Today we watched this short video on how the CEO of ConvertKit actually uses the product he’s built. We’ve taken some quick-fire notes so you can take a scan through these to get the jist. You can watch the full video here.
Nathan Barry has 20,000 subscribers on his newsletter which he built up since the early days by sending out a weekly newsletter initially about design. The content then shifted more toward marketing, as Barry’s trajectory changed. One of the main pieces of content that be promotes via his newsletter is his podcast, but that’s not all.
He has also has some products (including ebooks) that he sells via ConvertKit Commerce, and he runs a paid newsletter, also via ConverKit, which helps successful creators who are earning good money via their projects, to take things to the next level.
When it comes to ConvertKit features, his favorite is “Automations”, which save him a bunch of time (he is running a large company after all). One use case for this is his paid newsletter (mentioned above). This is currently a series of 15 emails that automatically go out each Friday to new subscribers for a one-off fee of $149. He can easily add another email to the end of the sequence, and this will then go out to everyone. This means that the paid newsletter doesn’t have to simply be a set-it-and-forget-it thing. It can be an expanding, evolving product that keeps providing value to his subscribers.
It seems like he writes his emails within the actual editor in ConvertKit (we personally use custom HTML templates for this), as he likes the minimalist feel, with the option to easily add rich content to his campaigns (such as tweets, etc).
But wait, there’s more!
A Local Newsletter Side Project
As a side project, Nathan Barry also has a newsletter about his local town titled “From Boise“. This currently has over 15,000 subscribers. Each Tuesday, an exclusive story is sent out, and each Thursday, a list of fun things to do at the weekend is sent. This is growing at 50-100 subscribers per day. This growth is achieved through word-of-mouth, mixed with some Facebook and Instagram ads.
He also created a lead magnet (promoted via a landing page created in ConvertKit) offering a rundown of the best places to eat in the town. This has racked up over 4000 downloads (and therefore subscribers). To do this, he duplicated the landing page and customizeds the content, then ran ads against each of these. This separates the reporting by landing page so he can see how each ad/variation performed.
Basically, this entire “business” was set up on Convertkit. The website, landing page, newsletter, automations, sponsorships (via ConvertKit commerce), a tip jar (for people to offer a little gift as a thanks for the free newsletter).
This just goes to show how flexible ConvertKit is (other ESPs offer similar features too), and the different approaches you can take to monetization and growth for your own newsletter projects.
For a far more detailed rundown of how Nathan Barry uses ConvertKit, he’s written an in-depth post on his email marketing strategy here.
