Web3 Email List Growth Strategies

I did a workshop with beehiiv on how companies are adding $1M in ARR using founder-led newsletters. Here's the tl;dr: But, first, why write a founder-led newsletter? • 90% of your ICP isn’t in the market to buy TODAY. But when they will be, you’ll be the first person they think of. • You can meet only once per quarter on a sales call with your prospects — miss it, and you wait for 3 months. But a newsletter lets you talk to your ideal customers 2-4X a month. • Newsletters help you go from "pushy salesperson" to "thought partner" if you focus on consistently providing value (more on that below) • <20% of your social followers are likely to see your content, but 40-60% of your subscribers will open/read your newsletter So, the question is not “if” you should write a newsletter, it’s “how.” Here are 4 principles you can use: 1) Focus on who reads, not how many I sent my first issue to 236 people I met at conferences / had already worked with. Today, the founders of beehiiv, 1440, The Rundown, and most of the largest newsletter brands read it. So don’t overthink. Just start. And obsess over attracting the right audience instead of chasing # of subscribers - that’s a vanity metric. 2) Give away the secrets, sell the execution My highest-performing content (60%+ open rates): • Tactical playbooks (we share our ads playbook for the largest newsletter brands) • Case studies (like how we drove $250K for a 15K-person newsletter) • Also great: interviews with experts, guest posts, industry hot takes/trends 3) Focus on the four highest-leverage growth levers • Lead magnets I recommend some kind of triple T lead magnet (tactics, templates, or tools) that’s gated by a simple landing page in Carrd. People sign up to your email list to receive what you put together for them. • The Dream 100 strategy Create a list of people you’d love to work with → Find them on LinkedIn → DM them: Share value (lead magnet, past newsletter issue) → Invite them to subscribe to your newsletter Example: (“Hey, I have a newsletter where I share growth/monetization tactics 2X a month. [people/brands they respect] are reading it. Mind if I add you?) • Post on socials and share the newsletter link at the end • Auto-DM new followers and send the newsletter link 4) Convert readers into clients Step 1: Do interesting things and talk about them Every Sunday, review your calendar from the past week: • What questions kept coming up in calls? • Which client problems did you solve? • What frameworks worked? That's your next month of newsletter content. Step 2: Introduce subtle CTAs • Show how you've helped similar clients and how you can help them. Example: I shared how we helped a founder generate $250K and naturally mentioned we scale newsletters. • I sign off with my LinkedIn and calendar link for anyone to book a call with me. • After delivering value, I reach out 1:1 to book meetings. Following this template, I grew my agency to $1M in ARR in 11 months.

In 6 months, we tripled The Dallas Express' newsletter list size. While improving their inboxing from 70.5% to 98.7% (here’s how): The Problem? The Dallas Express damaged their sending reputation and email deliverability. How? Previous attempts to rapidly scale their email list within the Dallas/Fort Worth area But through their own efforts, they recover enough to land in spam just 30% of the time. DX came to our team looking for both improved deliverability and sustainable list growth. The solution? 1/ Segmentation Critical to preserving deliverability, we introduced key audience segments to include in the rotation of newsletter sends. If a contact doesn't engage with newsletters from DX for an extended period of time, they receive less frequent communication. With this simple change, we were able to drive down unsubscribe and spam complaints, making room for more new list growth. 2/ New data channels The Dallas Express has solid site traffic. We introduced identity resolution tools that enabled DX to collect email address based on that site traffic. Apart from opt-ins, data collected using this tool was our healthiest source for list growth. 3/ Prospecting In addition to opt-ins and identity resolution… The Dallas Express was still interested in re-incorporating the data they originally had (nearly 1 million records). So we put DX on a safe growth trajectory by introducing that data into the list with low doses. 4/ Sourcing more & better audiences We worked with a variety of different sources to find out new audiences that would be ideal for DX content. When contacts engaged, they would be incorporated to the primary content. These audiences were the best performing. The Outcome?  - Inbox Placement Improvement from 70% to 98%+  - Core List Growth from 200k contacts to 600k

In the past 6 months, I have: • 7x'd my email list (from 1k to 7k) • 8x'd my LI following (from 2k to 16k) • And started to get 2-4 inbound leads per week The crazy part? 80% of this growth has come from one tactic: Viral giveaway lead magnets. Here are my 4 go-to techniques to come up with banger lead magnet ideas: 1/ Expand Start by looking at your best-performing social media posts and *expand* them into a lead magnet. Why this works: If a post resonated with your audience, the idea has already been pre-validated. For example: One of my most successful lead magnets actually began as a LinkedIn post. After noticing the post had 4x my average engagement, I decided to expand it. How? By: • Adding actionable ChatGPT prompts • Including visuals (to make it digestible) • Sharing examples (to make implementation easier) If a post has already proven its value, don’t let it collect dust - turn it into a lead magnet! 2/ Compress Next, find an in-depth resource you’ve already created: • A course • A presentation • An internal document or SOP And *compress* it down into an actionable lead magnet. Why this works: Usually the more time you’ve spent creating something, the more valuable it is. For example: A few months ago, I delivered a keynote presentation at a private mastermind event. But after I was done, I realized the presentation was jam-packed. So, I found the transcript & then created a compressed (but still in-depth) guide breaking down the same frameworks. The bottom line: You’re probably sitting on a TON of valuable assets you could repurpose as lead magnets. 3/ Replicate Next, you can study lead magnets working well in other niches… And *replicate* them for your niche. For example: Last year, I studied Tori Dunlap’s quiz funnel. (Which helped her build a 700,000 email list.) And by reverse engineering her framework, I realized I could build a similar lead magnet for myself. If a strategy is proven to work, adapt it to your niche and make it your own. No need to reinvent the wheel. 4/ Unbundle Finally, my favorite way to create a banger lead magnet: Unbundle your paid offer. Ask yourself: What’s a *small* problem your audience needs to solve before tackling the *bigger* problem your core offer solves? Then, create a lead magnet that offers a complete solution to that narrow problem. For example: If you help clients sell homes (big problem), create a lead magnet that helps them write compelling listings (smaller problem). This approach not only builds trust but also positions your paid offer as the natural next step. And that’s it! Now, the question is: Which approach will you try first? Let me know in the comments!