesting one,
[00:21:51] Dylan Redekop: kind of like Drew Riley, right? Like TrendsVC, Trends. VC, like you can get the free reports, uh, which are great,
[00:21:58] Chenell Basilio: but
[00:21:58] Dylan Redekop: then he's like, but there's [00:22:00] way more, we can go way more in depth on these reports and then you can pay.
So yeah. And you get like
[00:22:04] Chenell Basilio: all of the links and everything.
[00:22:06] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. So his whole business model is this kind of, um, reports thing. So another interesting business strategy we'll probably dive deeper into, but I love the, I love that because. It's, it's something like you could do with growth in reverse too, right?
It's not, it's, it's not exclusive to just one type of newsletter or one type of creator. It can, it can be rehashed just about everywhere.
[00:22:27] Chenell Basilio: What else you got?
[00:22:28] Dylan Redekop: Um, why don't you talk us, tell us about, cause you, this one blew your mind too. Cody Sanchez's, um, whole kind of flipping newsletters. I thought that was wild.
And that's like, so on, on brand for her too.
[00:22:39] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. So we talked about this in the, the wild growth strategies. Uh, episode, but I think it actually plays into this as well because when you buy and sell newsletters, like typically, you know, you're buying it, you're putting all of the emails into your own, uh, newsletter system, calling it, you're going to send maybe one or two emails and be like, Hey, this was [00:23:00] acquired.
We now write like this and here's this new thing. If you don't want to stay, here's the link to unsubscribe.
[00:23:05] Both: Yeah.
[00:23:06] Chenell Basilio: But Cody did something super interesting in the fact that she. Newsletter that she bought running separately from her own. And so she had these two newsletters running at the same time. And so the, the one that she bought, she would position her contrarian thinking newsletter as the sponsor or a guest post for that kind of thing.
And keep running that newsletter separately. And then after a certain amount of time, she would be like, okay, I think I got the subscribers I'm going to get from that newsletter. I'm going to go ahead and sell this back into the marketplace. And she would typically make money from it. So not only was she making money from getting essentially free subscribers from this, but then she was also making money on the backend of like, Hey, I'm going to sell this back into the marketplace.
It's now larger and probably more valuable because she probably tweaked a bunch of things, made it more robust of a system and then sold it back. So I think. I think there's something there and I realized that this is more of a growth thing, but there is definitely [00:24:00] a monetization angle with it.
[00:24:01] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, there totally is.
That would be, I mean, people flip houses and flip cars and stuff like that. But so like the monetization strategy between, between or behind flipping newsletters is certainly something that people could do. I'm sure there's probably some industries where it'd be. Uh, potentially more lucrative than others, but it's definitely something that is interesting.
And if you're thinking about buying a newsletter anyway, if it's one, that's very aligned with your newsletter, uh, where the audiences overlap, the content or the, uh, I guess the, the vertical or the niche or the industry is there's a lot of overlap and it would make sense for you to like buy it and like do what she did, advertise your main newsletter to it and then flipping it.
Uh, why not? Why don't I give it a shot if you have the capital to try it.
[00:24:40] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, with the caveat that you have to make sure you can sell it back to someone. Yeah. Don't just buy any old newsletter. So
[00:24:47] Dylan Redekop: no, do your due diligence, please.
[00:24:49] Chenell Basilio: Yeah.
[00:24:49] Dylan Redekop: Don't just throw, throw 10 or 15 or 30 grand, you know, away trying to try to do this.
You'd want to make sure you do your due diligence on it.
[00:24:57] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And I think there's probably something, [00:25:00] uh, some industries where that might be a little gray of an area of, uh, you know, maybe that's not. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of like healthcare and like all that stuff. It's probably not a good industry to do that with.
I feel like if you, if you cross your T's and you doubt your eyes, I think, I think you can make it work.
[00:25:15] Dylan Redekop: I think another interesting one we should, we should definitely bring up is, uh, coaching and not just any coaching, like how, uh, Justin Moore is doing asynchronous coaching because he's got, he was doing, I think a lot of in person coaching and then he's now just basically pivoted to essentially people pay him per month and they get to ask him questions and he doesn't have to.
