There is a way to do all three of these things at the same exact time (even with no experience):
- Have unlimited newsletter topic ideas.
- Build authority in your niche.
- Repurpose your newsletter to paid offers.
And a specific Newsletter Archetype and style that makes them both possible.
BUT, there are a few newsletter types that can be MUCH harder for beginners to start with.
These are models we see from big creators like Sahil Bloom, James Clear, Justin Welsh, Dan Koe, Jay Clouse, Justin Moore and plenty of others.
Newsletter Archetype like:
- Thought Leader
- Diversified Creator
- Personal Brand Curation
And for the sake of this breakdown I'll give you a quick reminder of what each one of these archetypes entails.
- Thought Leader: This one is pretty obvious, but this archetype teaches lessons from the perspective of a thought leader in a specific niche/space.
- Diversified Creator: This archetype is generally used by creators who have TONS of content going out to all different platforms. YouTube, podcast, and diversified all over the place that they're essentially curating their own content for you.
- Personal Brand Curation: These creators are essentially one-person media brands that curate some type of their top content each week; like James Clear's 3-2-1 newsletter, or Tim Ferriss' 5-Bullet Friday.
The problem is: if you don't already have authority in a space, it can be extremely hard to start with this kind of positioning.
In a past deep dive we discussed how to build authority in any niche, even with no experience.
We're going to be able to combine what we learned there with this deep dive to have unlimited newsletter topics.
You will never find it hard to find an idea for a weekly newsletter again.
📬 Newsletter Archetype: The Deep Diver
The Deep Diver is a newsletter archetype that ANY level of creator can use to their advantage.
This operator archetype is pretty self explanatory, but there are MANY ways we can position ourselves with it.
So here's what we'll be covering in this deep dive about The Deep Diver Archetype (very meta, I know):
- Different Examples Of The Deep Diver Archetype
- How They Are Positioned With Their Deep Dives
- How It Helps Them Never Run Out Of Newsletter Topics
- How It Helps Them Borrow Authority To Build Their Own
- Different Examples Of The Hybrid Deep Diver Archetype
So buckle up, because we're going to be jumping into 4 awesome examples.
📬 Marketing Examined by Alex Garcia
The first newsletter I'm starting with is Marketing Examined by Alex Garcia.
Marketing Examined has made it's way into many other deep dives, and for good reason.
Not only is it a perfect example of a Deep Diver newsletter, but it also shows you how you can come into a specific category, with little to no experience, and become the go-to person in that niche (category) by using this model.
Alex Garcia's Marketing Examined is "The World Of Growth Marketing At Your Fingertips."
And Alex used it to become "The Marketing Guy".
Each newsletter Alex writes is a massive deep dive dissecting a specific piece of marketing within another business.
Here are some examples:
- How Miss Excel Creates Viral TikTok Content
- How AppSumo Generates 10,000 Leads A Month From Blog Traffic
- How Harry's Used A Referral Program To Acquire 100k Emails In One Week
- How Gary Vaynerchuk Used VeeFriends To Sell 1M Copies Of Twelve And a Half In 24 hours
Similar to my deep dives, Alex is borrowing authority and teaching a lesson based on the actual actions of another authority.
Bonus Note: We are both able to build Hybrid Newsletters. We are both mainly using the Deep Diver Archeype, but we also inject ourselves into the topic as an authoritative figure by giving our unique perspective, and teaching a bit from our past experiences and therefore also being within the Thought Leader archetype. This is something you can work your way up to over time.
But what I really want to focus on here is the perspective.
Let's take a look at Alex's perspective compared to mine:
- Alex is teaching a lesson based on ONE creator or business.
- I teach a specific lesson based on MANY creators or newsletters.
Here's another example that might make it more clear:
- While Alex says "Here's how Gary V did this thing"...
- I am saying "Here's how you can do XYZ" and then dissecting exactly how a handful of creators do it.
THIS unique perspective is what we will also be paying attention to in order to help you come up with the best style for your own newsletter.
📬 Dirtbags Through The Ages by Allison Epstein
Sticking to this perspective for another example, next up is Dirtbags Though The Ages by Allison Epstein.
Allison's newsletter is not only one of the most unique to hit my inbox, but also joins this list as one of my favorites as well.
And I subscribe to A LOT of newsletters.
Here's how Allison breaks it down what she writes about for us:
Join me as we journey through the pages of history to meet the historical weirdos, dirtbags, and iconoclasts whose wacky stories warm my heart in one way or another.
Every two weeks (or so), you’ll get a newsletter telling the story of a new historical figure who sucks in a way that’s fun to me personally, for as long as I'm still discovering dirtbags who deserve to be shared. I will also talk about my books sometimes so my publisher doesn’t disown me.
So while Allison doesn't necessarily want to borrow their authority, she is still able to leverage their familiarity to drive immediate attention.
This is similar to the perspective Alex used for Marketing Examined:
- Alex teaches a lesson centered around one specific creator/business.
- Allison tells us a story of a specific historical figure and how they sucked.
But for the next one we're going to shift our positioning and perspective.
