I'm always asked whether or not creators should be publishing their newsletter to their website (and honestly...whether or not they NEED a website in general).
I will tell you right off the bat that [in almost every situation] you should be publishing your newsletter to your website…
And in today's deep dive we'll be taking a look at:
- How creators have their website and newsletter interact.
- Why they choose to do it in these specific way.
- How YOU should be implementing this.
This is another big difference than what we're used to seeing with "regular" email marketing, and can technically be added to the list of 5 Differences Between A Newsletter & An Email List.
We'll be going through how each of these creators leverages their newsletter content on their website, but I do want o point out some of the main benefits ahead of time:
- You can optimize for SEO Traffic.
- Your newsletter becomes the lead magnet.
- You build a database of resources to provide value with.
- You create another way for your audience to see your CTAs.
- You are building a flywheel between your social content & newsletter.
Keep in mind that this is just a short list (there's a lot more I could rattle off), and some of these can obviously be expanded on quite a bit.
That said, ESPs like ConvertKit allow us to start our email list (even for free up until 10,000 subscribers) and begin building our "website" in the form of our Creator Profile (their web builder tool) right from day one.
Normally people will upgrade from a Creator Profile, or even BeeHiiv's web builder (as you'll notice from all the examples we see below), but they are amazing places for creators to get started.
Now let's get into our deep dive of how our favorite creators are using their newsletter content hand-in-hand with their website:
Dan Koe's Newsletter -> Website Content
Who better to start with then Dan Koe?
I have already done a massive deep dive on how he repurposes his newsletter content to 5+ other platforms, and the very first place on that list is his website.
And there's another reason he's the best person to kick us off: he feels very strongly about your newsletter being the core of your business and how it interacts with your other content.
Here's what he says:
People ask why I recommend writing a newsletter first, even with 0 subscribers.
Because it doesn't matter how many people read it if:
-> It is your YouTube script
-> It is published on your blog
-> It can be condensed into 20+ posts
Starting with long-form writing forces you to be somewhat original.
(Which most people can't do when they are stuck in the short-form rat race.)
It forces you to actually create - to research, capture, deconstruct, experiment, and reconstruct knowledge.
It makes you take your interests seriously enough to consider your life's work.
When I focus on writing my newsletter for 30 minutes every morning, all of my other content is handled.
It's as simple as deconstructing the newsletter and repurposing it everywhere in less than 10 minutes a day (once you have the process down).
And, of course, you build the newsletter over time, which is more valuable than any social media following. Your mind rewires to play long-term games.
Your success becomes exponential with time.
Stop thinking about it as just a newsletter that disappears when you hit send. It is the foundation of your entire brand (and most people don't have that).
It doesn't get much better than that.
So if you couldn't tell already, Dan Koe writes his newsletter and then publishes it to his blog as what he calls his "Letters"; which are essentially just articles sharing his newsletters.
In the image above you can see an example of a newsletter that ended up on Dan's website under the same name.
Dan then optimizes for newsletter sign ups on his website, using CTAs, lead magnets, and more - as well as having the recommended selling tactics he uses in the newsletter to promote his products and drive even more sales.
Essentially creating multiple flywheels in one:
- Newsletter -> Website.
- Newsletter -> Product Sales.
- Website -> Newsletter.
- Website -> Product Sales.
And instead of his newsletters being sent one and being gone, we can go to Dan's website and read them forever - giving him a constant stream of content to repurpose from, learn from, and deliver value with.
Ann Handley's Annarchy Newsletter
Ann Handley shares a wide mix of stories from her life and lessons on writing.
Her newsletter style is slightly different from the model we're used to seeing from our newsletter creators; which is exactly why I'm featuring her next.
Even though Ann may not be optimizing for SEO or specific article formatted lessons and case studies like you see from my deep dives on the site, or other newsletters like Marketing Examined, Saturday Solopreneur and Growth In Reverse, she still sees the value in giving her audience a way to go back through them as a forever-living resource.
I have gone through her archive and read specific newsletters from the past not only to learn more about Ann (strong personal branding, anyone?), but also to see if she had any material on specific writing and newsletter tips I was looking for.
And guess what...?
Not only did I find what I was looking for, but I ended up reading A LOT more about Ann and her lessons - which only strengthened the trust and relationship she has built with me through her writing.
Here's an amazing article I ended up landing on from 2020 that Ann wrote about The 17 Non-Negotiable Things Your Newsletter Needs Right Now.
Justin Welsh Saturday Solopreneur Bonus CTAs
Next up on our list we have Justin Welsh's Saturday Solopreneur.
And before we even get into it I want to start by saying this: There is A LOT to talk about with Justin Welsh's Newsletter -> Website Flywheel.
So much that I actually have plans to do a complete deep dive on his repurposing system and flywheel all in one, similar to how I did for Dan Koe.
Which means this section will be just a brief glimpse into how strategically important Justin Welsh's website is to his newsletter and overall content system.
In the image above you can see just a handful of the CTAs that Justin uses strategically when you land on his newsletter on the website.