Basically hold time on his calendar for these people at a specific time. Um, he can basically hop in and out and he's got people who are trained, who work with them to answer these questions as well. And I just think this is a really smart way to do something that's harder to scale, like coaching and consulting with your time makes it a little bit easier and less kind of time bound from.
from your own end. So monthly fee, you ask him all your questions about for his case, sponsorships, brand sponsorships, brand [00:26:00] deals. And you get like expert advice basically in your inbox or over DM. So I think that's a really cool angle to, to explore for some people might be really into that.
[00:26:09] Chenell Basilio: I think his, the way he's structured, this is super smart.
Um, being, because, okay, you think about it, like if you're negotiating sponsorships and brand deals by yourself, you're going to have questions. Things are going to come up. A brand's going to email you some crazy out of the box question or like want some weird data and you're like, wait, do I, is this real?
Like what do I do here? And like to have someone like him and his team on speed dial essentially is kind of brilliant.
[00:26:34] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. You basically got like.
[00:26:36] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And it's all about monetization. So he's helping you make money. So it's not like he's just, you know, some, it's not like a random topic. Like this is like directly tied to revenue.
So like being able and willing to put up like, you know, I think it was two 97 for the group option and then a thousand dollars a month for like one on one. And so like just to have someone on retainer for a thousand bucks a month to ask questions when you have them, [00:27:00] I think is so smart. And it just puts like that person at ease.
[00:27:03] Dylan Redekop: Mm hmm. Yeah, it really does. I guess another way you could think about this, which some newsletter reporters have done, you've done is having like a community where you're surrounded by basically experts in your realm or people who are, who know what they're talking about. And you can kind of take the angle similar to this where, Hey, I don't know how to do in our case, like do newsletter sponsorships or, um, you know, I can't, I've tapped out this certain growth strategy and I need to figure something else out.
So you can really tap into. Um, a community as well and figuring out who, um, the experts are there getting support there. And again, it's not going to cost you as much as like a one on one private consultation. Um, and you've got kind of this bigger pool of, um, knowledge and experience to, to pull from too.
[00:27:46] Chenell Basilio: Definitely. I was thinking about this the other day. I was like, this is kind of like. Justin's asynchronous coaching, but totally different because you're getting like a wide variety of people's opinions. Although I think there is something to be said for having his [00:28:00] specific brain essentially in other people's heads at a certain point, um, which is cool, but there's also something to be said about like, we have so many different people in the community, like being able to ask all of them at once is kind of interesting.
[00:28:12] Dylan Redekop: And you'll get, you can get like two completely opposing answers too. So, um, that that's both helpful and not. But I think it's interesting to, to highlight that there's not really always just like a one way to do things or right or wrong way to do things. What worked for, for somebody who might not work for you and vice versa.
So, um, I think it's just helpful to have those perspectives that really helps inform the way you should go.
[00:28:35] Chenell Basilio: This next one. It's not from a deep dive, but it's something I've seen and heard about a lot. And so I want to bring it up because Nathan Berry, the founder of kit previously convert kit. Um, he has a, what he calls a secret money course, a secret newsletter about money.
Sorry. Uh, it's 150 one time fee. And it's just like an email sequence that you get access to when you buy it. You know, people talk about, you know, making money, growing a [00:29:00] business, but it's like, okay, what do you do once you have money? Like, how do you handle. Life after you've kind of made a certain amount, I think in his case, it says over 200, 200, 000 per year.
Um, like how do you change your mindset? Like what, what do you have to think about moving forward? And so it's like a 16 part newsletter, um, and over time it can get longer. So he'll add emails if he thinks it's worth it, but you only pay once and you get this like long email sequence. And I think it's just so interesting because it's, it's like a low price point.
It's very specific on who he wants to sign up. Like you should have 200, 000 per year or more in revenue. And it's just, it's just so interesting because it's coming from a guy who's built like a multimillion dollar business. So I think it's a cool angle to take. And of course it's a paid newsletter. So essentially it is, he runs a newsletter email software service.
So it makes sense.
[00:29:52] Dylan Redekop: It does. But it's like, we've seen a lot of paid newsletters where it's like. Yeah, you're paying for the weekly subscription, monthly subscription additions, et cetera. [00:30:00] But we haven't seen a lot of paid newsletters that are like, kind of like evergreen newsletters, right. Or these like ongoing sequences.