📬 Why We Buy by Katelyn Bourgoin
Why We Buy is another newsletter we've seen a fair amount among our other deep dives.
And truly one that I learn the most from and am genuinely excited to open each week.
Katelyn teaches us marketing psychology and "demystifies buyer behavior so you can market smarter".
Each week Katelyn teaches us a specific psychological bias or marketing psychology tactic within consumer behavior research and uses businesses to give us examples and help teach her lesson.
So how is this positioning/perspective different?
- Alex and Allison teach a lesson centered around one specific creator, business or person/figure.
- Katelyn teaches a specific lesson centered around the psychological bias or tactic, and then uses businesses to help teach the lesson.
Let's keep going with some another example...
📬 Creator Newsletters by Mike Romaine
Next up is the newsletter you're reading right now.
Woooo, inception!
We discussed this a bit above, but I want to reiterate now that we've seen a few other examples.
So far we've seen
- Alex and Allison teach a lesson centered around one specific creator, business or person/figure.
- Katelyn teaches a specific lesson centered around the psychological bias or tactic, and then uses businesses to help teach the lesson.
- Creator Newsletters teaches a specific lesson and then uses a handful of creators to teach the lesson.
So as you can now tell: Alex and Allison are using one perspective, and Katelyn and I are using another.
You can come in from either perspective with this model, and pair it with SO many different topics and niches.
📬 How This Allows Us To Never Run Out Of Content
This might already be obvious, but I'm going to cover it anyway.
When your deep dives are centered around businesses, creators, historical figures and other authorities in niches, you give yourself an endless supply of content to tap into each week.
Here are a handful of other examples:
- Dissect How Specific Businesses Were Created
- Breakdown How Celebrities Got In Shape
- Analyze Artist's Specific Style
The list of possibilities and variations is truly endless.
And I know what you're thinking...
📬 But what about me and Katelyn?
We're not technically positioned around the creators/businesses/figures/etc...
Well in this case Katelyn has a never-ending supply because her topics are always going to be teaching a psychological bias.
She just has to decide what bias and/or marketing psychology bias she's teaching that week, and then craft her lesson around her example(s).
But I'm going to take mine a bit deeper for us:
📬 A Unique Newsletter Repurposing Tactic
In order to understand how I never run out of newsletter topics for with my deep dives, we have to first fully understand the goal of my newsletter (and therefore the deep dives).
My goal is to help you start, grow and monetize your creator newsletter.
I have a specific methodology for that, which teaches you how to:
- Lead with 80+% value, -20% selling
- Put your brand first, to build trust and authority
- Specifically build the CREATOR model to be able to sell info products on repeat without trading dollars for hours
- Only have to send 1X weekly newsletter that powers your entire creator newsletter, allowing you to write just 1-2 hours a day
Among other things, of course.
This unique methodology I'm referring to is called my Unique Mechanism.
This is how I have built multiple newsletters, including a 7-figure newsletter that now runs in under 5 hours a week.
And the same way many other top creators are building million dollar newsletters.
One of my secondary goals is to teach you how to do that in a minimalistic style, because that's something I'm very passionate about, and have built my own newsletters around.
Knowing my goal for the newsletter and my unique mechanism tells us:
- All of my newsletter deep dives are directly related to running a creator newsletter business.
- The ultimate goal of the deep dives is to allow you to start, grow and monetize your 6+ figure creator newsletter and run it in 1-2 hours a day.
Which also happens to be:
- The same goal of my course
- The same goal of my coaching program
Picking up what I'm putting down here?
Each one of my newsletters works the same way I would be building a course.
I write my newsletters topics around a very specific goal, and that allows me to never run out of content ideas, because I'm teaching you follow up steps in the process.
Here's an example:
What's are some of the steps of starting your newsletter?
- Understand The Creator Newsletter business model.
- Learn the types and styles of creator newsletters.
- Discover the specific parts of a creator newsletter.
- Craft your specific value prop for your newsletter.
- Be able to build out an ideal Welcome Flow.
Well, it shouldn't be a surprise that you'll find each of these things as deep dives...
And guess what...?
All of these deep dives are curated and turned into my course material.
I take it and turn it into a video lesson with more depth, in less time.
Your audience will pay for things:
- Faster
- Easier
- Personalized
Which is why your newsletter can be curated into info products like books, or turned into video courses and even coaching programs!
Each one making up another piece of your value ladder.
📬 Your Next Steps
Of course, as always, the first step is find your obsession.
The thing that you're going to LOVE researching and writing about on a daily basis.
But once you have that you can use The Deep Diver Archetype to:
- Never run out of newsletter content.
- Build authority in any niche.
- Find your unique mechanism.
- Repurpose to your future course.
And you might notice that when we first started I only named three of these, and now there are four.
Finding your unique mechanism is something that takes time.
But the great part of The Deep Diver Archetype is that it can be used from the earliest stages of your journey.
You can use it to borrow authority to build your own, WHILE learning what your unique mechanism is, AND slowly beginning to pivot it into a Hybrid with another archetype (usually Thought Leader) over time as well.
Before you know it you'll be using my exact strategy for repurposing to your future paid products as well.