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All right. Welcome to Digital Podcaster. In this episode, I wanna talk about email and more specifically podcast newsletters. So email is one of those things that I talk with a lot of podcasters about, that they're aware of it and they want to use it, or they're not really aware of it, but they're interested in using it. Uh, I'm gonna walk you through something that I just made literally last night. Um, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you all the info in this episode. If you actually want the thing that I'll be talking about, you can go to podcast newsletter.com and download it. Um, but essentially what this is, and what I'm gonna be talking about in this episode is a plan and an overview on creating a newsletter that attracts more listeners for your podcast. It increases episode downloads for your podcast. And it grows your podcast, which is the goal of, uh, marketing your podcast, right? And if you go to podcast newsletter.com, you'll see a big headline up at the top that says A marketing plan for podcasters who hate marketing. Um, I know marketers who hate marketing. Um, so , like, I know that there's a lot of people out there that aren't a fan of marketing, and I think email newsletters are a great way to, uh, not feel like you're marketing and like you market your show. It's just different than social media. Um, so let's dive right in. Uh, again, things I'm referencing here. in this episode are all from the plan that I give away for free. Um, but I just wanted to kind of do it in audio format two and offer just a little bit of different thoughts, uh, as I'm walking through it. Um, so first things first, why you need a newsletter? Why I think you need a newsletter. I'll make my case. Um, growing your audience is the key to making your show a success. We know that, but with so many podcasts out there, it's really hard to stand out and get new listeners. Um, but the good news for you is that a podcast newsletter is a surefire approach to accomplish your. reason for that is first, a podcast newsletter keeps you in touch with your listeners on a regular basis. Uh, because when you send emails consistently, uh, you're able to remind them or, uh, you know, give them a direct link to listen to your next episode, uh, that you have out or past episode that you had out. Uh, and if you have a less frequent publishing schedule with your podcast, it ensures that your listeners don't forget about your podcast if they move on to something else. It's just similar to when a Netflix show, a new season of a show comes out. You know, we see billboards everywhere and we're reminded, but we don't have that Netflix budget. Next best thing is an email newsletter we could use. So when podcast Newsletter brings you closer to your audience, um, they're able to reply to the email. You're able to create a two-way conversation. Think of it. Uh, think of behind the scenes information, sneak peaks at upcoming episodes, or even bonus episodes that are only available to email newsletter subscribers. That's a great way to keep people on your list. Um, and there's a lot more. A podcast is, a podcast newsletter is also a great way to make money with your show, uh, because you can promote your existing products, affiliate links, things like that. Things you would normally include in your show notes, you just put it in the newsletter. Um, but we'll talk more about that. Um, what else? Some stats that I thought were, that I found that were really interesting. This is more why you should be sending emails to promote your podcast. Co-schedule says people are more likely to read emails than social media posts with an average open rate of 26 point 14% for email open rates compared to an average 3.56 engagement rate on social media posts. So many more people. Opening and reading emails than reading social media posts. There's also just a lot more social media posts out there. Omni send reports. The average click through rate for email newsletters is 3.71% compared to 0.62% for tweets. Now to be honest, I thought that was higher than what I expected For tweets 0.62%, that's less than a percent. Um, so out of a hundred people that see the. Not your followers. A hundred people that see the tweet and you are having a call to action there, um, stats are showing that 0.6, two out of a hundred people would click through. Which is fascinating. Um, and for email newsletters, 3.71% might seem low, but that's a pretty good number. Um, especially when you look, think about at scale, the more subscribers you get, according to Quick Sprout email subscribers are three times more likely to share your content via social media than visitors from other sources. This one might be a little confusing. Let me explain. Email subscribers are three times more likely to share your content via social media. Than visitors from other sources. What this means is people that are subscribed to your email newsletter are more, they feel closer to you and they're more engaged with your content. So when they come across something you share on social media, they're more likely to share that with their friends, family, whoever. Why this is great is when you share podcast. Because they're already an engaged podcast newsletter member and an engaged member of your podcast community. When they come across your post on social media and you share a podcast clip, they're more likely to share that and that will help grow your podcast. So in conclusion, a podcast newsletter is an effective tool that very likely will help you expand your listenership and build relationships and community around your podcast and monetize your podcast. Which is pretty awesome if you ask me, um, some other things that I think are important to note about podcast newsletters. And again, if you want this guy just to download podcast newsletter.com, four components of a podcast newsletter. So, to make podcast newsletters work, you'll need to include a few key parts and you could just simply send emails. But that's not a great strategy and I'm trying to give you a plan here. So number one is personalized episode recommendations. So you can segment your newsletter list depending on where they come from in all sorts of ways. You can't do that on social. And one of the ways, uh, that you can segment your podcast, uh, newsletter is when you know, if they came in from a certain direction, uh, a certain source, then you can give them certain episode recommendations based on that. For example, let's use a hypothetical situation. Um, you were, you had an entrepreneurship podcast and you have episodes on tech, you have episodes on, um, you know, making money, investing different things like. And you appear on another podcast and you want to, you know, get people on your newsletter, you wanna get people on your, uh, listening to your own podcast, you could set up, uh, an opt-in. So when people that say you're on a podcast