So I guess you could say like an email course is essentially that, but I like how, like you said, he'll add to this. So you're kind of paying the one 50 for this, say 16 email sequence, but it could grow and it could, it could expand from there as well. So yeah, I think that's really fascinating. I haven't, I haven't really heard of anybody else doing something quite like this.
[00:30:25] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And he actually didn't promote it for a while. Like, I think he was just sharing it around in his own circles. And then over time, people were like, you got to talk about this. So he tweeted out, uh, in December of 2022, he said, my Pete, my paid email course just hit 50 K in revenue, which for 150 a thing is like quite a few people signed up from that.
Uh, and this was like over two years ago, so I'm sure it's grown since then. But I think it's just an interesting, interesting way to set this up. Here you go. 471 purchases. So it hit 50, 000 in revenue.
[00:30:54] Dylan Redekop: Interesting. And I wonder It started out
[00:30:55] Chenell Basilio: as 100.
[00:30:56] Dylan Redekop: He says here in the copy on the landing page, at least the one I'm reading, [00:31:00] this is just for creators earning more than 200, 000 per year, like you said.
And so I wonder if like the fact that he says that, but like anybody technically can subscribe, there's some kind of like psychology there where it's like Wait, I'm not earning that much yet, but I want to be, so maybe I will pay to sign up for this. So even like a little psychological trip there, I'm not sure.
Maybe Caitlin might know. Caitlin Bergwijn would know what that, uh, what that might, that buyer's effect might be, but it's really interesting that he would put that there. And I'm sure they're the 400 and whatever, I think 417 or whatever number you said, who've purchased this. I'd be shocked that all of them are making.
That much money annually. Um, I'm sure there's a lot of people probably like myself who would love to make that much and want to find out the secret. So that's a really interesting angle to, to pitch us at.
[00:31:44] Chenell Basilio: Definitely an interesting angle. Yeah. Um,
[00:31:47] Dylan Redekop: when are you starting the Chanel secret newsletter?
[00:31:49] Chenell Basilio: I should actually, I should do that because I think it just like, there's so many interesting things that you come across over time, but I think the cool part about this is like, It's only [00:32:00] 150 bucks.
It's a small amount of money, but I guarantee like once you're in a couple emails, if you replied to that email, like I'm sure Nathan's going to reply.
[00:32:08] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, he probably would.
[00:32:09] Chenell Basilio: This is also like one of those relationship builders, I think, because at the time there was 470. So how many people actually replied?
Probably not a ton.
[00:32:17] Dylan Redekop: Yeah.
[00:32:18] Chenell Basilio: I'm not trying to blow up Nathan's inbox here, but I just think it's, I think it's interesting. This is where my brain goes when I see these things.
[00:32:24] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, it totally is. Oh man. Yeah, there's, there's a lot here. Well, if you want to blow up Nathan's inbox, you got to pay 150 bucks to do it.
So I'm sure he won't, he wouldn't hate you for it.
[00:32:33] Chenell Basilio: No,
[00:32:33] Dylan Redekop: not that, not that he
[00:32:35] Chenell Basilio: can.
[00:32:36] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, exactly. So good. Nice. Do you have anything else you wanted to cover? Do you want to talk through the cultural tutor one? That? Yeah, I did write that one down. Um, I thought this was really interesting because this is kind of like, um, sort of the opposite of what we've been talking about, how to monetize a newsletter.
So the cultural tutor, um, shoot, I think his name is Shin. Um, yeah, [00:33:00] and he is, I believe we started the UK and he was blown up back in the day. He had kind of like the anonymous account with the stoic, you know, sculpture bust as his image and stuff. And he was writing some really interesting and really deep, um, tweets and content was growing a big audience.
And I mean. Read your deep dive if you want to learn more about that. But, um, essentially he decided like, I'm going to start publishing a paid newsletter. And he had, he had promoted that on LinkedIn and said, this is what I'm doing. David Perel, who, um, who you've also written about basically reached out to him and said, no, do not.
Do not cap your growth. You are putting out amazing content. People should have access to it. And you shouldn't just like putting out a paid newsletter is going to like definitely cap your growth. And so what David proposed was how about I pay you to just keep writing every day so that you can keep your content free.
