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Hello to all 73,346 people reading this. That number still hurts my head a little bit. This week we're talking about MrBeasts's killer CPA, cold email writing, and when not to gate your content.
Let's dive in!
As always, if you don't love this newsie, you can unsubscribe at the bottom of this email. Or, if you like what you see or have suggestions for improvement, you can leave us a review through the links in the footer. –Neal |
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Why you shouldn't "fail fast"
Silicon Valley got it wrong.
The "fail fast" mentality and injecting a ton of VC cash is not the best way to build a company.
Sure, there's validity to the idea. You shouldn't dump years into product development without talking to customers. You have to get MVPs into people's hands. But aimlessly grinding and failing fast is not the way. Early-stage startups have to be more strategic. They can't just throw stuff at the wall.
They have fewer resources and fewer opportunities to get it right. Tech giants like Amazon are notorious for having multiple teams working on the same problem at the same time. They have that luxury. You don't. That's why we talk a lot about strategy. It's why our agency's core competency is helping Series A companies define their growth strategy.
And it's why we created the Growth Program. To equip early-stage startups with the frameworks they need to define their own Growth Strategy—and all the playbooks and SOPs to execute on it, including landing pages, ads, branding, cold emailing, and more.
We're doing a special promo on the Growth Program for the rest of the month: 25% off until May 31st. We haven't done one of these in over 6 months. Don't miss your chance.
Learn more about the Growth Program.
1. How MrBeast got a CPA of $0.004 per new follower
Insight from Lorenzo Green and MrBeast. For his birthday, MrBeast got 12,491,044 new followers on Instagram in 72 hours. Hell of a b-day gift if you ask me. |
He didn't do it with Instagram Ads. Instead, he did a giveaway of $10,000 to 5 winners: |
Around 20M people liked and commented. Meaning around 20M people added the post to their stories as well—which feels a lot more organic since it's normally where your friends just post photos/videos about their daily life.
On top of that—you had to follow him to actually claim your prize. In short: $50,000 to acquire 12.5M new followers or $0.004 per follower. To contextualize that, Twitter recommends a target CPA of $2 per new follower for their Follower Ads. (Note: The post was eventually taken down because you need to explicitly declare that the giveaway is not endorsed or run by Instagram itself. Keep that in mind!) |
2. How to write a good cold email Insight from Demand Curve.
Most cold emails are terrible. Effective cold emails share these characteristics: - Concise. People will archive an email at the sight of a wall of text. Keep it to 80-120 words and 5-7 sentences.
- If you have a hard time editing to shorten it, use ChatGPT or Notion AI.
- Targeted. After getting a cold email for a newsletter sponsorship tool, I signed up immediately. Why? Because it was the solution to the exact problem I was facing—and they knew I likely was because they did their research and saw we have sponsors.
- Do your research and make sure you're emailing the right people.
- Personable. Be informal and open. Don't be stiff or formal.
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Authentic. You can flatter recipients a little bit, but don’t claim to be “blown away by their work” if you haven’t read it. You should be able to back up everything you say.
- Focused. Stick to only one goal. Is it a call? A referral? A demo? Define your goal before sending your email. This will inform your CTA.
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Original. Stand the f*ck out. Avoid all the cliches like "I hope this email finds you well" or "quick question."
- Clear. Don't include anything that your reader might not understand. Assume they don't know about your company unless you know they do. Don't include references that they might not get. Be crystal clear.
Do these 7 things and you'll drastically increase response rates. To make it even easier, use ChatGPT or Notion AI for help with copywriting. Ask them to make your email shorter, more casual, and remove any jargon. To increase response rates even more, make it a warm email. |
3. You probably shouldn't gate your content Insight from Ann Handley.
Don't you hate it when you hit a site and you're immediately asked for your email address just so you can access the content? A lot of companies still think that gating all of their content is the only way to grow their list and get leads. This is generally a terrible experience. You're being asked to give something up before getting any value. It makes users feel “disempowered and disrespected.” So consider ungating your content. Visitors will be more likely to share it with their colleagues or on social media, and will have a much better opinion of you and your brand.
One case in point: After removing lead capture forms from its site, the agency Aha Media Group saw its page views jump up by 143%. Newsletter signups grew by 55%, and its social media follower growth by 45%. (This will only become more true with AI and the proliferation of content.) Some tips and considerations for ungating: -
Try giving before asking. For example, we make our playbooks open to the public. But our playbook pages also include an optional subscribe form. Anyone who’s enjoyed our playbooks will be more inclined to give up their info to find out about future ones.
- We've also toyed with making the first half ungated and the back half gated.
- Add "content upgrades." Ungate your content but include embedded forms that offer some complimentary piece of content you can only get via email. This can be email-based mini courses, templates, or ebooks.
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Add a timed modal. If someone has been on your page for several minutes and has scrolled down a decent amount, you can assume they've probably been reading and are engaged. At that point, you can trigger a modal popup asking for them to subscribe. Even better if it's with a content upgrade.
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Community Spotlight Congrats to our latest Un-Ignorable cohort! We’ve seen many participants make great headway in their work and are excited to spotlight some of these incredible alumni:
Want to build your personal brand alongside other motivated founders and marketers? Sign up for the Un-Ignorable Challenge—our next cohort starts this fall.
One of our cohort 1 students has already added 50,000 followers since January! |
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News you can use: -
Google I/O (Google’s annual developer conference) happened last week, with many announcements. One of the biggest: Bard (Google's competitor to ChatGPT) is now open to the public. Also, a sneak peak at how generative AI will transform Google Search.
- Remember when Elon polled Twitter asking if he should step down? 57.5% voted yes—so he’s giving the CEO reins to Linda Yaccarino of NBCUniversal in ~5 weeks. Elon isn’t going anywhere, though. He’ll stay on as executive chair and CTO.
- Since the announcement she went from 7,000 to over 400,000 followers.
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TikTok launched two new hubs on its app. First, the #NewMusic Search Hub, a place for artists to showcase their newest songs. Second, the #MentalHealthAwareness hub, which’ll be updated throughout May to promote content related to mental health and
wellness.
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Who's Demand Curve?
We’re on a mission to help make it easier to start, build, and grow companies. We share high-quality, vetted, and actionable growth content as we learn it from the top 1% of marketers. We democratize senior growth knowledge. How we can help you grow: -
Read our free playbooks, blog articles, and teardowns—we break down the strategies and tactics that fast-growing startups use to grow.
- Enroll in the Growth Program, our marketing course that has helped 1,000+ founders get traction and scale revenue.
Check out our Sprints: short video courses that are laser-focused on a topic in growth.
Want to build an audience of buyers? Join the waitlist for the Un-Ignorable Challenge. -
Are you a funded startup looking to grow? Our agency, Bell Curve, can be your strategic growth partner.
Get your brand in front of our audience by sponsoring this newsletter.
See you next week.
— Neal, Grace, Joyce, Dennis, and the DC team. |
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