Let's go through them:
- Header Bar CTA: As soon as you scroll you will see a header bar that offers the current deal he is running on either his LinkedIn OS or Content OS product.
- Sponsorship CTA: As a bonus incentive for his newsletter sponsors (we saw how much he charges in our Sponsorship Deep Dive), he lets his newsletter sponsors live on his website as well; and therefore also has an additional CTA to sell future slots in the newsletter.
- Newsletter Subscription CTAs: Justin has a sidebar newsletter optin CTA as well as a footer newsletter optin CTA. (Oooo, another flywheeel!)
- PS Outro Section CTA: We know how powerful the PS Section of our newsletter is, and Justin gets a double whammy by also showing his on his website.
And just to give you an idea of how important Justin's website is to him in driving sales within his flywheel, I also did this deep dive on the psychology he uses within his pricing and sales strategy.
So on top of the extra traffic Justin drives by optimizing for SEO traffic, he also shares links to his newsletter on social media after it has already been sent out to his list to drive more subscribers, and sales!
AKA: Bonus CTAs!
Chenell Basilio's Growth In Reverse (Similar setup to my Creator Newsletters)
Next up we have Chenell Basilio with her incredible newsletter Growth In Reverse.
Rather than talk about myself in this section, I wanted to share Chenell again (who we've seen in quite a few deep dives at this point), because we have very similar flows.
Both Chenell and I write long deep dives each week and then share them inside our newsletter as links rather than share the entire newsletter within the email itself.
This is done for a couple different reasons:
- We use a lot of visuals in our deep dives which isn't ideal for email.
- Sometimes our newsletters are 4,000-5,000+ words and it would be far too long for a single email.
- Even when we don't write THAT long of deep dives, it would still limit the additional content we can share within our email (short intro stories, sponsors, bonus resource links, CTAs, PS Section, and more).
So while [more often than not] it's best to keep the newsletter itself directly inside the email, there are occasions when it makes sense to link out to your website like Chenell and I do.
Note: Another good example of this is Jay Clouse (Creator Science) and Justin Moore (Creator Wizard), who I would consider to be diversified creators. They often send newsletter with links to their other content like YouTube videos, Podcasts and more.
This does give Chenell and I the added benefit of being able to get additional CTAs shared with our newsletter subscribers, but I wouldn't say it's a large enough benefit to warrant using the same model if you don't HAVE to.
Additional Note: Because of how in-depth Chenell and I go in our deep dives we are also able to leverage the content as lead magnets even more than normal.
This makes for powerful Teaser Posts, driving more subscribers, but also makes the importance of having locked content even higher.
I will discuss this a bit more in the conclusion section of this deep dive, but it is extremely important to have separate landing pages that you drive your discovery platform (social media) audience to rather than just ALL of your content (like we see from some of these other creators who are already MASSIVE, including our next example).
Heather Cox Richardson's Letters From An American Newsletter
To wrap this one up we have Heather Cox Richardson with her newsletter Letters From An American.
I have featured Richardson in my deep dives quite a few times before because she is the epitome of what an extremely high level expert in a very niche field (THE go-to person in a niche), making a paid newsletter model work, looks like.
As you see in the image above, you can go right to her website and start clicking through and reading through all of her daily emails.
No fancy titles or subject lines - just the date.
She doesn't even do any major marketing optimization for driving more subscribers, outside of Substack's built in CTAs asking people if they want to upgrade to paid and/or subscribe for the regular free emails.
But, one of the main reasons I want to highlight Richardson here is because she is actually an anomaly.
Her content is so good, and she is THE expert in her field, helping her to stand out and grow to millions of dollars a year with her newsletter; without needing to work with extra CTAs, specific landing pages, and tons of optimizations.
Key Takeaways:
- Sharing your newsletter on your website is extremely important, regardless of what style newsletter you plan on running (or what Newsletter Business Model you are).
- You don't always have to optimize for additional CTAs and separate landing pages to make having a website for your newsletter "worth it".
Bonus Newsletter Website Tips
We have talked about the importance of landing pages in our deep dives quite a few times now, and even had our deep dive into my 4x4 Landing Page Guide.
It's extremely important to remember (especially when you're just starting out and looking to drive more subscribers) that an optimal landing page only gives your audience two options:
- Subscribe
- Sign Up for Newsletter
That means the landing page you see above (which is really a home page for my site) is NOT optimal for driving cold traffic to for sign ups.
The image I used as an example for Chenell's Growth In Reverse IS optimal for this.
You can see two different examples here:
- My Home Page - Too many CTAs. Not Optimal.
- One of my Landing Pages - Optimal.
And if you take a look at the link I shared for my landing page you'll notice it's mikeromaine.com/threads.
That's because it's the landing page I specifically use for Threads.
I do this to be able to track the subscribers coming from each of my discovery platforms, and even when I'm running paid ads on Meta.
This is just another benefit of having a website you can customize the way you want.
It can be done with other tools like ConvertKit's Creator Profile and Carrd (among other options, of course), but ultimately you'll want to be able to leverage tons of different benefits of having a website to pair with your newsletter.
