Turn Your Newsletter Into an Experience
(Photo Credit: Photo by Anthony Shkraba from Pexels)
What was your favorite magazine growing up? For me, it was Game Informer, a video game magazine. I was a video game nerd who spent my childhood playing Steam and Playstation. My mom would get the mail while I'd wait in anticipation that that month's Game Informer had arrived. It was a monthly ritual. One I eagerly looked forward to.
The days of the monthly ritual are gone. My mailbox is less important than ever. I have a new ritual. My email. One of the benefits (or drawbacks depending on who you are) of the mailbox was the complexity in subscribing to a new publication. Before getting my first issue of Game Informer, I needed to submit, at least, 11 pieces of information:
First Name
Last Name
Address
City
State
Zip
Country
Phone Number
Credit Card Number
CVV
Credit Card Expiration Date
Now think about that same process for signing up for an email newsletter. I only need to submit my email address. Ten less answers to fill in.
The Friction of a New Publication
When I bought Game Informer, I had to use my mom's credit card. I was nine, but imagine if I was 25 (my age now) and subscribing to the magazine. Every time I put in a piece of information, I'd think about if this was something I really wanted. There are so many opportunities to opt-out. In the case of Game Informer, I have 12 opportunities to opt-out. The 11 data entries, plus the decision to actually send the information to the magazine.
Deciding to sign up for an email newsletter, there are only two or three (if they use double opt-in) points of friction. We will read an article, like the essay and subscribe to the author's newsletter. It's only one more newsletter. One more turns into 50 newsletters. Then we wonder why we have so many emails.
On the flip side, email has so many benefits that traditional mailboxes don't have. You keep getting junk mail from a cable company. You can't just hit unsubscribe, but you can do that in your email. You have to physically go and pick up your mail. Your email is just a click away.
Is Email Healthy?
Email is definitely better than regular mail. It doesn't mean that it's all that it's cracked up to be. Research conducted by MIT Media Lab, Microsoft Research and UC Irvine found:
"email usage is, indeed, negatively related to stress. In one study users were asked to turn off their email for a week while they wore heart rate monitors to measure heart rate variability (HRV, a validated measure of stress/depression). Compared to a baseline period with email use, the HRV signals revealed less stress when email was turned off, even though other communication channels like the phone, instant messaging, etc., were still available to be used. In another study, when participants were instructed to limit the frequency of checking their email, they experienced less stress. People have also reported anxiety in not being able to keep up with their inbox, which could result in missing critical information.”
Is There a Newsletter Bubble?
You have two types of people. Those who use Twitter and those who don't. Twitter users think there is an email bubble. Companies like Substack, an email newsletter platform, are fueling it. Substack makes it easy and free for anyone to start a newsletter.
Even though it's easier than ever to start a newsletter, there isn't a bubble. A recent Digiday article mentioned Substack had over 100,000 paying subscribers. If we take the 10% conversion rate, we can assume 1 million free subscribers to Substack newsletters (yes, this isn't a scientific approach). Nonetheless, this is a far cry from the over 3.9B people that use email.
I can tell you email newsletter saturation is definitely not a thing. The majority of my friends have never heard of Substack and many don't even subscribe to newsletters. A lot of them get their news from social media sites like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
The biggest problem is that the majority of newsletters aren't like my experiences reading Game Informer. Game Informer was magical. I miss that experience. There are a few newsletters like Morning Brew and Scott Galloway that remind me of that. I still think there is a huge opportunity to start and build an email newsletter business. Remember that most people still don't subscribe to many, if any, newsletters. If you can figure out how to make the experience as enjoyable as reading Game Informer, you'll have a good publication.
Thanks to Aaron Slodov for reading a draft of this.