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I ran an experiment this past month.
Louis and the team at SparkLoop were kind enough to sponsor this Growth Currency experiment.
The goal was to launch and promote a lead magnet to drive subscriber growth.
I decided to create an email course: The 1KS Roadmap - Free course to getting your first 1,000 newsletter subscribers.
Why?
I wanted to create something that would resonate with my future newsletter readers. Something they'd consume, and then enjoy the reset of my newsletter content going forward.
And getting them used to seeing “Dylan @ Growth Currency⚡” in their inboxes wasn’t going to hurt, either.
Mostly—I wanted to create a lead magnet that would align seamlessly with my newsletter content. After all, the whole point of creating a lead magnet is to acquire a new subscriber. If your lead magnet isn’t relevant to your content, you’re doing everyone a disservice.
Here's the quick overview:
STEP 1: Created the Notion Doc (where the course content was built)
STEP 2: Created the Email Sequence (in ConvertKit)
STEP 3: Created the Landing Page (in ConvertKit)
STEP 4: Created the Automation (including Tags & Triggers — in ConvertKit)
STEP 5: Scheduled the Tweet & Auto-DM feature (in Hypefury)
So here’s how I did it.
I needed a place to gather all of my thoughts, ideas, resources.
So I used Notion. Any other word processor would’ve worked. But I just like Notion.
In the Notion doc, I outlined all of my sections for the course. I set up headings for each section and added a few bullet points.
Once all headings and bullet points were added, I began filling in more details.
Notice I didn’t write out the whole course from start to finish? Writing it that way can feel overwhelming, tedious, and never-ending.
TIP: Starting with a quick outline helps you gain the momentum needed to complete a project like a 5-day email course.
Nicolas Cole calls this “prepping the page”. And it works.
After I finished the Notion doc, I hopped into my ConvertKit account and created a new Email Sequence (you need a paid account in ConvertKit to do this; here’s my affiliate link if you want to sign up and support me).
This was a relatively quick step: I added the Intro email plus the working titles for the 5 email sections of the course.
Since I had the email course written out in Notion, I easily copy and pasted it into the email sequence and made the necessary formatting tweaks.
Next, I created the landing page in ConvertKit. I picked their Oxford template. I kept it simple with a few brand modifications — and I think it worked!
My landing page converted at over 50%!
I added the title of the email course as the headline, included some body copy, and a ‘Get the Course’ form & button.
IMPORTANT: this was a double opt-in form.
Meaning — the subscriber has to check their email and actually confirm their subscription before entering the sequence. Doing this may keep your subscriber rate a little lower, but it will keep your open rates and click rates (the important engagement metrics) much higher.
It might also keep the spam bots away 🙌
With the sequence and landing page complete, I whipped up a ConvertKit email automation.
I love automation. This was fun.
This was also my first time using automations in ConvertKit. And it was really easy.
I set up two automations:
The main difference between these two automations is simple. The new subscribers get the opt-in email to confirm — plus they get a ‘New 1KS Subscriber’ tag.
My existing subscribers clicked a link to get the course. Doing so tagged them with the ‘Existing 1KS Subscriber’ tag.
Rationale for 2 automations: I didn’t want to confuse new subscribers going through the 5-day email sequence with a regular edition of my newsletter. Ideally, they go through the entire course and THEN start receiving the weekly. But… I’m still trying to figure that out (help, ConvertKit!)
It was the right thing to do in theory, but I’m struggling to implement in practice.
Since Twitter is where the bulk of my audience hangs out, I decided to promote the course with a single tweet — and did so using Hypefury (affiliate).
Here's the launch tweet:
May 4th 2022
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Then I used Hypefury’s Auto-DM feature (available with their Pro plan) to automatically send a DM to anyone who replied to that tweet with a zap (⚡) emoji.
Some considerations here:
Once the tweet was published, I shared it with a few friends and DM chat groups I’m in to increase engagement and reach (thank you, friends!)
Launch Tweet Results:
My best performing tweet of the month!
With the campaign now live...
Here’s how the rest of the month shook out, along with everything I learned and would do differently »
(just scroll down the article to where you see that tweet analytics image above and read on!)
"Knowledge is the currency of growth."
Carefully curated resources to help you: Start + Grow + Improve + Monetize your newsletter
Let’s get into it!
⚡Tips for Starting a Curated Newsletter by Jessica Williams
Learn how to start curating your own weekly newsletter from someone who's been doing it for over 5 years! In this FREE course, Jessica will share with you:
→ Why she chose a curated newsletter
→ What an issue looks like
→ Her process and tools
→ Stats + growth
→ Ways to monetize
→ Lessons learned along the way
⚡7 Things I learned from sending 52 Issues of a Weekly Newsletter by Friday Digest
Friday Digest had 7k subscribers and a 45% open rate at the time of this post. That's with only one year of posting. So the first lesson being "Starting a newsletter is easy. Growing it is hard" had me wondering how they overcame growth challenges to hit those numbers in 52 weeks.
(via Paved's newsletter)
⚡ Not a Newsletter subject line + preheader calculator by Dan Oshinsky
It sucks when your subject line gets cut off in the inbox. Worst part? You've optimized it for Gmail in the browser—but forgot about the phone browser. Dan's calculator will show you exactly where your subject lines and preheader text will get cut off in various applications and email clients.
⚡ How to sell newsletter ads with Katy Huff of MadRev via SparkLoop's Send & Grow Podcast
Katy was one of the top ad sales reps at The Hustle before they were acquired by Hubspot in 2021. In this chat with Louis at SparkLoop, Katy shares...
Thanks for being here this week!
I was really excited to share the results of the 1KS Roadmap experiment with you all.
Hope it was informative and gave you some ideas and hopefully a little inspiration to do your own lead magnet experiment!
Please send me a reply or Twitter DM if you have any questions at all about the experiment — I'm an open book!
And stay tuned for next week where we announce the next SparkLoop & Growth Currency Growth Experiment 👀
How would you rate this edition?
⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡ Electrifying!
⚡⚡⚡ A decent jolt.
⚡ Just static...
Hit reply and let me know why — I answer every one :) Or DM me on Twitter!
And in case you missed it, here are last week's TWO most popular links:
#1: How I book $1k per month in newsletter ads by Dylan Redekop
#2: First 10k Newsletter subscribers in 30 days - here's the how by Codie Sanchez
Other Growth Currency⚡ Resources:
→ The 1KS Roadmap: A Free Course To Your First 1,000 Subscribers
→ The Ultimate Creator Database of Awesomeness
→ How To Start, Grow, and Optimize a Thriving Newsletter Community
→ Advertise in this newsletter
Peace and platonic love,
Dylan
by Dylan Redekop
Join 4k+ subscribers learning how to START + GROW + MONETIZE their newsletters with weekly insights, tips, and resources.
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