[1KS] DAY 3: How To Cross-Promote To Gain Subscribers

DAY 3. Let's get into it.

THE MAGIC OF CROSS-PROMOTIONS 🪄

When I had a few hundred subscribers, I reached out to a relatively popular newsletter that had 10x my subscriber count asking if they’d do a cross-promotion with me. I got turned down: “Sorry, I’m more interested in doing cross-promotions with newsletters more my size.”

Ouch. That stung and I resisted the temptation to try again for a long time.

Does that mean you shouldn't try? Absolutely not.

Greg Bussmann increased his Growth Mindset subscribers 30% with cross-promotions. He reached out to larger newsletters asking about cross-promotions:

Follow Greg on Twitter and check out his Growth Mindset newsletter: "Resources to teach small businesses how to DIY their own content and marketing strategies."

I didn't do cross-promotion outreach for a long time because of that initial rejection. And I can't help but think of the missed opportunities.

Don't be like me!

Since my initial cross-promo rejection, I've leveraged this strategy to huge success lately. I was featured in Jay Clouse's Creative Companion newsletter (10,000+ subs) and Josh Spector's For The Interested (18,000+ subs) to name a few.

How To Cross-Promote

Find newsletters who are speaking to a similar or complementary audience—“complementary” meaning if your newsletter audience is for ketchup enthusiasts, you’ll want to find the newsletter that’s talking to the French fry fans.

But how do you find these newsletters?

Use Google —and/or— search in newsletter directories like:

→ Newsletters.co​
→ Substats.com​
→ InboxStash.com​

And once you find a few, keep an eye out for newsletters they mention, recommend or promote. Then reach out to those ones, too.

Found a few newsletters? Use this outreach template by Dan at TLDR (copy + paste + edit underlined):

Hi _____,

I run a newsletter called Growth Currency, it’s a weekly, curated newsletter that’s mostly read by creators & solopreneurs (sort of like Josh Spector's For The Interested type of content, but focused on growing a newsletter). I have ___ subscribers currently, with a __% open rate and __% click through rate. Since there’s almost certainly a good amount of overlap between the audiences for Growth Currency and ___ would you be interested in doing some sort of cross promotion (maybe a shoutout in my newsletter for yours and vice versa) to help grow both of our audiences?

Let me know if you’d be open to this!

-[your name]

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The trick here is to take a lot of swings because you'll have a lot of misses.

So aim to pitch 5 newsletters per week in hopes one accepts.

Bonus points if you keep track of your pitches and success rate in a spreadsheet or Airtable.

TOMORROW

We'll dive into OPA's tomorrow! Wait, what's an OPA?...

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