about investing, so that when they opt in for your newsletter, you can send them right away personalized episode recommendations around investing. That'd be a great way to then. Kick things off on the right foot with these people rather than hope they find the episodes that they're interested in, highlight those older episodes. You'll get downloads on older episodes and they'll get what they want and they can see that their, your podcast is for them. That's really cool. Uh, and then another component for podcast newsletters is interactive elements. So a great podcast newsletter. Engage listeners that should be including like, uh, q and As, or polls or surveys, um, or just the simple, like one thing response where you just ask for a simple response. That is the goal here In building a community, you need to have those interactive elements. Another component is promotions and offers, which we kind of talked about here. You can use your podcast newsletter to advertise products that you already have or affiliate links for, something that you just use for your podcast. So I talked to a lot of podcasters who were like, I don't monetize my podcast. I don't see my podcast as a way to make money. Uh, and one of the ways that you can monetize your podcast starting now. Is to include affiliate links. Sign up for something like Amazon's affiliate, uh, program, and then you could easily start making affiliate links of things that you talk about on your Podcaster, the gear you're using on your podcast, and share those in your podcast newsletter so that when people click that you earn, uh, an affiliate commission. From that. Then another component, and fourth one I'm gonna cover here is community building. So the whole goal of your podcast. In my opinion, should be bringing people together. It's not just you up on a soapbox talking down at people. It's, uh, podcast is an intimate experience. So you wanna build a community around that. It's not, you know, uh, you don't wanna be unreachable. And especially, especially, especially in the beginning days, uh, the more reachable you are, the better. You don't need to act like you're too busy or too cool for school. And a podcast newsletter is a great way to just connect with the people that are showing. So I'm breezing through this, but how to get subscribers for your newsletter? , I'm just gonna go over the bullet points here or else we'll be here all day. Um, but at a high level, you wanna make it easy for people to sign up. The easier it is to join, the easier, uh, more people can do it. You wanna offer an incentive, so the more you can Sweden, the, the deal for people giving their email an exchange for being on your newsletter, uh, give people a reason to subscribe. Like, answer the question, why now? Why should they subscribe right now? The better you can answer that question, the more subscribers you'll get. Then also leverage social media. It doesn't matter these days if you have zero followers or one follower, um, the algorithms don't just look at your followers anymore. Uh, I have over 10,000, uh, followers on TikTok, for example. Um, but. That doesn't correlate to subscribers or monetization or anything. I've monetized, uh, an account far more with less than 200 followers. And, uh, just because content these days is shown to anyone who's interested in it, not just your followers. So don't use your followers in ex as an excuse to why you can't leverage social media to grow your podcast newsletter. And then another way on how to get subscribers is host a give. Uh, you could give away a prize that has something to do with your Podcaster that your audience would like. I did this with Digital Podcaster here a couple times. Um, one way that comes to mind right away is, I forget how many subscribers it was, but I gave away a podcast package, I think it was about a year ago now, where I had a microphone, some swag, uh, and some like silly gifts in there. And, um, I did a, like a random randomizer raffle. That was pretty cool. . You could also use popups to get subscribers. Um, popups are a great way to remind people to sign up for your newsletter when they're on your website, but you don't want to use them too much and you don't wanna make them annoying. But they work and there's a reason why you see some of the most popular websites use them. Um, you can also make use of landing pages. If you go to, I mentioned it again and again, but if you go to podcast newsletter.com, that's a landing. There's nothing else you do on there except download the free plan of what we're talking about here. So landing page just has one thing, and that's an excellent tool for promoting a newsletter and encouraging individuals to sign up for it. Make sure you have a clear call to action there. And then, um, now as I'm going through here, I'm realizing there is a lot here. So some best practices. Again, I'm gonna breeze through. If you want more in depth, just download the free guide and go at your own pace. Uh, so some newsletter best practices have a clear subject line. Personalize your emails. Use a clear and consistent layout. Segment your list. Keep your emails mobile friendly. Test and optimize what's working like, you know, AB test, meaning, uh, see which subject lines, layouts, calls to action, time of day that you send. It gets the best. , be consistent. Include a clear call to action, and then provide value, make it valuable. Make uh, people wanna stay subscribed and look forward to and open your emails. You follow those best practices. And I know I just said a punch, um, , but if you follow those best practices, you'll be sure to make your podcast newsletter effective and engaging. Um, I'm not gonna go through a checklist that I have here on the guide, um, just because. There's just a bunch. Uh, and you can go through that at your own pace. Um, and then I have next steps. Um, I've got a cool new little membership thing that's in there, but, um, I would say that about covers it when it comes to the podcast newsletter. If this all sounds like interesting to you and you actually want to go deeper on this type of stuff, Go to podcast newsletter.com. Get the plan. If again, if you're like, I don't know how to grow my podcast, this plan is for you. If you're like, you know, I don't even know what marketing is, any of that stuff, you don't need to know what marketing is to start an email newsletter, sometimes. The most uninformed people about marketing become the best marketers because you're not trying to be like all markety, if that makes sense. You're just speaking from the heart and that's, uh, that's gonna connect you with more people and that's gonna make your podcast grow faster. So, super long-winded, it feels like in today's episode, but I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you found it valuable. Um, and if you get the guide, awesome. Either way, I wish you nothing but success for your podcast and I will see you in the next episode.