JULY 18, 2023

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Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

Grow Audience Through Free Partnerships

In 11 months, The Tilt’s grown its subscribed audience by more than 65% – from 16K to 26.5K subscribers. Much of that growth has come through partnerships, trade promotions, and similar tools.

As The Tilt’s director of growth and partnerships, I devote almost all of my full-time work to that mission. Here are some lessons and tips learned along the way to help you grow your newsletter audience (or any other content product with subscribers).

Identify potential partners: I subscribed to over 150 newsletters with potentially similar audiences. Some were clearly not a fit, so I unsubscribed, and others were a potential fit. I tracked all of this work on a master spreadsheet. Among the columns:

• Newsletter name
• Website address
• Frequency
• Audience size
• Author or creator name
• Contact information
• Areas covered/niche
• Notes

In the notes column, I tracked the dates of my outreach and their replies.

Outreach to potential partners: I sent emails to the recipients who didn’t know me and probably didn’t know about The Tilt. After introducing myself, I wrote something I liked or learned about their newsletter. This personalization helps get your foot in the door because the creator or newsletter operator knows you have read their product and aren’t just cutting and pasting a templated message.

I shared background information about The Tilt newsletter, including publishing frequency, audience size, open rate, etc. Then I propose a customized deal. It usually involves trading advertising spots with the ratio dependent on the audience size.

Some replied immediately. If I don’t hear back, I follow up a week later. I’ve found most creators are super busy and often will follow up on email requests like mine on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. About 50 to 60% of the time, the follow-up email elicits a response.

Executing the deal: Recipients of the proposed partnership emails seem to appreciate the personalized message about their product at the beginning of the email. They often reply with, “Thank you for your words” or “I’m so happy you like the newsletter.” Sometimes, they’ll ask for suggestions to improve or change their newsletter product. That engagement opens the door to a mutually beneficial relationship.

I also make sure the proposed deal is fair, if not skewed slightly in favor of the other newsletter. Since I am asking to reach the audience they worked hard to earn, I want to make sure the offer is worth their time and effort. Of course, I don’t want to give away The Tilt farm, either. It’s not a formula; it takes practice and research to get it all right for both parties.

Even if I’ve discussed them on a call, I send a detailed outline of the agreement, including the deliverables for both parties. By putting it in writing, both parties can point out any needed changes before the partnership begins.

Among the elements included in the agreement:

• Spot of promotion (primary, secondary, classified) in The Tilt newsletter
• Copy requirements for the spot in The Tilt

Example: Primary spot, 75 to 100 words, CTA with link; logo (min. 300px wide) .png or .jpg

• Run dates in The Tilt newsletter
• Spot of promotion (primary, secondary, classified) in partner newsletter
• Copy requirements for spot in partner’s newsletter
• Run dates in partner’s newsletter

I also encourage partners to promote a free asset that the audience can sign up to download. We do that with The Tilt’s promotions, offering a free ebook or course.

We also created a landing page for the specific partnership’s CTA to see how well that promotion worked for us.

How have you grown your subscriber base? Reply to this email or tag us on social (@TheTiltNews).

– Marc Maxhimer

Supported by

Ready to create your content legacy?

As content entrepreneurs, there is nothing worse than that feeling.

When a piece of expert content you spent hours concepting, planning, recording, and editing fades into obscurity after you hit publish.

Our content is only as good as our ability to market it.

This is why Capsho has become the content entrepreneur’s favorite tool.

Created by marketers, it transforms your Podcast Episode, Livestream Recording, Virtual Summit Presentation, Webinar, and YouTube Video into 13 types of content marketing assets.

So you can reach more people on more platforms for longer.

Entrepreneur: Zain and Awais Kahn

Business: Superhuman​

Tilt: Advances in the world of AI to help productivity and career development

Scene: Website, Twitter (473K), LinkedIn (695K), Instagram (23.6K)

Snack Bites:

• Brothers Zain and Awais Kahn first published the newsletter once a week. Less than six months later, they moved to five days a week.
• The newsletter Superhuman gained 135K subscribers in the first three months and hit 350K in the next month three months.
• Ad space in the newsletter consistently sells out, bringing in six-figure monthly revenue.
• Eight humans and six AI platforms operate Superhuman.

Why We Stan: The Kahn brothers found a content tilt that resonated with the audience and acted quickly. They also knew gaining a subscribed audience through newsletters was the best way to build their business.

– Leo Bonacci

​Get more of the Kahn brothers’ story.​

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us. Or email tilt@thetilt.com.

• ​Threads: 4 Critical Insights. (Content Inc.)
• ​The Mouse Meets the Mac. (This Old Marketing)
• ​Have you learned, led, and leveraged? (Forbes)
• ​Have all the relevant celebratory days on your content calendar? (You just missed National Ice Cream Day.) (Small Business Trends)
• Mark your calendar for 12 p.m. US ET July 18 for the Twitter Spaces debut of Tilt Your Content Business: A Weekly Mastermind for Entrepreneurs in the Creator Economy.

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