It’s Wednesday, December 18, and this week, 20+ newsletter operators share the advice they wish they’d gotten when they first launched their newsletter. But first, this the final edition of the newsletter for 2024, and a whole bunch of thank yous are in order!

To Claire, Nataasha, and Zoie, for all their hard work behind the scenes with Inbox Collective.

To all the writers who shared their expertise and insights.

To the sponsors who made this work possible: Beefree, GetResponse, and Beehiiv.

And lastly, to each and every one one of you. Next year is the sixth year that I’ll be working full time on Inbox Collective, and I’m so grateful that so many readers make space for our work. It’s a privilege to write for you — and I promise we’ll work hard to bring you even more great stuff in the year ahead!

We’ll be off the next two weeks on a holiday break. Happy holidays and happy new year to you!

—Dan (say 👋 via email or LinkedIn)

All of our newsletters this month are presented by Beefree, which makes designing great emails and landing pages better and faster. Their drag-and-drop builder and mobile-friendly templates work seamlessly in all email clients, from Gmail to Outlook. With Beefree, you can save time and still create standout designs that drive results.

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What I Wish I’d Known Before Launching My Newsletter

Last year, we asked more than 20 newsletter operators this question: What’s one thing you wish you’d known before launching your newsletter? We got some fantastic answers, and the resulting story ended up being one of the most popular we’ve ever published on Inbox Collective.

So, we decided to make the post an annual end-of-year tradition! To close out 2024, we went back to a different group of friends and colleagues in the newsletter space to ask that same question — and they shared an incredible amount of great advice.

I know you’ll walk away from this piece with a few things you’ll want to use in your newsletter, too. Here’s what they told us

A big thank you to Beefree, the fall sponsor of Inbox Collective — they’re making everything in the newsletter and on our website available for free to all readers.

If you’ve never used Beefree, now is the perfect time to try. With their easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder and over 1,700 free templates, you can create emails and landing pages in record time. Plus, you can deploy them through marketing platforms, including ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, or Mailchimp. 82% of users say Beefree makes email design faster, and 63% have seen click-through rates improve by over 11%.

Get started for free and see how Beefree can help you design better, faster emails today.

*This content has been promoted by our partners*

From my reading list...

In 2018, Wale Lawal started a student publication in Nigeria to cover critical African issues. Six years later, the Republic has raised $800,000 and are building a fully-fledged media company — with newsletters at the center of their strategy. (Inbox Collective)

Here’s a great example of how a newsletter can be a valuable side project, both financially and professionally. (Newsletter Circle)

I loved this list of unusual growth strategies. (Growth in Reverse)

Preview text still matters. Here’s how to use it to improve your open rate. (Litmus)

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Not a Newsletter - 📬 No. 61 | What I wish I’d known

What I Wish I’d Known Before Launching My Newsletter

From my reading list...

Older messages

📬 No. 60 | “Little things can actually make a big difference”

📬 No. 59 | Designing a better newsletter

📬 No. 58 | Improving your landing page

📬 No. 57 | An underrated growth hack

📬 No. 56 | How to name your newsletter

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