So in some ways, it's almost like David is sponsoring the cultural tutor, um, newsletter to some degree, but essentially he reversed this whole thing, stopped the newsletter from [00:34:00] going to paid and was like. Keep writing. I will pay you as like kind of a writer in residence type of thing for David Perel's right of passage.
Thank you. Well, which is no longer, I think in operation, but yeah, right of passage. So he was like, uh, the cultural tutor was hired on as like the writer, um, uh, in residence for the right of passage. So I guess it was just good validation that if you're creating really high quality, good content.
Somebody's bound to pay you for some pay for it in some way, shape, or form, whether that's, uh, to get behind the paywall or to keep it free in one way, uh, or another. So I thought that was a really cool story.
[00:34:33] Chenell Basilio: Yeah, it is definitely the opposite of like finding your monetization angle. It's more of like, let it find you.
[00:34:39] Dylan Redekop: Yeah, definitely
[00:34:40] Chenell Basilio: a once in a million thing, but I think the content was so good. Like he was writing about these cultural topics and like historical, like unknown stories that people. weren't aware of essentially. And David Prowl was like, absolutely not keep growing. Cause he hit like a hundred thousand followers on Twitter in two months.
So [00:35:00] like David was like, do not do this. He was like, keep growing for free. Uh, I'll pay you. And I think he actually asked Sheehan, like, how much do you need? And she gave him like this really small number and David's like, how about this number? And he's like, okay, great. So it's just, uh, so interesting to see like another creator supporting an up and coming one.
[00:35:22] Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. That's really cool. It was almost like kind of like a scholarship style, uh, investment, which was, which you, it'd be cool to see more of in the, in our industry, but it's cool to see that one.
[00:35:32] Chenell Basilio: Yeah. It's a good one to call out
[00:35:35] Dylan Redekop: anything else you wanted to. Share any of these other kind of one offs, um, monetization, revenue strategies that you find interesting.
I
[00:35:43] Chenell Basilio: think we covered quite a few. Yeah. I think that should get the wheels turning for some people. Totally. Uh, the software one definitely is something interesting, I think, but, uh, definitely takes quite a bit of work to get up and running. Um, but yeah, I mean the, the tried and true, you know, sponsorship.
[00:36:00] Course or paid subscription, I think there's a reason that most people are doing them, but there's also something to be said about going the other direction. So take it with, with what you feel is right. And, um, kind of figure that out. We are also doing like, uh, a whole month about sponsorships in the community, which I'm excited about.
Jumping in. We actually kicked it off with Justin Moore. Um, and then we're having, uh, James from Marketing Meetup come in and talk, which I'm really excited about because they're doing like hundreds of events every year for free, like no paid, like everything is free and it's all from sponsors. So I'm excited to kind of dig into his brain and figure out how they're doing that.
Um, Yeah. And then we have some other great guests coming in too. So it'll be fun. I'm a, I'm pumped for, for this month.
[00:36:43] Dylan Redekop: It's going to be great. By the time people are listening to this, it'll be in the second half of February, I believe. Um, but we'll still have a few events going on. So if you do want to check out what we're doing in the growth and reverse pro community, you head over to growth and reverse.
com slash pro and learn more about it. Uh, if you have any [00:37:00] questions, Chanel's Chanel's are always open for, for people wanting to check that out, or you can always message me as well. Um, we'd love to, we'd love to answer any questions you have about it. Yeah.
[00:37:10] Chenell Basilio: This is fun. I'm excited to do like a part two of this because I think there are some other ones that we'll probably get some messages about in the coming days after this gets released.
Yeah. So I'm excited to kind of dig into those.
[00:37:20] Dylan Redekop: Well, I mean, like, let's call it out. Like if you have a cool story about monetizing your newsletter, that's kind of different off the beaten path that we, than what we've talked about, like. So definitely reach out and share it with us. We'd love to, we'd love to talk about it.
[00:37:33] Chenell Basilio: And if you have any ideas for future episodes, uh, feel free to send them along. Uh, you can email me at Chanel at growth and reverse. com and uh, yeah, pretty much it. I think it's a wrap. I'm excited. All right. We'll see you in the next one.