Building a newsletter in 2023 is the most effective strategy to have an engaged owned audience.

According to Statista, the number of email users worldwide is set to reach 4.6 billion by 2025.

As a creator building a community, trust and authority with your target audience is the first step.

The next step is to monetise that audience aka start making money.

And you can't do that well on a rented land like social media.

Changes in algorithms, the introduction of new content formats, and the introduction of new platforms make it difficult for creators to sustain their audience.

So what is the most relevant and time-tested solution for this? A newsletter.

Famous creators like Deepak Chopra, Pat Walls and Sam Parr rely heavily on their newsletters for multi-million launches every year.

Newsletters have an open rate of 22% compared to social media engagement which is 0.58 %.

According to Hubspot, email marketing has a return on investment of $36 for every $1 spent on it.

With these numbers, it’s clear that every email address you capture has a monetary value — and that email is still a highly popular communication channel.

Here are some of the advantages of building a newsletter in 2023.

Now that you know, how important newsletters are for creator businesses, here’s how you can build a newsletter in 2023.

Where to build your newsletter?

I asked several creators where they host their newsletters. The answers varied depending on the requirements.

Some were focused on the price, and some features.

The most common answers were, Convertkit, Substack, Mail Chimp and a lot of movement to Beehiiv. Flodesk made a feature too.

I take a deep dive into how you should choose your provider here.

Mail chimp is one of the oldest and most widely used email marketing tools. It has been revamped in the last few years and offers a lot of customisations.

The pricing is based on the number of users. However, the biggest drawback is the lack of autonomy to customise the design.

Most creators have a personal brand and want the newsletter to reflect that.

Beehiiv is a comparatively new platform launched in 2021 and has seen a lot of traction already, Built by the founders of Morning Brew, it is designed for creators, by creators.

There are a lot of design and customisation options in the Scale plan and SEO is available only to Grow but it has a flat pricing no matter how many subscribers you have. Which means a better ROI with every subscriber you add.

The biggest feature, it can be your website, your blog and your newsletter all in one place and has a straightforward setup too.

Convertkit is a newsletter platform designed for creators. It allows you to create landing pages, customisable forms and even sell your digital products under the same roof.

Convertkit is pricey though and it lacks features like referrals and SEO. For 300 subscribers, it costs around $25/no but for an audience of 10000, it will cost you $167/mo.

Susbactk is a subscription-based newsletter platform. You can monetise by keeping membership fees from the readers. Substack does not charge anything from the creators.

It however keeps 10% of the subscription fees you charge from your readers. If you make $100000 from subscriptions, substack keeps $10000.

Substack got a lot of users very quickly because it does not charge based on the number of users and is very easy to set up and start writing.

The referral feature works great too.

For me, the overall winner will be Beehiiv. I have used all the other platforms in the list and nothing comes closer to the comprehensive features and pricing of Beehiiv.

Here’s my affiliate link if you decide to buy a plan.

For a creator, their biggest asset is their personal brand. A newsletter design should reflect that.

Here are some tips you can use to design a great-looking newsletter,

A. Use the rule of 3: 3 colours in your newsletter that resonate with your audience or niche.

This is the example of The Tilt, a newsletter by Joe Pullizi for creators. Notice the clever use of the 3 colours, orange, black and white. Even the image has hints of the brand colours.

If you’re a travel blogger, a blue, green and coral colour quickly establishes your brand.

If you are a tech creator, shades of blue can be used to create that futuristic look.

B. Use the same colours you use in your other content.

C. Include a cover and don’t forget your branding. For personal brands use a picture, for brands, use your logo.

D. Have 3-5 different sections with clear demarkations in your newsletter. The division can be brandable as well.

E. Make sure you're using the same template/style in every newsletter.

Naming your newsletter can be tricky. Most creators are confused between these two, should I name the newsletter after my own name or should I have a brand name?

My take: Use a brand name.

Reason: Brand names are sticky.

Branded newsletters can be used even if you decide to exit the company.

A. Use a name that is easily memorable. For eg, The Hustle, Milkroad or The Saturday Solopreneur by Justin Welsh.

B. Should have simple spellings. People get confused when there are misspellings in the name.

C. Should not be more than 5 words. Better if you use one, two or three-word phrases.

You can also use name generators like namelix.com to find a cool name for your newsletter.

The next thing is the content. A newsletter can be educational, inform about the latest news in fashion, tech, movies etc, personal stories, hacks, tips, examples or even stories about other people.

Deciding what content you share is based on what you want to share with your audience.

If you're an Excel MVP and you want to start a newsletter, people need more than Excel tips to participate.

Maybe you share secret tips you don't share on social media or you share tips for other Microsoft products.

You can conduct either Primary or secondary research for your newsletter.

Data - Collect real data. Build your own research and use that data in the newsletters.

Example: How many solopreneurs live like a digital nomads? This is hard to source data but you can connect with creators online and ask what they do.

Join groups, and communities in your niche to collect data.

Present this original data in your newsletter. People love data they don't find elsewhere.

Marketing is the core of any business including creators. Social media is a rented land. One small change can detour your entire business.

The shortest monetised audience cycle I’ve seen is being followed by freelancers, creators, educators and solopreneurs. Social media to the newsletter. No blogs, no long-form video, no sales calls.

Build your audience on the rented land but move them down the funnel into the owned audience group. It is here that you provide your newsletter.

In order to market your newsletter, identify where your target audience is playing. Choose 2-3 platforms of your choice and create content based on who you want to attract.

For example, if you’re a fashion creator selling apparel, Instagram or Tik Tok might be your best bet.

For a crypto creator, perhaps Twitter is better.

If you’re marketing your newsletter, make sure the cycle is small.

Social Media

Choose 1-2 social media of your choice and focus on them solely. Don’t distract yourself with other formats. Own one platform and then diversify as Joe Pullizi always says.